It was past ten when the hearse finally rolled. Ollie stayed to help canvass the neighbors. The hit wasn’t his problem, but he hoped to pry something loose on Scar.

Ryan and I rode to the Explorer in silence. I looked out my window at the bare trees straining to bud, the patches of last night’s snow struggling to hang on. Felt the frustration they depicted.

Ryan spoke first. “Your friend has the interrogation skills of a slug.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“He was.”

“What’s your point?”

“He was incompetent.” Ryan patted his jacket pocket.

“Don’t smoke,” I said.

Ryan shot me a look but stopped searching for a cigarette.

“You’ve both been acting like jerks,” I said.

“I’d never be that callous.”

“He felt she was holding back.”

“Was she?”

“Yes.”

As we ascended the circle drive, I told him what Twiller had said about Unka.

“You just proved my point,” he said.

We got out of the car and crossed to the hotel.

“It gets to him,” I said, not sure why I was defending Ollie.

Ryan cocked a skeptical brow.

“He gets tired of the violence. Of constantly dealing with skanks who make you want to scrub your whole body with Lysol.”

“You speaking for shithead or yourself?”

Damn good point. I didn’t concede it.

“We both know Castain just bounced Ruben to the back burner, perhaps kicked her from the stage altogether.”

Normally, I’d have made fun of Ryan’s mixed metaphor. Not then.

“This whole thing is just too freaking frustrating.” I started for the elevator.

“We’ll find her.”

I turned.

“But now we’ll have to rely on ourselves,” he said.

“And shithead.”

“And shithead.”

A truce. Of sorts.

Back in my room, I tried my iPhone. To my surprise, it gave a listless flicker. Hopeful that the working bits just needed to dry out, I plugged it in to charge.

Using the landline, I phoned my elusive daughter. She remained elusive. I left another message.

Exhausted, I did a quick toilette, then dropped into bed. But my mind refused to disengage. I wondered about Arty Castain. Who had killed him? Why? Was it really Unka, or was it a major move by Scarborough? Had Castain’s death been the first in a bloodbath about to commence? What secrets had Castain taken to the grave?

Where was Tom Unka? Ronnie Scarborough?

What had Scarborough meant when he said Ollie was clueless about Annaliese Ruben? Had Scar been more than her pimp? Did he know things we hadn’t even thought about?

Ryan was right. The locals would focus on the Castain homicide, on the erupting feud over control of the drug trade. But I couldn’t give up my obsession with Ruben. The woman had murdered four babies.