“It doesn’t quite square, does it?” she said, glancing through the case file again. “Mrs. Spearson, the wife of the man who found the body, said she was home most of the weekend and didn’t hear any cars on the road outside the house. She said she was quote ‘ninety-seven percent certain that no vehicle was on our road from Friday night to Monday morning’ other than her husband’s rig. Theirs is the only road in that area for miles.”

“Which tells us what?”

The longer Clark sat in this car, the more keenly did she recognize how underqualified she was to handle a murder case. The worry that had gripped her yesterday, in her interview with KT Staler, had only intensified.

“It tells us that either Mrs. Spearson is mistaken or whoever dumped the body didn’t take her road.”

“Or she’s concealing something,” Mayfield said.

Clark scanned the crime scene photos. Something in them was staring her in the face. “Does the lady have any motive for that? She’s not related to any of these boys.”

“Motive matters less than you think,” Mayfield said. “Half the time people don’t even know why they done something once they’ve done it. But. No—I don’t take Mrs. Spearson for a liar.”

“But that means the killer—”

“Killers. Possibly. Plural.”

“Killer or killers—if they murdered Dylan Whitley in Galveston that means they drove three hours with a corpse in their car to deposit it in the middle of absolute nowhere. Why? There’s a thousand places you could leave a body between Bentley and the coast.”

“Why drive the body back from the coast at all and risk its being found by some kid on the Highway Patrol pulling you over to fill up his quota?” asked Mayfield.

“And why would Dylan take off his shirt but still keep on his jacket?” Clark said.

Soon they were on a gravel road that ran straight along an ugly patch of hard coast. The waves were loud. The few small houses were battened up with storm shutters.

A prickling heat spread between the hairs of Clark’s scalp. This shoreline looked abandoned. It was easy to imagine that a murder committed in one of these boarded-up houses would never be heard.

Her phone spoke. “Your destination is on the right.”

The house at the address Floyd Tillery had given them was sided with ragged wood shingles, a yellow VW Bug turning to rust in the sandy grass. Someone had formed large peace signs over the windows with masking tape. “In case the wind cracks them?” Clark wondered aloud.

“Keep your weapon handy, Deputy.”

They went around back—Mayfield leading, Clark keeping an eye on the road. They saw nothing behind the house but ocean, pebbly sand and a little pier, barely more than a stick of wood jutting into the water. A fishing putter was lashed to the pier’s side. Was that a hole in its rusted hull or a trick of the light?

The prickling heat spread down her neck.