Sam tapped the side of her head. “Don’t know what’s going on under his clothes, but he caught something hard with his temple. It looks ugly enough to be fatal.”

“We know who the car belongs to yet?”

“One Lemuel Shaw,” she offered. “If you can believe that. I hope for his sake he has a nickname.”

“Old New England moniker,” Joe said. “Where from?”

“Gilsum, New Hampshire, between Keene and Marlow,” she told him. “On Route 10. If the car’s any sign, I’d say Mr. Shaw eats high on the hog.”

“How do you know this isn’t Mr. Shaw?”

“Wild guess? There’s about a fifty-year age difference, according to Shaw’s DMV photo.”

“Willy doesn’t think much of the car. I overheard somebody say it looked like a teenager’s bedroom.”

Sam led him to one of the rear doors, open to reveal a lightly stained and dirty back seat. “Most of what was in here’s been removed for inventorying, but you can still see how it was all just tossed in. There wasn’t room for our friend, even if that had been an option.”

“So what’s your theory?”

She answered immediately. “I don’t think it was moving day. It all amounted to easy-to-carry tech toys, booze, silverware, and a piece or two of jewelry. And money, just thrown in. A real jumble.”

“A magpie nest,” Joe surmised.

She nodded. “But is our dead man the magpie?”

“And who were the drivers?”

“Drivers?” she asked, before catching herself. “Right. Dumb. The one who drove here and the one who picked him up after.”

Joe made light of it. “He could’ve driven a corpse here and then stuck his thumb out to hitch a ride. Not a stretch, considering some of the people we’ve arrested.”

Sam accepted his kindness. “True, but unlikely.”

“How ’bout foot or tire prints?” Joe asked, moving on.

“Yes on the first, cast and photographed, not that I’m putting much faith in them. Negative on the tire marks. The first responders didn’t totally destroy the scene before they left, but the road still had nothing to tell us. CSST did a complete exterior sweep; they have yet to do the car’s inside, just so you know. They’re waiting till they get better lighting and more heat. And they haven’t grabbed the electronic black box.”

“Speaking of which,” Joe said, “Willy told me nobody got a fix on the GPS after it was reported stolen. What’s that about?”

“I was told they got no joy. Maybe something short-circuited the unit.”

“How many times did they try?”

“Beats me,” she replied. “Nor do I know which agency was asked.”

A waving flashlight beam caught their attention. Willy was above them, signaling from the edge of the road. “Got something interesting up here.”

“Maybe the driver did stick his thumb out and got run over,” Sam commented.

“We could never be so lucky,” Joe replied, joining her in the steep but short climb back up.

On top, Willy indicated the open rear doors of the CSST truck, whose glaring interior was equipped in part like a mobile office, complete with stools and workbenches.