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“You just said you’re divorced.”
“Why do you want to know? Could it be you’re interested in little old me?”
She almost smiled. He was as outrageous as always.
“I don’t kiss and tell, but yes, I know what you’re thinking. I can see it. That jealous female thing mixed with a kind of intuition. You think Tanner and I might’ve shared a few women. Not together. Just . . . working out of the same black book.”
Delta hadn’t really gotten that far in her thinking, but she didn’t want him to know that. “Did you?”
His grin widened. “We mighta . . . hit a few gentleman’s clubs, y’know.”
Delta recalled catching Tanner in a lie and learning he’d gone to an adult club with someone. Probably Woody, she saw now. She recalled her husband grinning at her and saying, “The devil made me do it.” A favorite line.
“Who’s this confidante you shared with Tanner? Maybe she knows something about my husband’s murder,” Delta said.
“Tell McCrae to come and talk to me. I have a few things to say he might be interested in.”
“About Tanner?”
“About West Knoll High School. It’s not just about the students, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
He hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “Timmons had his tongue hanging on the ground for all the girls.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I know a horndog when I see one. Maybe he hid it from you, but it was there. I know Zora married him for the bucks, but he married her because he couldn’t get the one he really wanted. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
The phone on the counter started ringing, and Woody gave it a sidelong look. He reached for it, and over his shoulder, he said, “Nice seeing you, Delta. Stay safe.”
* * *
McCrae bumped along the Crassleys’ weed-choked drive a second time. He had no warrant, but he didn’t plan on going inside the house again. Instead he pulled to a stop outside of the yard with the parked jalopies and, ignoring the baying dogs, opened the gate and walked in.
He’d just passed by the first row of dust-shrouded vehicles when Booker and Harry poured out of the house and started yelling.
“What the fuck you doin’? Get the hell off our property!” Booker screamed.
“I’m getting the shotgun,” Harry snapped, but he didn’t move.
McCrae kept a careful eye on them as he wandered among the rust buckets. He’d be surprised if any of them worked. The sun was beating on them, refracting heat off the metal in waves.
Booker and Harry were poised, waiting for McCrae to do something.
Then he saw the faded red hood of the car with the truck back. “El Camino,” he marveled, reading its name in the metal script that was still in place. If the guy at the bar was right—and he had no reason to doubt him—the vehicle was a 1987 model or earlier.
“What the fuck you doin’?” Booker repeated in a low growl as McCrae brushed past them and back to the Trailblazer.
McCrae turned around and left. He didn’t think the two morons realized what he was looking for, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. He pulled his cell from his pocket and placed a call.
“Quin,” he said into the man’s voice mail, wishing he were there to pick up. “There’s a car at the Crassleys that I need to bring in as evidence. El Camino. Faded red hood.” He debated about saying more, but if this was the car outside Lundeen’s the night Bailey and Penske were shot, the one where the driver stopped to talk to the guy Tracy thought was keeping tabs on them . . . then he couldn’t afford for it to disappear. Tracy might not be the liar people had accused her of being. So far, she was batting a thousand. And the burner phone . . . the “job” Penske was doing . . . it didn’t add up to murder/suicide any way you cut it.
He was almost to the station when Delta called. Surprised, he answered, “Chris McCrae.”
“Hi,” she said diffidently. “I just thought I should let you know that I . . . uh . . . went to see Woody, and he said I should have you call him. I guess he thought I had a direct line to the cops.”
“You went to see Woody?”
