The phone on the deputy’s desk rang, not once but four times. But Sanders made no move to answer. Stiles was just about to reach for it himself when the kid motioned toward Larson’s office. “He’ll get it.” Then the phone stopped ringing. “See what I mean?” He went back to his True Detective, at least until the marshal’s bassoon of a voice rattled the closed office door.

“Rusty!” he called. “Someone saw an abandoned car out by the Tunnel. Go check it out.”

Stiles’s blood went cold. The Tunnel.

“Aw, shit,” Sanders muttered, dropping the magazine onto his lap. “Hey, Dutch,” he yelled back, “somebody probably just went home with someone else, you know? They leave ’em there all the time. Why don’t we wait till—”

“Goddamn it, Rusty, do I have to come out there! What the hell do I pay you for? Now get your goddamn nose out of that goddamn magazine and don’t let the door hit you in the ass!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rusty sniped under his breath. He stood with an exaggerated sigh, as if it were the hardest thing he had done all day (and it may well have been), then picked a jacket and cap from the coat rack by the door. Last came his own reflective sunglasses, completing the “uniform.” It all must have given him a false sense of authority; he turned and noticed Stiles still standing there, and he actually muttered, “What are you looking at?”

The soldier barely controlled his laughter. “Nothing, friend. I was just about to get my tools.”

Sanders smirked. He started out the door, then went back and snatched the magazine from his desk before leaving.

An abandoned car? Near Danner land? It had to be a coincidence, Stiles thought. Didn’t it? He had to be sure. So he followed the deputy outside and started for the van even as he watched him climb into the squad car at the curb. But when he looked back he realized he needn’t hurry. Sanders had his True Detective propped against the steering wheel and was still reading.