Ray Dugan died before sunrise.
His body was found beside the railroad bridge west of town, one boot caught between two rotted planks, his skull injured from what deputies called a drunken fall. There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey near his hand and mud on his coat. Sheriff Danner said Ray had been drinking, wandering, and unlucky.
Marian Doyle did not believe in that much luck.
She arrived before the body was moved and found three things that bothered her.
First, Ray’s hands were clean.
For a man supposedly stumbling drunk along a muddy rail bridge, his palms had no splinters, no dirt under the nails, and no sign he had tried to catch himself.
Second, the whiskey bottle had no lip marks.
Third, his right coat pocket was turned inside out.
Someone had searched him.
Marian asked Danner, “Did Ray Dugan have a reason to be at Orchard Lane?”
Danner looked annoyed. “Ray had a reason to be anywhere there was a lock.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“He was a thief. Maybe he broke in, maybe he didn’t. Maybe his friend did.”
“Which friend?”
Danner smiled faintly. “You tell me.”
That was when Marian knew the sheriff already had Bobby’s name.
He should not have.
Bobby had called anonymously. No officer had officially identified him. Ray’s death could have been coincidence, but Danner’s confidence was not.
Marian drove to Bobby Pike’s cousin’s garage that afternoon.
He almost ran when she entered.
“Don’t,” she said.
Bobby froze behind a stack of tires.
She held up both hands. “I’m not Sheriff Danner.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“No. It’s supposed to make you think.”
Bobby’s eyes were red from no sleep.
“I didn’t kill that woman.”
“I know you opened the door.”
He flinched.
Marian continued, “And I know she fell on you.”
Bobby stared at her.
For the first time since Orchard Lane, someone had said the event out loud without turning it into an accusation.
He whispered, “Ray’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“They killed him.”
“Who?”
Bobby looked at the garage window.
Marian waited.
He pulled the brass key from inside his sock, where he had hidden it after burning his jacket.
“She put this in my pocket.”
Marian took it carefully with a handkerchief.
“What did she say?”
Bobby swallowed.
“Clock… not midnight.”
Marian’s eyes sharpened.
“Anything else?”
He closed his eyes, trying to return to that frozen stoop, the weight, the hair, the dying breath.
“She smelled like river mud.”
Marian paused.
“River mud?”
“Not house dirt. Not snow. River mud.”
Marian thought of the red clay on Danner’s cruiser tire.
The old river road.
The place no deputy had any reason to drive that night.