“Don’t know his name. He’s always hanging around jobsites down here, seeing what he can steal or get away with. My son, he goes to Bertha Palmer, he pointed them out to me, Bron and the Mexican. Last week, week before, I don’t remember, I was picking my boy up after a game—see, he plays football at the high school—and there was this punk in the parking lot, and there was Bron and the English lady. Punk probably figured Bron would slip him a few bucks not to tell the company he had the lady in his cab with him.”

One of the other guys guffawed and said, “Probably thought Bron would pay him not to tell his old lady. I’d be a hell of a lot more scared of Sandra Czernin than Pat Grobian.”

“Me, too.” I grinned, although I was thinking about Freddy, the chavo who hung around jobsites looking for what he could finagle. Blackmail, that fit Freddy’s unattractive profile. It made a certain kind of sense. But would Freddy have attacked Bron and Marcena? Maybe Romeo—Bron, I really should call him by his name—maybe Bron threatened to have him arrested for blackmail and Freddy lost his head?

“Can’t see Bron paying blackmail to anyone,” a third trucker drawled.

“So maybe the punk squealed,” the mustache said. “Because Grobian and Czernin were sure going at it Monday afternoon.”

“Fighting?” My eyebrows shot up.

“Arguing,” he amplified. “I was waiting on my clearance, and Bron was in there, they were shouting at each other a good fifteen minutes.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know—Bron wanted help with his daughter’s hospital bills.”

“From Grobian?” Nolan in the Harley jacket snorted. “Billy is probably the only person in the world who could believe Grobian would give a rat’s ass about someone’s girl. Not that it wasn’t a hell of a blow what happened to Czernin’s kid, but sitting good with the Bysen family, that’s what Grobian thinks about first, last, and foremost. And helping pay some guy’s hospital bills, he knows the Bysens would never sit still for that—even though Czernin had twenty-plus years with the company!”

“They may have been fighting when Czernin went in, but they must’ve kissed and made up because Czernin was crowing like a rooster when he got into his rig,” the third driver said.

“He didn’t say anything?” I asked.

“Just that he might have a winning ticket.”

“Winning ticket?” I repeated. “Lottery ticket, is that what he meant?”

“Oh, he was carrying on like a fool,” the handlebar said. “I asked him the same thing, and he said, ‘Yeah, the lottery of life.’”

“Lottery of death is what it turned out to be,” Nolan said somberly.