Page 19

I’d cleaned the wound and rewrapped it the night before, using more gauze and medical grade tape instead of the duct variety.

I held it up. “Not infected and I doubt I’ll have much of a scar.”

“That’s good.” He smiled as he reached for the diner’s door, pulling it wide.

I had an urge to ask him why he was smiling so much. I figured that would make me look like a jerk. I really did need some coffee.

“Thanks.” I went through.

He followed and then stood next to me as we looked around the jam-packed place.

“Take a seat if you can find one,” Dixie called. “Coffee will be on the way.”

Before we could make a move toward a couple of stools at the counter, Trisha, coffeepot in hand, hurried in our direction.

“What’s going on?” she asked me. “Could the body be Joey’s?”

The noise in the place precluded anyone else from hearing her panicked words and tone. I put my hand on her arm.

“It wasn’t a body, Trish. It’s a skeleton, bones cleaned. You saw Joey recently enough that, reasonably, it can be concluded that it’s not him.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

I didn’t tell her about my visit to the Smoots, but I wondered if she’d taken the same trip.

“Trisha!” a customer called “More coffee when you get a minute?”

“Let me know if you hear anything,” she said before she hurried off.

“A skeleton?” Sonny asked.

I looked at him. “You hadn’t heard?”

“Nope.”

“You’re not on social media?”

Sonny laughed. “I’m not on anything.”

Suddenly, I saw him with new, less critical eyes.

“A skeleton posed as a coyote was found out in the desert.”

Sonny frowned. “A real human skeleton or a coyote skeleton?”

“Human.”

“That sounds terrifying.”

“It’s not good.”

He looked at me a long moment before he nodded toward a booth against the wall. “The police are over there. Want me to grab a couple stools while you go say hello?”

“That works. And coffee.”

“I hear you. Food?”