Calvin Wilcox watched without expression as I approached. I saw him flip aside his cigarette butt and then he leaned forward and turned off the radio. Up close, I could see he hadn’t shaved that morning, and the stubble along his jaw was a mixture of gray and faded red. With his ruddy complexion, his green cotton shirt made his eyes look luminous. As before, I felt I was looking at a version of Violet-same coloring, opposite sex, but electric nonetheless. “Looks like you pulled a rabbit out of a hat,” he said when I reached the open driver’s-side window. “How’d you come up with this?”

The question seemed ever so faintly hostile, but I smiled to show what a good sport I was. “I’d say ‘dumb luck’ but I don’t want to be accused of false modesty.”

“I’m serious.”

“Me, too.” I went through my standard explanation, trying a variation just to keep the story interesting. “Someone saw Violet’s car parked out here the night she disappeared. After that, it was never seen again so it dawned on me maybe it hadn’t gone anywhere. In retrospect, it seems dumb I didn’t twig to it before.”

“Who saw the car?”

I went through a lightning-quick debate with myself and decided naming Winston was a very bad idea. It was as Detective Nichols had said: the less information in circulation, the better. I waved the question aside. “I don’t remember offhand. It’s one of those things I heard in passing. What about you; how’d you hear about this?” I asked, indicating the excavation.

“I was listening to the radio on the way home from work when it came on the news. I called the sheriff’s office as soon as I got home.”

“Were you out here last night?”

“For a while. I wanted to see for myself, but the deputy wouldn’t let me get anywhere near. They knocked off at ten and said they’d be starting again this morning at six.”

“You have a guess about how long it would take to dig a hole that size? I’m talking way back when.”

“I don’t know the details. You’ll have to fill me in.”

“From the scuttlebutt yesterday, the guy made a long shallow ramp, eight feet wide and maybe fifteen feet at its deepest point. The back end of the car is buried at the bottom with the front on an incline about like this.” I held my arm out at roughly a thirty-degree angle.