He smiles at me.

Sheriff looks at me and I turn to leave.

“When they turn up,” Dan calls out, looking up from my card, “tell Merritt that I’ve got some dough for the live edge dining table.”

As the sheriff backs up the car to turn around, he glances at me with a sheepish grin.

“Don’t say anything,” I say.

He does anyway.

“You like him,” he says.

I ignore his remark.

“Let’s get going.”

Twenty

I’m on edge. Teetering. When it comes to gut feelings as I work a case, I’m not infallible. I’ve been wrong a few times. Two, in fact. This one, however, I know what I know inside. I just need confirmation because the law requires it. I’m learning how to follow the rules, something I avoided completely when I was younger. I look at the dead, black mirror of my phone. I want to see the DNA results to confirm who Jane Doe is.

Even though I know who it is.

“How do people live out here without phones that work?” I ask as we pull away from Dan Miller’s place on our way to the Torrance property.

Sheriff pops another cherry candy into his mouth.

“Waiting on those reports?”

He reads me. He is the only one who can. Though only as much as I allow.

“Of course. We’ll need the warrant right away.”

“Theory?” he asks.

“It’s all about the claw hammer. I think that Merritt Wheaton killed Ida and wrapped her up in the carpet.”

“Where? In his workshop in the Quonset hut, or in the barn?”

I nod. “She was hit in the back of the head. Had to be at home. No one carries a hammer around.”

“Carpenters do.”

I make an annoyed face. “I guess so. But not this control freak. He’s going to kill her where no one can hear or see anything.”

“Motive?”

He’s lobbing the easy ones at me. I answer anyway.

“Like I said, control freak. You heard Dan. He said Ida was pushing back on her duties, I guess. They come from a fundamentalist sect that, as far as I can tell, is their own invention. No church that I can find. After spending time with Ida’s sister Ruth, I definitely got a Children of the Corn vibe.”

He smiles at the reference.

“There,” I point, “that’s the Torrance place. Pull in there.”

“You sure?”

I look at the plat map. “Yes. And by the looks of it, this driveway is about a mile long.”

“More like a road, than driveway,” he says.

“Apparently that’s the way they like it out here.”

The road, or whatever it is, is deeply rutted. No effort has been made to stabilize its surface. Sheriff expertly navigates the deep dips. He slows to cross a pool of mud and water.

“Shouldn’t have had my car washed yesterday,” he says.