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“I do. Thank you for letting me know, and do me a favor, call me if you sense or see anything at all. Anything.” He handed her a card even though she probably already had his number.
“You’re welcome.” She fell into thought for a moment, and then her eyes lit as she looked up at me. “I have a box for you, Hazel. From Missouri. Want me to go get it?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll come back later. Thanks.”
We sat there for as long as it took Pearly to turn and make her way back into the post office.
“Did you charge that camera again?” Calloway asked.
“I didn’t see the point. I ordered a new one, though. The box from Missouri isn’t it.”
“Go ahead and charge the old one. Put it back up. Could I have access to that app too?”
“Sure. I’ll text you the details and the password.”
“Thanks, Hazel.”
As he put the car back into drive, Calloway grabbed his radio and called for Chris, who answered at once. Calloway ordered him to take a look at the space behind the post office. Chris said he’d get right on it.
I hadn’t told Calloway about gathering the boot. I should have, but I didn’t have confirmation that it had belonged to Wilmot, and I felt kind of foolish for fishing it out anyway.
“The scarf?” I asked when the call to Chris was finished. Graham had told me about it, but I wanted to confirm.
“It’s identical to the one around the skeleton’s neck, but there’s no helpful DNA on it.”
“That was Verro’s job too, getting the scarf to the investigators?”
“Hazel, I’m on everything. I shouldn’t have told you my suspicions, but I did. Let’s put it on the back burner for now.”
“Copy that,” I said.
Jeff’s garage door was open. His property spread over about one acre, most of it covered in gravel that he’d thrown down. A stray weed or two popped up through the rocks in the spots where he didn’t park the vehicles he worked on.
His home wasn’t zoned to conduct business, but he had no nearby neighbors, and no one complained. He did good work, and charged fair prices.
Most of the home businesses around town prepared food. It had only been recently that an Arizona law was passed allowing home kitchens to cook food for sale, but I knew there’d been nothing to keep Jeff’s business safe from enforcement, except, of course, the citizens of Black Vulture who would cause a big stink if anyone tried to shut him down.
He worked alone, but I’d witnessed his wife, Claire, sitting on a stool next to the lift, drinking beer from a bottle and talking to him about Jesus. Jeff claimed he still wasn’t a believer, but for a reason no one seemed to understand, he and Claire had a watertight marriage, even though she spent most of her time proselytizing.
Jeff sent us a suspicious frown as Calloway and I got out of the Tahoe.
“Sheriff. Hazel. What’s up? You all find some bones you need to ask me about?”
“In a roundabout way, maybe,” Calloway said.
“I wondered.”
“You did? Why?”
Jeff shrugged. “Don’t know. It just … those … sculptures I’ve heard talk about. There’s something about ’em. That’s all.”
He’d confirmed my suspicions regarding the spread of news regarding the sculptures. It was out there.
“Hm.” Calloway watched as Jeff put a wrench back into a toolbox.
“Come on in. We’ll have Claire pour some lemonade.”
Jeff led us inside his 1980s home. It was clean and neat inside, but the furniture hadn’t changed for decades. Mine hadn’t either, and mine was even older. Against the backdrop of Black Vulture, most things were just old and tired.
