She pointed once more toward Liberty Hill.

“We went all the way to the top. I would guess the cans kept going over the other side. But it wasn’t your guy drinking ’em and tossing ’em. No scent of him, according to Duffy.”

Deputy Christiansen opened the rear of her vehicle. Duffy trembled at the sight of the cage inside, eager to escape her disappointing performance.

“We came back and did a full three-sixty around this spot, but we got nothing and she’s just too hot, Sheriff. The heat index was over 140 degrees before we even started. She went whining around every which way for a while and then she just sat down.”

The dog looked ashamed as her handler pulled a ramp down and positioned it.

“OK, girl.”

K-9 Duffy slunk up into her cage.

A minute later, Sheriff Kick stood alone in the brutal swelter, squinting into the sea of vegetation.

Kids. Who else would find hot beer and bash straight off into thick weeds to drink it?

Kids on foot.

She tried to think of kids in the area, but she hardly knew this far-northeastern corner of the Bad Axe, and she hadn’t seen a residence of any kind since turning off the county highway three miles back. The terrain was thickly forested bluffs flanking rocky, flood-scoured coulees, with swampy lowlands in between. As her gaze followed Liberty Hill Road to the east, she realized that Elmo Quarry Pond was nearby. Two days from now, on their way with their 4-H Club to help out at the annual Bad Axe County Farm Breakfast, the twins were scheduled to make a ritual sunrise stop at Elmo Pond to feed shelled corn to the giant goldfish, supposedly carnival-game escapees, that survived there. Opie claimed to have seen one as big as a suckling pig. This would be the boys’ first brush with the myth. They were excited. Dylan had wanted to set his alarm clock five days ahead of time. Taylor had insisted he would need snacks, water, and extra clothing in his backpack.

Kids.

Right?

It had to be kids who found the beer. The body had appeared and the beer had disappeared in the same vicinity within the same time frame. Somewhere, she thought, there must be at least one kid who knew something.

Either that or the sun had boiled her brain.

She retrieved an evidence bag from the Charger’s trunk. The sea of weeds closed behind her as she used a stick to slash her way from marker flag to marker flag, collecting blue-and-silver Busch Light cans.

One…

Two…

Then a third can, drained empty within just a hundred yards.