Twenty-Eight

“What do you mean you’re giving me the day off?” Danny asked. “I got a suspicious feeling that it won’t actually be time off.”

“Why do you say that?”

Danny patted drywall dust off his sleeve. “Because you told me to stay in grubbies. You must have something in mind for me.”

“Mountain climbing,” Arn answered as he pulled into the back lot of Fat Boy’s. “Follow me.”

He led Danny through the gate to the back and pointed to the mountain of tires that had been tossed in the heap. “That’s your mountain.”

Danny looked sideways at Arn. “I bet your explanation about this is going to be a doozy.”

“Put your gloves on and I’ll tell you.”

While Danny donned his gloves, Arn explained what he’d found out at the Ford body shop and what Floyd had told him about buying new tires. “You’ll be going through that pile. Whenever you find a Cooper 235 x 17, set it aside and go get Adam. He’s the one who looks like someone pissed in his eye. Have him look at the tire and see if it’s one he took off Floyd’s truck.”

“You have got to be kidding me?”

“I wish,” Arn answered. “But it needs to be done. Think of it as being in the outdoors. Getting fresh air.”

“What will this accomplish?”

“All we have to do is identify one tire from Floyd’s truck.”

“But this might take days,” Danny said. “And even if I find the tires that came off the kid’s pickup, it doesn’t guarantee any of them will have a chunk of sidewall gone. You—or in this case, me—might be barking up the wrong mountain of tires.”

“Might,” Arn said as he headed for his car.

“But I have other stuff to do—”

Arn stopped and turned back. “Think of this as just one duty a sidekick’s gotta perform. And Danny—I wouldn’t shake hands with Adam when you meet him.”

Arn picked Ana Maria up for lunch and they headed across town. “I would have brought Danny along, but he figured he was too dirty to go anywhere in public.”

“Ya think?” Ana Maria said. “He’s only been rooting around those old filthy tires all morning.”

Arn’s cell phone rang. He pulled to the side of the road and covered the receiver. “It’s Floyd’s father.”

“I understand there’s a problem with the truck my kid bought,” Fred Pompolopolis said.

“There’s no problem with the sale.” Arn explained he was looking at all angles connected to Jillie Reilly’s murder.

“Hot damn!” Fred said. “Floyd’s got a truck a killer owned. Hot damn! It’ll be worth a ton on Craigslist.”

“The owner probably killed no one,” Arn was quick to point out. He couldn’t tell Fred that Dr. Oakert said his special patient was a troller, that he’d travel long distances to meet with his perfect victim, but that this didn’t mean everyone driving newer trucks with high mileage were killers. “It’s just something I have to rule out.”

“Hot damn,” Fred said again. “Give me a minute to dig the bill of sale out of my pocket.”

There was shuffling on the other end of the line, and Fred cursed when he dropped his wallet. “While I got you on the line, we found some papers under the seat—pay stub, receipt for a tune-up, Social Security statement. You got an address I can send it to?”

“What’s the guy’s name?”

Shuffling on Fred’s end. “Scott Wallace. Some local ranch hand.”

Arn sighed. Adding to being a PI and a range detective, he might as well be called a mailman, too. “Scott works at the Circle Trot. Let me know when you’re coming back to town and I’ll get the papers off you. The ranch is just a few miles from town.”