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  “There’s a few.” Bond looked away from their approaching company. “Anyway, more’n Irish Maytubbys.”

  When they arrived, Maytubby watched the boy watching his lips. Deborah Laber and Maytubby did not immediately make eye contact. Maytubby said, “Ms. Deborah Laber, this is my friend, Deputy Hannah Bond.”

  They half-nodded, half-smiled.

  Laber looked at Maytubby. The boy looked at Laber. “Everyone calls me Deb,” she said. He nodded. She turned her head toward the boy. “This is my son, Jason.”

  Jason’s hands stirred as he moved his eyes to Maytubby. “Hello, Jason,” Maytubby said.

  “He’s on spring break from OSD,” Deborah said.

  “Last fall, one of your Indians scored seventeen touchdowns in one game.” Maytubby signed “Seventeen,” turned his palms up. All he knew.

  Jason nodded, then looked down. His mother touched his shoulder to get his attention. She said, “Dylan,” while signing the name to him. He looked from her to the creek behind Maytubby, ran his palms up and down his jeans.

  “They could only play six-man ’stead of eight that night.” Deborah said.

  “Flu?” Maytubby said.

  “Pinkeye.” Her voice trailed off as she looked toward the river.

  Maytubby waited a few seconds for the murmur of the falls to ease his segue.

  He spoke to Deborah Laber. “I see you don’t have a dog. Were there any unusual noises last night?”

  She made a moue and shook her head. “Before I went to sleep around ten, just the usual. Coyotes, train in Mill Creek, owl. After that, I don’t hear anything until the alarm at five-thirty. My shift at Sipokni”—she pointed southeast—“starts at seven. I sleep like a log.”

  “Sipokni West—Old West. That’s in Reagan, on the Big Rock,” Maytubby said. “Never eaten there.”

  “Good fries and chicken-fried steak,” Hannah said to Maytubby. Then she looked slyly toward Deborah Laber. “Sergeant Maytubby perfers rabbit food.”

  Jason looked at Hannah’s lips with some confusion.

  “Deb, did you discover the body? Or Jason.”

  “Oh, this fella did. He roams the woods. I was finishing my coffee.”

  “Jason mention anything unusual about the night before?”

  The boy looked away from Maytubby’s face and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “No,” she said. Then she faced her son and signed as she spoke aloud. “You outside last night? See anybody around here?”

  Jason shook his head hard several times, thrust out his right arm and signed “no”—index and middle fingers snapping against thumb—only once. Like a rattlesnake strike.

  His mother frowned at his hand for a beat before she turned back to Maytubby—giving her face an extra quarter turn so Jason couldn’t see it. “That’s a weird no,” she whispered, as if her son might hear.

  “Right,” Maytubby said. He reached to shake Jason’s hand. The boy obliged. “Thank you, Jason.” Maytubby took a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Deb Laber. “Use my cell number if you learn anything. The other investigators may be asking you questions after Deputy Bond and I leave. If you would, tell Jason we’re both old hands with a gap gate. We’ll let ourselves out.” She was signing as Maytubby and Bond walked to their cruisers.

  “You think we should split up at Bellwood Road to look for the decoy vehicle, or both go south?” Maytubby said.

  “I thought you were worried about keeping me from my duty.” Bond opened her cruiser’s door.

  “The spirit is willing. But let’s both go south.”

  Chapter 2

  The car was parked on the north side of a one-lane pony truss bridge over a dry wash, passenger-side wheels on a grass shoulder. Possumhaw bushes grew in the wash. Maytubby and Bond stood on the shoulder in front of the car. It was a rust-gnawed 1956 Hudson Hornet sedan with a bird’s nest sprouting from the V in its grille. Its front Texas plate, tied to the bumper with baling wire, was current and shiny but dented in the center, top and bottom.

  “You’re shittin’ me,” Bond said.

  “Gotta admire it, though. Kills the last detail—Texas bird’s nest.” Maytubby tied a little strand of crime scene tape on the passenger-side mirror.

  “And there’s the clown shoes.” Bond pointed. Maytubby photographed the prints in front of the car close up with his phone, then snapped on blue disposable gloves and walked to the grille, avoiding the footprints. He forced a screechy latch and lifted the hood.

  Bond leaned forward and peered in. “No battery, no belts.” She straightened up and looked down the road. “Must be all downhill from Texas.”

  He pointed down to the license and bumper. “Bent his plate with the tow chain.” He looked up at her. “The rope they used to tie the steering wheel still lying on the driver’s seat?”

  Bond leaned sideways, looked in the passenger window. “You called it.”

  Maytubby rejoined Bond on the shoulder. “How’d they find four tires? Even bald ones.”

  A dually Ford 350 pulling a horse trailer spun up a plume of yellow dust as it approached. The driver, wearing a straw Western hat, did not slow down but rubbernecked at the antique car. The dust washed over Maytubby and Bond. They licked it off their teeth and spat.

  “That deaf kid was nervous,” Bond said.

  “I noticed that.”

  “Maybe just shy. What the hell are those?” Bond pointed at two sets of parallel tire prints, very narrow, about four feet apart. They appeared between the two tire tracks of what must have been the towing vehicle, which were also bald and curved toward the shoulder. “Clown walked between ’em, both ways.”

  Maytubby zoomed in and took several photos. “OSBI can measure. No tread on the narrow ones, either.”

  They looked toward the barbed-wire fence from where the narrow prints left—and returned to—the road. “Gap gate,” Bond said.

  “Snug,” Maytubby said. “I didn’t see it.”

  “Bozo did.” Bond rested the heels of her hands on her duty belt. “Some brush, and not a house for a mile any direction.”

  “He just knows his Dallas angler. Who always parks far from the water and steals up on his prey through impenetrable undergrowth. ‘Stealth’ is his watchword.”

  Bond hawked a dust loogie and spat. “Everything with two wheels that far apart, they got a tread.”

  “Maybe it’s a travois,” Maytubby said.

  “A what?”

  “Sled made out of two joined poles, usually pulled by a horse. Sling between the poles to hold stuff. Plains Indians used ’em.”

  Bond looked at the tracks again. “I know that tech’s just a middle-school girl, but you’re gonna need her help.”

  Chapter 3

  Maytubby’s phone vibrated. “Don’t tell me, Sheila.” He spelled out the Texas plate number.

  “Guy in Highland Park said he was so mad about his fishin’ gear, he didn’t even notice the tags were missing until now. Looks like you found ’em.”

  “On Spring Creek Road at Honey Wash. On a Hudson Hornet.” He looked at Hannah, who studied the ground.

  “Eisenhower times. One more Okie hillbilly tale for the North Dallas barflies.” There were voices in the background. “Hold on, Bill.” Her office phone clattered. He could hear her talking with someone on the police radio. The phone clattered again. “It’s Jake Renaldo. He’s pursuing a white ninety-eight Ram, just turned east off State One onto Sutton Lane.”

  Maytubby held his phone away from his face. “Hannah, Jake Renaldo’s after a white ninety-eight Dodge Ram on Sutton Road.” They jogged along the shoulder toward their cruisers. “Eastbound.”

  “Well, I hope,” she said. Then she pinched her shoulder mike and reported the pursuit.

  Maytubby brought the phone up. “On it, Sheila. Tell the OSBI agent about the Hudson.”
br />   “Right,” she said.

  He got in the cruiser, turned on the overheads, and led Hannah in a U-turn north. One-lane Sutton T-boned Bellwood about a mile north of them. Dust stirred up by the chase sifted into banks of red cedar. Maytubby slewed around two doglegs and then kicked the Charger over the straightaway leading to Sutton.

  As he neared the intersection, the Ram topped a little rise to his west. Renaldo’s Highway Patrol cruiser trailed it, curtained by dust. Maytubby turned left and stopped. Bond stopped behind him. He could see a long, slender arm sticking out of the Ram’s driver’s window. As the pickup approached, he saw that its hand held a cigarette.

  He did not get a good look at the woman driving the pickup before it veered off the road, thumped through the bar ditch, and hammered a rock-pile corner post. After a comic beat, its hood sprang open.

  Renaldo parked facing Maytubby and Bond. All three got out and walked slowly down and then up the shallow ditch banks. Steam rose from the pickup’s radiator, coolant drizzling the stones. The officers stopped. A peal of hoarse laughter rang from the cab. With her inside hand, the driver pushed against the dash, got her torso back over the steering wheel and into the seat. She was middle-aged, her hair streaks of auburn and gray. Blood seeped from her scalp where she had struck the windshield. She held up the outside hand and looked at it.

  “Shi-i-it,” she cackled. She pointed vaguely toward Renaldo. “Cowboy there made me lose my cig’rette.” She opened the door and swung her legs out of the cab, clinking two empty pints onto the ground. She held the armrest as she rose. There were burn holes in her sweatshirt.

  She turned to regard the damage, then feigned a double take. “My brand-new white truck. Now it’s a hog’s breakfast.” She pointed at it, turned, and glared at Renaldo. “You utterly ruint it.” Her red eyes did not stay on him long but moved to Maytubby and Bond.

  Her rage quickly gave way to mock astonishment. “Whadda we got here? Lone Ranger, Tonto, and the fifty-foot woman.” She shook her head and grinned to herself.

  “You want me to call Johnston County EMS?” Hannah pointed to her own forehead.

  “And who’ll be drivin’ that?” the driver brayed. “Goat Man?” She wiped her head and looked at her hand. Then she wiped her hand on her jeans. “No. I ain’t hurt. I am drunk. And how do you figure I’d pay Goat Man? My supposedly husband spent all our money on that city slut he sees in Tishomingo.” She put her fists on her hips and smiled again.

  Maytubby watched her face and squinted.

  The laugh gurgled up. She wagged her finger at the officers. “But I fixed his wagon. For. Good.” The extended arm threw her off balance, and she fell forward. Bond helped her to her feet and then held her left biceps.

  Renaldo said, “Ma’am I need to see your license and registration.”

  With her free arm, she patted her jeans pockets deliberately, then pulled out a flattened pack of cigarettes and a red disposable lighter, both of which she held in one hand. When she shook the pack, most of the cigarettes tumbled onto the grass.

  “Shit.” She held the pack to her face, lipped out a survivor. When she turned her wrist to click the lighter, the rest of the cigarettes fell out. She took a deep drag and said, “Shit!”

  A Johnston County sheriff’s cruiser with its overheads flashing roared up Bellwood and braked hard. Dust swirled around the deputy as he got out.

  “Katz,” Renaldo said, half-rolling his eyes.

  “We know what he’s gonna have to say,” Hannah muttered.

  “Phoo-ooo,” Maytubby whispered.

  Katz waved dust out of his face as he walked along the shoulder.

  The woman took a short drag and tilted her head. “Got-damn. I guess we can start lookin’ for the National Guard.”

  Standing next to the Lighthorse cruiser, Katz tucked his thumbs into the front of his duty belt and gaped. “Phooo-ooo!”

  “Oh, no,” the woman said.

  “She hit that thing full bore. She must be butt-wasted!” Katz bent at the waist and squinted at the truck. “It’s a pure miracle that truck didn’t go up in a fireball and roast her like a chicken.”

  The woman sucked in a lungful of smoke and began to cry. “Where do they come from?” she whined.

  Bond said, “Deputy Katz, I think we’ve got a handle on this. That old wreck you passed on Bellwood just now? May be a crime scene. Guard it until OSBI gets there. And don’t touch anything!”

  Katz nodded while he continued to stare at the wreck. He smacked his palm with his fist. “Bam!” he said, and walked back to his cruiser.

  Renaldo said, “Now, ma’am, I’m going to get your license and registration from the truck.”

  She wept quietly. She put her cigarette knuckle against one nostril and blew snot on the ground. Then she took another drag. “You really think I got a license?”

  “Could I have your name, ma’am?”

  “Tula Verner. Just like it sounds.”

  “I’ll look it up.” Renaldo walked back to his cruiser.

  Bond asked the woman whether she wanted to sit on the grass.

  She blew smoke through her nose and said, “Nah.” Then she hung her head and sighed.

  A lone buzzard gyred high over the wreck.

  When Renaldo came back, he said, “Ms. Verner, this truck is registered to Douglas Verner. Is that your husband?”

  “You’ll find paper at the courthouse says that.”

  “Did he know you were driving the Ram?”

  “I really doubt it. He was not around to ask his permission.”

  Bond said, “Jake, you want me to run her by the Mercy ER? By the time we get to the courthouse, you’ll be done here.”

  “Thanks, Hannah. I’ll inventory the contents and call Garn to tow the wreck.”

  Bond pulled handcuffs from her duty belt.

  “Hold on there, cowboy,” Verner said in a wet voice. “You’re gonna put me in the hands of Mrs. Kong? Why don’t you let me go with this cute Indian cop?”

  Maytubby said, “The Chickasaw Nation uses the Pontotoc County Jail in Ada. We’re in Johnston County. You have to go to Tish.”

  Tula Verner hung her head and crossed her arms behind her back.

  Chapter 4

  “Tempestuous Loves,” Maytubby said.

  “Violent Hates,” Jill Milton said.

  They were reading a framed lobby card for the 1949 movie Tulsa while they waited for a table at the Aldridge Hotel Coffee Shop in Ada. Susan Hayward and Robert Preston had stayed at the Aldridge while they filmed on location.

  Jill tapped on the frame glass. “They don’t mention insatiable greeds.”

  Maytubby moved his face closer to the glass. “I don’t see any insolent prides.”

  They shook their heads. Jill said, “Not up to snuffs.”

  The greeter touched Maytubby’s shoulder and pointed to a booth in the back. As his fiancée followed her, he felt the usual hush fall over the room. By the time he slid his campaign hat down the table, the place was noisy again. As she scooted into the bench, her thick black hair spilled over the lapels of her cobalt trench jacket.

  She said, “Jay Silverheels was in that movie.”

  “Really.” Maytubby looked at the menu. “I wonder if he ordered meatloaf.”

  Jill Milton shed her jacket and plucked at the shoulders of her wheat boyfriend shirt. She glanced briefly at the menu and slid it back behind the napkin dispenser.

  “Speaking of Tonto,” Maytubby said, “a woman Jake and Hannah and I roadblocked for DUI called me that.”

  “Probably an anthropologist.”

  “She’s come to the right place. The Clear Boggy Valley is rich in colorful folkways.”

  Jill ordered a chef’s salad without ham.

  Maytubby ordered carrot salad and a boiled egg. The server knew not to ask. S
he pocketed her guest check pad and pen in her waitress apron and walked toward the kitchen.

  Maytubby touched the back of Jill’s hand. “Where did the nation’s health forces join battle with Big Sugar this morning?”

  Jill took a plastic tumbler of ice water from a busser and sipped it. “I was supposed to do the Eagle Play in Tupelo, but when I went to the warehouse this morning to get the props . . .”

  “The healthy foods—plaster crooknecks and plums and such.”

  She nodded and wrinkled her nose. “There was a sewage backup in the office.”

  “Soooo you spent the morning washing fake zucchini?”

  “Yessir.”

  Maytubby slipped the paper ring off his paper napkin. “Wearing your pantyhose?”

  “Unless the Nation changed its dress code yesterday.”

  “I thought maybe there were contingency loopholes.”

  Jill pinched his campaign hat by the crown and wagged it in front of him.

  “Good point,” he said. She dropped it on the table.

  His radio crackled. They looked at the table and waited. It fell silent.

  Jill pointed at his shoulder mike. “I’m getting one of those. Stabilize the balance of power.”

  “Who’s gonna call you?’

  “Nutritionist Dispatch.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The server brought their food and left. A man in a Western hat and boots and creased jeans stopped at the table. A toothpick bobbed in his lips. He gestured at Maytubby’s food with his check and removed the toothpick. “You know they serve food here. Right, Officer?” The man patted Maytubby on the shoulder. He glanced at Jill and looked quickly away before he resumed his walk to the register.

  Jill ate a carrot stick with her fingers before she drizzled oil and vinegar on her salad. “Toothpick guy didn’t know how black I am till he got close.”

  Maytubby forked his egg in half. “Have you considered he may have been startled by your radiant beauty?”

  She watched the man in the Western hat open the front door. “When he was fake-mocking your food, I was thinking for one second I missed that kind of stuff when I was at NYU.”