The sheriff called me the next morning right before seven. Normally, I would’ve been out for a run, but the day after I both find a body and get through a storm is going to be a slow day. I peered at the clock before I lifted the receiver. “The body’s Teenie, the lab in Little Rock said,” he told me. He sounded tired, though it was early and he should just have risen from a night’s sleep. “Go pick up your check at Paul Edwards’s office.” He hung up. He didn’t say, “And never come here again,” but the words were hanging in the air.

Tolliver had just come in, dressed and ready for breakfast, his favorite meal. He looked at my face as I hung up the room phone.

“Blaming the messenger,” he said. “I guess it was a positive ID?”

I nodded. “I never understand that. You know, they ask me here to find the body. I find the body. Then they’re pissed at me, and they give me the check like I should have done the whole thing for free.”

He shrugged. “I guess we would do it for free if we could get a government grant or something.”

“Oh, sure, the government just loves me.” Paying taxes was excruciating—not because I minded giving the devil his due, but because accounting for my income was very difficult. I called myself a consultant. So far, I’d flown under the radar, but that would change sooner or later.

Tolliver grinned while I pulled on a T-shirt and a sweater. Since I’d planned today as a traveling day, I was wearing jeans. I don’t care much about clothes, except my blue jeans. I’m particular about them. This was my favorite pair, and they were worn thin in spots.

“We’ll stop by Edwards’s office and get the check on our way out of town.”

“We better cash it quick,” I said, speaking from bitter experience.

The motel phone rang again. We looked at each other. I picked it up.

“Miss Connelly,” said a woman. “Harper Connelly?”

“Yes?”

“This is Helen Hopkins. I’m Sally and Teenie’s momma. Can you come talk to me?” Hollis’s mother-in-law: Had he told her what I’d found at the cemetery?

I closed my eyes. I so didn’t want to do this. But this woman was the mother of two murdered women. “Yes ma’am, I guess so.”

She gave me her address and asked if I could come in a half hour. I told her it’d be an hour, but we’d be there.