Escaping the booth, I retrieved a pair of latex cleaning gloves from under the cabinet and snapped them on before bringing the bag to the sink. I dumped the contents in the dry basin and recognition clicked. This outfit matched the one Ayer had worn in the surveillance video. No wonder they reeked. She hadn’t changed clothes between the time the footage was recorded and when she showed up at Edelweiss two weeks later.

I patted down the grimy pants, liberating a handful of receipts from gas stations and fast food joints from the pockets. Those I put in a pile on the counter. Armpit stains and a few crusted drops of brownish-red fluid were all the shirt had to offer. The light jacket held more receipts, some cash and a brochure for a new indoor shooting range. I set those aside too. The belt surrendered no clues, and the socks had holes in them.

Before I got ahead of myself, I retrieved my phone and began snapping pictures. All this evidence had to be returned to Mai, and I wanted reference material before that happened. I spread the clothes out on the floor, shooing the wolf away before he contaminated the evidence, but he was not to be shooed.

The threatening vibrations rising up his throat gave me pause. Maybe letting him supervise wasn’t the best idea I’d ever had. He pressed his nose hard against the shirt and blasted an exhale through his nose. He stared up at me, eyes dark with a message I was unable to decipher. Before I could stop him, he hiked his leg and hosed the garment.

Satisfied with his work, he plopped back down on the floor, belly on the laminate, head resting on his paws.

“What—?” I gaped at him. “Why—?”

The only piece of clothing not soaked in urine was a single sock.

“You are a bad, bad wolf,” I scolded him.

Nose wrinkling at the smell, I cataloged each item front and back. I even turned the socks inside out and searched for clues in the nap. All that got re-bagged and sealed up to help the stench dissipate.

Mai was not going to thank me for this.

The receipts were thankfully higher than his leg height. At this point my calf hurt too much to keep standing, so I scooped them off the counter and deposited them on the table. Those proved much more interesting. I grabbed my laptop and started mapping them by date and location. The path led straight from Wink, Texas to Butler, Tennessee and back.

Butler. That sounded familiar. I made a note then carried on documenting the crinkled slips of paper through photos and an expense list I broke into columns by fuel, food or other.

Finished with that task, I stuffed them back into the damp pants and sealed the bag for good. Isaac could do the honors and drop it off at the post office for me tomorrow.