Page 78 of Rocky Ride

“Sure.”

“We’ll make a plan.”

“Who’s that? Penny?” asked Virge.

“Yep. I asked her out for the weekend. Are you going to ask Vicki again?”

“Thinking about it, but I’m not a hundred percent on her like I thought I would be.”

“Why not?”

Virge screwed up his face like he couldn’t figure it out. “Can’t say for sure.”

“You must have an idea what you don’t like about her.”

“Nope. Not really.”

We’d been watching from our hiding place for about an hour when Virge let out a holler and scared the bejesus out of me.

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“A black Wrangler just pulled into the property. Drive by the end of the lane real slow and see if we can get the tag.”

I drove past the Darkers property and using the spotting scope, Virge got the tag written down.

“Drive to the corner out of sight and give me a minute to run it.”

“Sure.”

Virge ran the tag through the DMV and nodded his head when he got the result. “Yep. That baby belongs to Daniel Darkers.”

“Holy shit. He was fooling around with Mrs. Ellington. That’s why he showed up at her funeral.”

“Drive back to the station. We have to tell Dad. He’ll want to hear this right away.”

“We could call him with the scoop, and finish our morning of surveillance,” I said.

“Do you want to do that?” Virge gave me the stink-eye.

“No.”

“Okay then. I’m thinking Dad probably wants Darkers to be a killer more than he wants him to be a drug guy. See what I mean?”

“Yeah, I get it. He’d rather solve the murders than arrest another drug fucker in his county.”

Virge gave me a fist bump.

Sheriff’s Office. Coyote Creek.

Virge tore into the station with his good news and there was another surprise waiting for us. Graham Van Cedar was in the break room having a man-to-man talk to Travis. We’d have to wait to see what that was about.

Van Cedar left the station about ten minutes later and Dad came out to give us the goods. “Surprisingly enough, Mister Van Cedar offered to pay for a forensic team to run both crime scenes.”

“What did you say, Dad?” asked Virge. “You know how fuckin bad we need that.”

“I was honest and told him the Ellington scene might not be in the best shape. After all this time, it could be contaminated, but the Hoover scene would be better. I said it was his money, and he could go ahead with it if he wanted to.”

---