It appeared that Ruby Sink had been sitting behind the wheel, elbows raised, hands under something, perhaps her face, when she had been shot execution style. Then the killer had climbed out of the car, and Miss Sink’s body had slumped over on the passenger’s seat where she had bled very briefly before dying.

“The bastard,” West said. “Doing that in front of a baby. For two hundred fucking bucks. Goddamn son of a bitch.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Wills warned her, as if West had sat behind a desk all her life.

West checked her temper. She was tired of being treated like an interloper, like an idiot, when it hadn’t been so long ago that she was regarded with respect and even friendliness by a department a lot bigger and better than this one.

She stepped back from the car, looking around, hot and impatient in her smudged suit. The perimeter behind Kmart was secured by yellow crime-scene tape and West had no intention of letting anyone in anytime soon, and this included drivers making deliveries to the department store.

“Where’s the truck?” West was all business. “I don’t like this. Everybody’s flown the coop and other than the body, the car is the most important piece of evidence.”

“I wouldn’t sweat it too much,” Wills said. “This thing’s a pigpen of prints. They could be anybody’s, depending on how many people have been inside it, outside it, whatever. Most will probably be hers.”

“Some will be his,” West said. “This guy doesn’t wear gloves. He doesn’t care if he leaves spit, hairs, blood, seminal fluid because he’s probably some fucking piece of shit who’s just got out of some juvenile training school and all his records have been destroyed to protect his precious confidentiality.”

“Hey, Bates,” Wills called to her partner, “make sure you get the trunk good around the lock. In case he went in there.”

“I’m way ahead of ya.”

West got on her radio and requested an officer to guard the crime scene. She got back in her car and drove around to the front of Kmart. The parking lot was full of shoppers looking for a deal. A few of them were standing in front of the store, staring at First Union Bank and speculating in hushed, excited voices. Most were inside, probably pushing carts up and down aisles, oblivious.

West pulled up to the bank and was surprised to see that Hammer was still talking to Bubba, both of them standing in the bright sun. West got out and walked toward them. She slowed her pace when the stench reached her. She stared at Bubba’s camouflage.

“Certainly I think it’s a good idea for citizens to get involved,” Hammer was saying to Bubba. “But within limits. I don’t want our volunteer police carrying guns, Mr. Fluck.”

“Then a lot of us won’t do it,” he let her know.

“There are other ways to help.”

“What about pepper spray or tactical batons? Could they carry those?”