TULLY’S SCRAP HAD been a fixture in the west hills for almost forty years. It was currently under the care of Caleb “Audi” Sayd, a twenty-eight-year-old dude whose ancestry might have once been Egyptian, but now he was pure California twang. He stood around six feet, a hundred eighty pounds, black hair, and dark eyes. His uniform of choice was low-rider jeans, a white T-shirt, and combat boots. He stood with his arms folded across his chest, his hands tucked under his armpits. He shook his head when Decker showed him the picture of Terry McLaughlin.

“Never seen her before,” Audi said.

“You’re sure?” Eliza Slaughter asked.

Audi hit the picture. “That face…I’d remember her if I saw her.”

They were standing in an ocean of junked, gutted, and flattened cars. Most of them hadn’t seen any road time in many a moon. The piece of metal that they were interested in was a gutted and compressed silver frame that gave hint to a Mercedes E550 in a former life. It had jumped out at Eliza like a frog on meth.

Decker viewed the hunk of metal. “What can you tell me about it? From the lack of rust, it looks like a new one.”

“It is new,” Audi said. “That got my attention. You don’t usually scrap a good car.”

“So you were suspicious,” Eliza asked.

“Of course I was suspicious. It wasn’t brought in by one of my main contacts.”

“Do you know who brought it in?”

“Never seen the guy before. But he had the pink slip and I checked it out with the DMV before I gave him an offer. It was all legit.”

“You have a name?” Decker asked.

“The paperwork’s in my office.” Audi pointed to a trailer. “Last name was Jones.”

“First name?”

“Don’t remember. Don’t know if I ever knew it.”

“What’d he look like?” Eliza asked.

“Dark complexion. Dark straight hair, brown eyes. Shorter and thinner than I am.”

“Hispanic?”

“Could be. He had a slight accent, but I couldn’t place it.”

“Mideastern?”

“No, ma’am, that I would be able to place.”

“When did he bring it in?”

“Uh, last Saturday or Sunday. I have the date.”

“Saturday or Sunday?” Decker asked.

“Yeah, it was over the weekend.”

That certainly threw a monkey wrench into Decker’s thinking. Now he was wondering if he even had the right car. “How was he dressed?”

“Like a mechanic—overalls, T-shirt. But his nails were clean. Hands were soft like he’d never done manual labor in his life. Odd, but hey, we’re always getting stories.”

“So what was his story?”

“Something about the car being a heap of bad memories with his ex-wife or girlfriend. It sounded like bull, but like I said, everything checked out with his ownership.”

“So you didn’t question?” Eliza asked.