“We’re glad you did,” the sheriff says. “What kind of work did he have done?”
“Well, that’s the thing. He had the front end reinforced with a steel plate. We don’t get requests like that every day so it kind of stuck out.”
“Did he say why?” I ask.
“Said he had this old stump he needed pushed out of the way.” He scratches his head. “Anyone with a brain knows you don’t use the front of your truck for that. You burn it or grind it or get a backhoe after it, but you don’t use your damn bumper. To tell you the truth, he didn’t look like the stump-pullin’ type.”
“You get a name?” Rasmussen asks.
“I got everything.” Giving us some Groucho Marx eyebrow action, he motions toward the office. “Pulled the invoice ’fore I called. Come on in and I’ll show you.”
Rasmussen and I follow him to the house. He takes us up the steps, across the porch, and through the entrance, the old screen door banging shut behind us. The office is small with dirty linoleum floors, a ragtag sofa set against the wall, and a chest-high counter that looks as if it came from some highway roadhouse that got shut down by the health department. I glance at the man behind the counter and do a double take. He’s an exact duplicate of Bob Voss, replete with a matching crew cut, bib overalls, and the SUV-size gut. He gives me a gotcha grin and I notice the only difference is that the man behind the counter is missing a lower tooth in the front.
The two men giggle like schoolgirls and I realize this is an entertaining moment for them. “I’m Billy Voss,” the look-alike says, moving toward us, his hand outstretched.
“D’you see the look on her face?” Chuckling, Bob Voss wipes his eyes with a white kerchief.
“I guess your customers keep you two pretty amused,” Rasmussen says, and I realize his sense of humor is the first thing to go when he’s sleep deprived.
“You guys are twins?” I ask.
“Born ten minutes apart,” Billy tells us as he slides a folder from the top of the file cabinet. “I got the brains, he got the looks.”
Bob pours coffee into a nasty-looking mug. “You guys want some lead?”
Rasmussen and I decline.
“What can you tell us about this customer?” I ask.
“Nice looking young fella.” Billy sets the folder on the counter and opens it.
Inside, I see a yellow sheet of paper from a legal pad that’s scribbled with notes, and a generic-looking invoice that’s filled out with blue ink.
Billy turns the invoice around, so we don’t have to read it upside down and slides it toward us.
Date: August 25
Name: Howard Barnes
Address: 345 West Fourth St. Killbuck
Phone: 885-5452
Estimate for Repair Costs: Material: $92.00 Labor: $300.00 Total = $392.00
Make and model of vehicle: Gry 1996 Ford F-250 Plate # DHA3709
Description: Reinforce front end ? inch steel 18" × 32"
For the span of several minutes, the only sound comes from an old Led Zeppelin song, “When the Levee Breaks,” oozing from a sleek sound system set up on a TV tray behind the counter.
“Which one of you talked to this guy?” Rasmussen asks.
“I did,” says Bob.
Listening to the conversation with half an ear, I unclip my cell and hit the speed dial for dispatch. Lois picks up on the first ring. “I need a ten twelve,” I say.
“Go ahead.”
“David, Henry, Adam, three, seven, zero, niner.” I hear keys clicking on the other end as she enters the tag number into the BMV database.
“That’s weird,” Lois says. “You sure that tag number is right, Chief?” She reads it back to me.
I glance at the invoice. “That’s it.”
“According to BMV, that number doesn’t exist.”
“Well shit.” I get a prickly sensation on the back of my neck. “Give me a ten twenty-nine on Howard Barnes.” I spell both the first and last names for her.
“Stand by.”
Computer keys click. While she checks for wanted and warrants, I turn my attention to Bob Voss. “Did you happen to take a look at his driver’s license?”
The old man stares at me, blinking, guilty. I feel Rasmussen’s eyes on me, but I don’t look at him.
“Well, no,” Bob says. “We generally don’t check.”
I say to Rasmussen, “Tag number is bogus.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrow. “That’s interesting as hell.”
I turn my attention to Bob. “How did he pay?”
Bill pulls the invoice to him, lowers the cheaters from his crown, and points to a checkmarked box on the form. “Cash.”
“That’s a lot of cash for someone to carry around,” Rasmussen says.
“You sure about the make and model of the truck?” I ask.
Voss nods. “That I am. I know trucks, and I saw it myself.”
“Short or long bed?”
He grimaces, shakes his head. “I don’t recall.”
“Chief?” comes Lois’s voice over the phone.
I turn my attention back to the call. “What do you have?”
“Nothing coming back on Howard Barnes.”
“You mean nothing as in he hasn’t killed anyone lately? Or that he’s not in the system?”
“Not in the system. You got a middle initial?”