Dead Float by Warren C Easley

catch. The others laughed. “What’s it worth to you?”
    I sensed they knew something, so I didn’t hesitate. “Ten bucks a piece, but I don’t want any bullshit.” To prove good faith, I pulled my wallet from my back pocket, took out two twenty-dollar bills and placed them in my shirt pocket. Then I took out my pen and notebook and knelt down in front of them. “So what’d you see last night?”
    â€œWe was sittin’ right here havin’ a brew.” The other boys chuckled at this. “This dude pulls up and parks under those trees across the street, way back where you can’t see his car. We’re quiet, thinkin’ maybe he’s a cop or something. He locks up and heads up the road toward the tracks.”
    â€œWhat time was it?”
    â€œAbout ten-thirty.”
    â€œWhat did he look like?”
    â€œCouldn’t see much, man. The dude was pretty tall. Dressed in jeans and a black hoodie.”
    â€œTaller than me?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œWhat else did you notice about him?”
    â€œUh, he had his hood up and was carrying some kind of backpack.”
    â€œWhite guy?”
    â€œYeah, I think so.”
    â€œWhat kind of car?”
    â€œF-150 pickup, man. Nice ride,” he said with a sly smile. The other boys started giggling at this. The boy who was speaking shushed them and dropped the smile.
    I probed with several more questions, trying to squeeze out more details. But it was clear that was about all I was going to get, so I handed over the two twenties. I was also pretty sure that the boys had taken the Ford F-150 for a joy ride, but I didn’t go down that path for fear of scaring them off. Their spokesman willingly gave me his name, Oliver Dan. I was right, they lived on the rez. My first witnesses.
    The impact of the day’s events had finally caught up with me. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open and my car on the road. I decided to head back to the motel in Madras rather than press on to Dundee. I was exhausted, but at the same time I felt a flicker of excitement. I was pretty sure I’d figured out how the killer had come and gone at Whiskey Dick, and I had a sketchy description of him. Not a bad evening’s work. I would tell Escalante and Dorn about what I’d learned, but I didn’t hold out much hope that they’d buy it. I’d worked with a lot of investigators, and I knew they usually took the path of least resistance. I had no reason to think these detectives would be any different.
    I thought about that bled-out corpse with the slashed neck and vacant eyes that had been Hal Bruckner. A cold shadow passed over my heart. At the same time, I had a sense of anticipation. It was a little like the feeling I get after a good cast. The fly settles into a dead float, and I wait with the knowledge that something is about to play out.

Chapter Fifteen
    The only act I managed to perform before falling into bed back at the motel was to set my alarm for six a.m. I wanted to get an early start back to Dundee. The next morning broke cloudy and decidedly cooler, and when I arrived at Pritchard’s Animal Care Center to pick up Archie, a light mist was falling. Pritchard’s Saab 900T convertible was parked around back. The classic Saab was in mint condition—the only conspicuous concession to consumerism my friend allowed himself.
    Hiram Pritchard was an intellectual, a vegan, and a passionate champion of animal rights. He told me once he’d been thrown out of Johns Hopkins Medical School in his fourth year for an incident involving the “liberation” of some rhesus monkeys being used for medical research, but I never got the whole story. He was tall and lanky with pale, freckled skin, and a receding hairline that served to magnify an already large forehead. He had a long, thin nose and gray eyes that usually twinkled above a crooked, affable smile.
    â€œSo, the great white