The sheriff’s office was empty. The door was locked, and when Nova peered through the dust-coated windows, the lights were off inside.
He checked his watch. Not even eleven o’clock in the afternoon yet, and the sheriff and his men—assuming the sheriff had any men—were not there.
Nova considered poking his head back in the bar, but feared that Nancy Price, stationed behind the bar with a cigarette clamped between her cracked lips, would bring up a shotgun and chase him back out. The diner was another option, but judging by the two cars parked out front, the sheriff probably wasn’t there either.
Which all put Nova in a particular spot. He could stay here by the sheriff’s office and wait in the shade, or he could go and explore the town.
Seeing as how he had always been a restless man, he decided to explore the town.
Of course, that didn’t take long at all. Last night Nova had guessed it might take five minutes to walk from one end of town to the other end, and his guess was spot on. He even walked slowly, taking his time, noting the houses and trailers and buildings.
All the buildings were only one story tall. There were thirteen houses, twenty-one trailers (both of the single and doublewide variety), and two buildings, one of which was the empty sheriff’s office.
There was no real street that connected these buildings. It was more like a latticework of interconnected driveways. A few had dusty pickups parked in front or beside, while others had dusty motorcycles, a handful had cars.
The buildings were nondescript. Nothing much set them apart from each other. Even the trailers looked the same. One or two had American flags hanging from poles, but that was it. No flowerbeds, no wind chimes, no whirligigs.
Also, it didn’t appear as if any of the buildings were currently occupied. Every door and window was closed.
Nova made it to the end of town, which was basically two trailers standing forty yards apart, one of them with a wooden shed beside it, and then just desert until the hills a half mile away. Nothing but chaparral and sagebrush.
He turned, meaning to head back down the drive to the highway, when he noticed tire tracks in the dirt. The drive itself just sort of petered out, but a set of tire tracks originated from the wooden shed and continued out into the desert, into what he now noticed was a sort of beaten path toward the hills. He was half-tempted to continue forward to see where those tire tracks led, but behind him came the approaching low purr of an engine and tires crunching the dirt.
Nova turned and watched a black Crown Victoria slowly drive toward him. He held his ground and waited until it stopped right in front of him—the front bumper less than a yard from his legs.
The driver’s side window lowered, and Sheriff Leonard Smith said, “You exhausted from your tour of our small town?”
Nova smiled. “Are you also the tour guide?”
The sheriff laughed. “I could be, but there ain’t much to see. Why don’t you get in and cool off? I have the A/C on.”
Nova circled around the front of the car to the other side. As he slid into the passenger seat, he realized there wasn’t much to set it apart as a police car. He wasn’t expecting bells and whistles, but there didn’t appear to be anything that marked it as a cop car. Not even a computer attached to the dashboard. It was, for lack of a better word, just a car.
“Sorry to hear about your Mustang,” the sheriff said, as he began to turn the car around and point them back toward the highway.
Nova played it cool. “What do you mean?”
“I called Bud Jasper—he works for Ed Abbott—to give him a heads-up you might be contacting him. He said you already had, that you had even showed up at his place, but that your car … well, shit. I certainly hope you have good insurance.”
That was the second person who had mentioned having good insurance.
The sheriff said, “How’d you end up there, anyway?”
“What’s that?”
“You were in Townsend this morning and now you’re here. That’s quite a distance for a man without a car.”
“I hitched a ride.”
They pulled out onto the highway, passing the empty sheriff’s office, passing the bar and diner and motel.
“Where are we headed?” Nova asked.
“Townsend.”
“Why?”
The old sheriff gave him a funny look. “Well, why not? There ain’t much to do in our town, especially after you’re no longer welcome in the bar. But Townsend has restaurants and motels and even a two-screen movie theater if watching movies is your thing.”
“My car was stolen.”
The sheriff nodded. “And I’m awfully sorry to hear it.”
“I’m not really in the mood to watch movies.”
“Of course not. But there are a few car dealerships there, too. One used car place has some good deals. They’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
“You should write up a report about my car.”
“And I’ll do just that when we get to Townsend.”
“Why can’t you do it back in Parrot Spur?”
“I could, certainly, but then what? You want to hang out in my office? You want to sleep again on that cot? This would be a whole other matter if that unpleasantness hadn’t taken place last night, but as it is, there ain’t much for you in Parrot Spur right now. In Townsend they haven’t kicked you out of any bars.” He grinned at Nova. “At least not yet.”