“He okay?”

“Luckily, yeah.”

“Good.” He hauled himself into the cab. “Because I can’t hang around for no investigation. I ain’t running or nothing, but I got a schedule to keep.”

“I hear you,” Jack said.

He thought about stopping him but decided against it. If his story was true—and Jack sensed it was—what good would it do? If he hadn’t reported his truck stolen, Jack could call Hernandez and the Novaton cops would pick him up.

Of course, the reported theft could have been a cover, but Jack doubted that.

As the cab door slammed shut, Jack said, “What’re you hauling?”

“Sand.”

“Where to?”

“North Jersey.”

Jersey? Jersey was loaded with sand.

“What the hell for?”

The driver shrugged. “I don’t set up the jobs or choose the loads; I just get it where it wants to go.”

Then Jack remembered Luke saying something about Semelee sucking all the sand out of the cenote and selling it. Could this be…?

“Where’d you get the sand?”

Another shrug. “It got boated in from somewheres in the swamp. That’s all I know.”

With that he threw the truck into first and headed for the exit.

Jack watched him go. He made a mental note of the company name. Wm. Blagden & Sons. He might look them up when he got back north, maybe find out who’d hired them. Shipping sand from a Florida nexus point to New Jersey…he couldn’t imagine the reason, but it couldn’t be good.

He started back toward his car. At least now he knew what had hit his father’s Marquis. And he had a pretty good idea who had been driving it.

But he still didn’t know why. Had a pretty good idea about that too, and hoped to nail that down this afternoon.

8

By the time Jack reached Gateways South he’d stopped at a local hardware store for a roll of duct tape, then called the Novaton Police where he reached Anita Nesbitt. After a quick check she told him that, yes, on Tuesday morning a dump truck had been reported stolen during the night and was found shortly thereafter.

Okay. So Wm. Blagden & Sons, Inc., was covered.

Jack parked in the cul-de-sac and hurried into his father’s place.

His father was watching TV. Classic ESPN was running the 1980 Wimbledon slugfest between Borg and McEnroe. McEnroe was screaming at himself for missing a bullet passing shot.

He looked up at Jack and grinned. “Right about now I bet McEnroe wishes Borg had never been Bjorn.”

Normally Jack would have groaned, but a bad pun was a good sign. His father loved puns. He was getting back to normal.

He looked down at Jack’s muddy sneakers and still-wet jeans. “What happened to you?”

“Took a little boat trip.”

“You went boating? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have—”