He looked at me, put the can of soda down. “I just want to talk to you a little bit about Monteen Hopkins. My sister-in-law. The girl you think we found today.”

“I don’t need to know anything else about her.” It was better not to. I knew enough. I knew about her last moments on earth. That was as personal as you could get. “And I guarantee,” I added, since I have professional pride, “the body we found is Monteen Hopkins.”

He looked at his empty hands, big hands with golden hair on the backs. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he said, falling quiet for a minute. “Come on, let’s get a milk shake. I was the one who threw up at the site, and even my stomach is saying it needs something. So I know yours has got to be ready.”

I looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure him out. But he was a closed door to me, since he was among the living. Finally, I nodded.

My toenails weren’t quite dry, so despite the autumn bite in the air, I stepped into his truck barefoot. He seemed to find that amusing. Hollis Boxleitner was a husky man with a crooked nose, a broad face, and a smile full of gleaming white teeth, though at the moment he was far from smiling. His pale blond hair was smooth as glass.

“You always lived here in Sarne?” I asked, after we’d parked at the Sonic and he’d pressed the button to order two chocolate shakes.

“For ten years,” he said. “I moved here my last two years of high school, and I stayed. I had a couple years of community college, but I commuted to class after the first year.”

“Been married? Was that how Teenie was your sister-in-law?”

“Yes.”

I nodded acknowledgment. “Kids?”

“No.”

Maybe he’d known the marriage wouldn’t last.

“My wife was Monteen’s older sister,” he said. “My wife is dead.”

That was a shocker. I sighed. While Hollis paid for the shakes, I reflected that I was going to learn about Teenie Hopkins, whether I wanted to or not.

“I met Monteen when she was thirteen. I picked her up from outside a juke joint way out in the county, while I was on patrol. It was so obvious she was underage and had no business being there. She made a pass at me in the police car. She was totally out of hand. I met Sally when I took Monteen home to her mom’s house that night.” He was silent for a moment, remembering. “I liked Sally a lot, the first time I laid eyes on her. She was a regular girl, with a lot of sweetness in her. Teenie was wild as a razorback.”

“So the Teagues couldn’t have been that happy about their son dating her.”