He was just emerging from the shower when he heard the phone ringing on his nightstand. He dove for it, stubbing his toe on the metal frame of his bed. “Goddamn!” he howled, tapping ACCEPT.

“Excuse me? I’m looking for Officer DeCurtis?” It was a man’s voice. Joe looked at the caller ID screen and saw a South Florida area code.

“Oh, sorry. This is Joe DeCurtis. Who’s this?”

“This is Chief Deputy Warren Davis, down here in Collier County. I’m just following up on a lead and I see your department has an outstanding warrant for a Charles Sheppard?”

“Who?” Joe sank down on the bed, examining his little toe, which was bleeding.

“Charles Sheppard. White male, age sixty-three. Wanted for theft by taking, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud. Your warrant is from 2014. Sound familiar? Looks like he and a couple associates had a racket going at a motel up there in Treasure Island. Buying estate silver and gold and jewelry and bilking senior citizens.”

“Chuck!” Joe exclaimed. “You mean Chuck Sheppard?” His toe was bleeding all over the floor. “Don’t tell me you caught up with that piece of shit.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say we caught up with him. Or what’s left of him,” the deputy said, chuckling at his own joke.

Joe padded into the bathroom, tore a piece of toilet paper off the roll, and wrapped it around his toe. “He’s dead?”

“Oh yeah,” the deputy drawled.

“When was this? What happened?”

“We found his remains four days ago, but we couldn’t identify him until yesterday. We were able to lift his fingerprints from the vehicle he was driving, and that’s when we found out his name and discovered the outstanding warrants.”

“How was he killed?”

“Somebody wanted us to think that he was killed in a car fire. His body was discovered on a county road down here, in a stolen vehicle, a 1998 Jeep Cherokee. The Jeep was smashed up and partially burned. We found your guy in the driver’s seat.”

“But he wasn’t killed in the wreck?”

“Probably not. Our medical examiner found a bullet lodged in his cerebellum.”

It took a moment for the finality of Chuck Sheppard’s death to sink in for Joe. “Does your medical examiner have any thoughts on when he was killed?”

“The body was in pretty bad shape. That road’s in a remote part of the county, way back in the swamp. It was discovered by a couple of hog hunters. Doc says rough estimate, death occurred about a week ago.”

“Well, damn,” Joe said, toweling his hair dry and looking around for his clothes. “I don’t suppose you have any suspects?”

“I was hoping you could help us with that,” the deputy said. “Since he had no ID on him, we don’t know where he was staying or what he was doing here.”