Page 82 of The Killing Plains

“What about my dogs?”

“They’ll be fine where they are for a couple hours. We’ll have your truck towed back to town.”

“They’re gonna go nuts. They’re scared of thunder.”

Avery laughed and started the car.

Colly turned to look at the sullen prisoner.“Poor babies, that’s a shame. Now fasten your seatbelt, and start talking.”

Chapter 22

The dirt track was slick with mud by the time they emerged from the tree line. The cruiser’s tires spun and fishtailed as Avery coaxed the car up the slope to the buffalo-skull archway.

Once on the road, Colly turned in her seat. “Well?”

Hoyer stared out of the window. “It’s a long story.”

“Start with Monday night. Why’d you lie about where you were?”

“You woulda slapped me in cuffs if I didn’t.”

Behind the wheel, Avery snorted. “You’re in cuffs now, genius.”

Hoyer said nothing for a minute. “I drove to the ranch Monday night, but I didn’t do nothin’.”

“What was your plan? To talk to Lowell, try to get your job back?” Colly asked. “Or did you think you’d have better luck with Iris?”

“That old hag? Not likely.”

“Then why were you there?”

Hoyer’s shoulders hunched. “Jolene and me was watching San Antonio wipe the floor with the Mavs, which was pissing me off. And—” He swallowed. “And Carmen come by earlier, saying she heard y’all was up at the clinic that afternoon, asking questions. Like I said, I figured I was being set up. More I thought about it, the madder I got.”

Avery glowered at him in the rearview mirror. “So you figured, ‘What the hell, I’ll put a dead snake in Brenda Newland’s car’?”

“I told you, I never done that. I didn’t have no plan, really. Jolene fell asleep, so I just thought I’d drive up to the ranch, maybe piss in the pool.”

“We’re supposed to believe that?” Colly asked.

“Believe what you want. I’d had a few beers by then.”

Colly considered. “When you got to the ranch, where’d you park?”

“Bottom of the hill, below the Mollison place. I walked up the drive and seen somebody standing by a van messing with something in the front passenger seat.”

“Know who it was?”

Hoyer shook his head. “Too dark. I saw the beam of a flashlight moving around. I must’ve stepped on a stick, because all of a sudden, the guy swung the light my way—”

“The guy? It was a man?”

“Just saw the silhouette. Thought it was Lowell, at first. Dude was kinda short, wearing a Stetson and one of them square-looking field jackets. Lowell’s got a coat like that. Didn’t act like Lowell, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lowell’d never abide strangers wandering up to his mama’s place in the dark. He would’ve come after me. Shouted, at least.”

Unless he had reason to keep things quiet,Colly thought. “What did he do?”

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