The road was still blocked to through traffic, but the deputy waved us past the barrier when Daisy identified herself. I’d apparently been given dispensation to accompany her. We parked the requisite twenty-five yards from the dig and got out of the car. The sagging yellow crime-scene tape trembled in the breeze with a light snapping sound. I recognized the faces from the day before: both crime-scene techs, Detective Nichols, the young deputy, and Tim Schaefer, who’d made himself a permanent fixture, although confined to the periphery like the rest of us. Despite the restrictions, we hovered on the sidelines as though magnetized. Conversations were restrained, and I noticed no laughter at all, unusual in a situation that generated an eerie tension of its own.

Judging by the mountain of dirt, I could tell that the hole had been considerably deepened, and the operation had shifted from machinery back to shoveling by hand. From our vantage point, there was nothing visible of the vehicle, but I gathered a narrow channel had been created on each side as additional sections of the car were exposed. Tom Padgett stood as close to the excavation as he could manage without risking arrest. His bulldozer was on call, as was a flatbed truck that had been brought over from the yard, and he was behaving as though this gave him proprietary rights, which perhaps it did. When he wasn’t focused on the excavation, he was chatting with Detective Nichols like an old pal of his.

Calvin Wilcox was parked behind Daisy, about twenty feet down the road. He’d arrived shortly after we had and he was sitting in a black pickup truck with his company name emblazoned on the sides. He smoked a cigarette, his left arm resting on the open windowsill. I could hear his radio blasting country music. Like Daisy, he was permitted at the site by reason of his relation to Violet. There was no interaction between the two of them, which struck me as odd. As far as I knew, Calvin was Daisy’s only uncle, and it seemed natural to assume they’d established a relationship over the years. Not so, judging by their manifest uninterest. Neither acknowledged the presence of the other by so much as a nod or a wave.

“What’s the deal with you and your uncle Calvin?”

“Nothing. We get along fine. Just no warm, fuzzy feelings between the two of us. When I was growing up, he and my aunt made very little effort to maintain contact. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my cousins, I doubt I’d recognize them.”

“Mind if I talk to him?”

“About what?”

“Just some questions I have.”

“Be my guest.”