160
HARD ROW
Jamison was appalled by the level of cruelty.
“Somebody really hated his guts, didn’t they?”
“But where the hell’s the head and penis?” asked
Dwight. “Either of y’all check the car?”
“Not there,” Richards said. “The keys are in the igni-
tion though.”
Dwight peered through the windshield. The steering
wheel sported a black lambswool cover, so no chance of
fingerprints from it.
“Y’all open the trunk?”
“Not yet,” Richards admitted.
They waited for Percy Denning to dust the door han-
dle. “Too smeared,” he reported.
After gingerly extracting the key from the ignition, he
fitted one of them into the trunk lock.
Richards held her breath as the lid lifted and immedi-
ately realized she was not the only one when the others
collectively exhaled.
The trunk was upholstered in dark gray and, except
for the spare tire, appeared at first to be empty. And
then they took a second look.
“Shit!” said Denning. He got his camera and took
pictures of the stains on the floor and lid of the trunk
and of the once-white undershirt with which the killer
had probably wiped the worst of the blood from his
hands. “This was the delivery truck.”
161
C H A P T E R
19
Deborah Knott
Monday Afternoon, March 6
% After lunch, I finished up the first appearances.
Normally, unless an address is familiar for other
reasons, I don’t pay much attention to the ones given
by the miscreants who come before me, but so soon
after talking with Dwight and with the Harris divorce
on my mind, I looked closer at the Latino who had been
picked up Saturday night and was charged with posses-
sion of two rocks of cocaine.
“Ward Dairy Road?” I asked through the interpreter.
“Harris Farms?”
“Si,” he said and followed that with a burst of Spanish.
The only word I caught was
a young woman going for an associate degree in edu-
