Yancy cocked his head. “What’s with all the interest in Ty Winslow, man? You go through all this shit just to ask me about a dead man?”

“Just trying to get a clearer picture,” Mason said. “You think Harwood could have killed Winslow?”

“What, over a few points on some fucking crank?” Yancy laughed again. “Listen, Burke, I’m telling you, Harwood and his boys don’t give a shit about small-time like us. Even when he comes around, it ain’t about the money, it’s about proving he’s the biggest dick swinging in this town. We’re just a game to that man.”

Mason considered this. It fit with what he’d seen of the deputy. Unless the whole of Makah County subsisted on crank alone, Harwood hadn’t bought that truck or his fancy boat with shakedown money from outfits like this. Mason didn’t figure Ty Winslow’s setup in the woods would prove otherwise, though he would have to check.

But none of this explained why Harwood was so damned determined to muck up Jess Winslow’s life. The deputy may not have taken Yancy’s operation seriously, but the marine’s husband had put a bee in his bonnet, that was for certain. And Mason still didn’t have a clue how he’d done it.

“So what’s the story here?” Yancy asked. “You Ty’s kin or something? Why are you so interested in what he was up to?”

“It’s not Ty I’m concerned with,” Mason told him. “It’s his wife.”

Yancy blinked. Mason watched a slow smirk spread over the dealer’s face. “Well, shit,” he said. “You could have saved us a whole lot of trouble if you’d opened with the fact that you’re trying to get laid.”

“It’s not like that.” Mason gestured around the clearing, the dock, the rusted machinery piled up along the margins. “You got any wheels that still run in this place?”

Yancy surveyed the clearing like he was seeing it all for the first time. Scratched his head. “I might got a dirt bike with a little life left in her,” he said. “Assuming we can agree on a price.”

The bike was a thirty-year-old Yamaha, mud spattered and banged up almost beyond recognition, but the engine turned over, and Yancy swore he’d taken her for a ride just a couple of months back.

“Ain’t going to get you to Denver,” he told Mason, “but she’ll get you around town, anyway.”

They settled on $350, three bills for the bike and fifty for Yancy’s time.

“And your rounds,” Mason said, dropping the magazine from the pistol and racking the slide to clear the chamber.

“What about the piece?” Yancy asked. “You can’t just…”

Mason held it out to him. “You aren’t going to shoot me, are you?”