“Whatever it is, we’re not supporting it.” He looked at his watch. “You don’t have an appointment. In fact, how did you get in? No one at the front gate phoned—”

“I know. It must be hard for you to stay on top of your schedule with Billy gone. Why did he run away, anyway? He came down here, after—” I suddenly remembered the conversation I’d had with Billy after church on Sunday.

“Oh, of course. You squealed on him to his dad—you reported seeing him with Josie Dorrado, and Billy came here to confront you. You said a few minutes ago that you didn’t see Billy on Monday, so did he confront you on Sunday? You come into the office on Sunday afternoons? Have you told Mr. William about that?”

Grobian shifted in his chair. “I don’t see what that has to do with you.”

“Besides being a do-gooding basketball coach, I’m one of the detectives the family hired to look for Billy. If your conversation with him was the immediate cause of his disappearance, then the family will want to know about it.”

He looked at me narrowly: I might have Mr. William’s ear, or even Buffalo Bill’s—or I might be a con artist. Before he could challenge me, I added, “Mr. William and I just had a little conversation in the hall right now. I’m the detective who found Billy’s Miata the other night, where it had burrowed into the shrubbery underneath the Skyway.”

“Yeah, but Billy wasn’t at the wheel when it went off the road.”

“Is that a fact, Mr. Grobian.” I leaned back in the chair so I could see his face better. “Just how do you know that?”

“Cops told me.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’ll call Commander Rawlings at the Fourth District to check, but when I saw him yesterday they didn’t know who was driving it.”

“Must have been chatter on the floor, then.” His pale eyes shifted to the door and back. “The truckers all gossip about each other. Would have been better if they’d talked to me about Czernin before he died instead of after.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, this English lady Czernin was balling.” He watched to see if vulgarity would make a do-gooder detective wince, but I kept a look of polite interest on my face. “I hear she was in the car, not Billy, and no one knows how she got hold of it.”

“I see,” I said slowly. “So you didn’t know about her until she showed up next to Bron on the golf course yesterday morning?”

“If I had, Bron would have been at the unemployment office on Monday. We don’t tolerate rules violations, and having outsiders in the cab is a big By-Smart no-no.”

“But if she was in Billy’s Miata, she wasn’t in the cab with Czernin.”