“What’s it to you, ma’am,” I growled. “What it is to me is that I’m a detective, and this car is involved in a kidnapping. If I find a body, you guys will be lucky not to face a death sentence.”

“We found the car here, it was just here.” They were almost whining; I felt sickened by my own bullying—give a woman a gun and a big dog and she can do anything a man can do to humiliate other people.

“You can’t prove anything, we don’t know nothing, we—”

“Keep them covered,” I said to Mr. Contreras.

I backed around in a circle to the car, keeping the gun on them. My neighbor held Mitch, who was still moving uneasily. The trunk, which the pair had pried open, held nothing but a towel and a few books of Billy’s—Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and The Violence of Love.

The two punks were still holding their hands over their heads. I turned around and shoved my way into the bracken to peer into the car. No Josie, no Billy. The windshield had a spiderweb crack in front of the driver’s seat, and the driver’s window was smashed. The ragtop was torn. Maybe the damage had occurred when the car plunged headlong into the pile of garbage. Maybe someone had attacked the car with tire irons.

The traffic overhead sent a constant, irregular thwacking down the rusted legs of the Skyway. The lights swooped past but couldn’t penetrate the bracken well enough for me to see inside the car. Turning on the little flashlight on my cell phone, I stuck my head and shoulders through the hole in the Miata’s canvas top and shone the light around. Glass shards lay on the dashboard and the seat. I could smell whiskey, maybe bourbon or rye. I slowly moved the light around. An open thermos lay on the passenger floor, with a little puddle underneath the lip.

It was a titanium model, a Nissan. Morrell had one like it—I’d bought it for him when he left for Afghanistan. It had cost a fortune, but nothing dented it, even when he’d gotten shot, although the i in the logo had chipped away, just as it had on this one.

I backed out of the car and jerked open the driver’s door. Dumbly, I picked up the thermos and stuck it in the pocket of my peacoat. How had Morrell’s thermos ended up in Billy’s car? Maybe Billy had one like it, and the i in the Ti logo was prone to chipping, not that I could picture Billy or Josie drinking, especially not bourbon.