They found the truck around two in the afternoon. Dale spotted it—that ugly puke-green paint job—poking out from behind a little one-stall mechanic’s shop on the highway into the Makah reservation.
There was someone working underneath an old Buick in the service bay. Harwood walked in, stood by the bumper, Dale right beside him.
“Where are they?” he said.
There was a pause, and the sound of the man setting down his tools. Then he rolled out on a little trolley, looked up at them from the floor.
“Beg your pardon?” he said.
He was an older guy, Native. Salt-and-pepper goatee, ditto for the hair. Going soft around the middle, but his eyes were still hard. The name on his coveralls said DAVIS.
“Jess Winslow and that convict she’s running with,” Harwood said. “The two who gave you that truck in the back. Don’t play dumb with me.”
“That old Chev in the back?” Davis wiped his brow. “I think someone’s misled you, Deputy. That truck’s mine.”
“Bullshit it is. That truck’s been used in the commission of a crime. Hand me the keys, and I’ll take it off your hands.”
Davis held his gaze. “You got a warrant?”
Harwood stared at him, speechless.
“You got to have a warrant, don’t you, being as you came all the way from Deception for that truck,” Davis said. “So you all show me the paperwork and you can do what you please, but until then—”
“How about a big fucking gun?” Dale Whitmer, beside Harwood, his hand on his holster. “How’s that for your warrant?”
Davis said nothing. Something moved in the back of the shop, and two more men appeared. Younger than Davis—bigger, too—but definitely his kin. One of the men held a torque wrench. The other held a goddamn camera phone, and it was aimed straight at Harwood.
“You sure you want to go that route, Deputies?” Davis asked from the floor, his voice still infuriatingly easy. “Going to have a hell of a time explaining why two Deception Cove lawmen shot up an unarmed civilian on Indian land, aren’t you?”
Harwood looked at the camera phone. The man aiming it at him smiled a little.
“This is obstruction of justice,” Harwood said. “This is a mistake, what you’re doing here. You’re making one hell of a mistake.”
“That may well be,” Davis replied. “And I suppose I’ll find out, one way or the other. But until you all have a warrant, Deputies, I’ll ask you kindly to step back off my property. I’ve got work that needs doing.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, slid back under the Buick again, and Harwood heard him pick up his tools. The man with the camera phone hadn’t moved, though, and neither had the other, with the wrench.
“Son of a bitch.” Harwood spun on his heel, stalked out of the shop. Crossed to his truck and fired up the engine. Whitmer climbed in beside.
“So what does this mean?” Whitmer asked as Harwood shifted into gear.
“What does it mean?” Harwood repeated, gunning the engine and launching out of the mechanic’s lot. “It means Winslow and that asshole swapped out their ride. Means they probably slipped past the farm without your brother seeing, which means if they have any sense, they got the hell gone from Deception Cove and probably from this whole fucking county.” He slammed on the steering wheel. “Shit.”
“Damn, boss,” Whitmer said. “So what do we do?”
Harwood drove in silence for a moment or two. He was headed the wrong way, headed into Neah Bay. There was no goddamn reason to be here.
“We got a few hours until Okafor shows,” he told Whitmer. “We’re going on back to town, and we’re going to search that bitch’s little house, high and low.”
“What, Jess’s?” Whitmer frowned. “You don’t think she’d have taken the stuff with her if she was going to skip town?”
Harwood gritted his teeth. “Probably, Dale,” he said. “You probably have this broken down exactly right.” He hit the brakes, yanked on the wheel, spun the truck 180 degrees, and stood on the gas pedal. “But trashing Jess Winslow’s house will make me feel better about this whole fucking mess, and right now, bud, that’s good enough for me.”