“Right,” Larry mumbled.
Hix took him in, noting the frustration and exhaustion written plain all over him, before ordering, “It’s been a long day, man. Go home. After you get back from Faith’s in the morning, we’ll have a team brief and get back on it.”
“Yeah,” Larry replied, looked at Lance and said, “Thanks, bud.”
“My job,” Lance murmured.
He glanced at them both and took off, his shoulders drooping, the weight of the day weighing visible and heavy.
Hix and Lance watched him go, and when he disappeared, Lance spoke.
“You get anything?”
Hix turned back to the coroner. “Nothin’. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. No lock on the truck. No crime scene found. Rain stopped, still couldn’t find dick. Talked to his boss. Talked to the men who worked under him. Talked to his friends. Canvassed that road. Canvassed his neighborhood. Outside of everyone bein’ anything from pissed as shit a good man’s dead to dissolving into tears a good man’s dead, we got dick.”
“Forensics get anything?” Lance queried.
Hix shook his head. “No footprints. No tire tracks. Can’t even tell a person walked out there carrying a body, rain beatin’ down the grass and game goin’ through that area. Might not be lookin’ for a criminal mastermind, but my hunch says it’s someone who knows the area, since they took him to that spot. That still doesn’t give us shit. Any hunter or outdoorsman can spot a game trail in his search for a dump site. There’s no motive. No witnesses. My only guess is, we can’t find that truck, someone wanted it. But it was a five-year-old Ford F150 that wasn’t top of the line when Calloway bought it. Not a pimped-out ride that would garner attention or envy. So if he was done for that truck, the person who did it was either desperate, whacked out or just an asshole.”
“No truck, you reckon you got two people to look for?” Lance asked. “Person would have to have their own vehicle and you haven’t mentioned another set of wheels. That road is dusty, but someone’d notice an abandoned vehicle, and then they’d notice Calloway’s truck if the shooter had to leave it to go back and deal with his own car.”
“Either that or we got a drifter with a gun who knows the area and is strong enough to heft around a five foot eleven, one hundred and seventy-five pound body.”
Lance’s attention to Hix turned into scrutiny.
“He had sex, Hix. Could be the woman lured him, her man got him, one took his truck, the other took their car.”
“I’ve learned anyone can get up to anything in this world, Lance. But I’d be out-and-out shocked Nat Calloway scored himself some, got murdered after he did the deed, then got his cheating ass dumped in his own town. We spent all day yesterday essentially investigating that man and there wasn’t even a hint he had that in him. And we checked all that road, but if I had to wager, he was done close to Glossop, so for the sake of time and convenience he was dumped just outside of Glossop. But bottom line, there simply wasn’t enough time for him to get his rocks off and then get himself dead. So he was murdered close to home, unless the killer knew him, and out of some act of remorse, dumped him close to home. Or the murderer didn’t mean to kill him, and again out of an act of remorse, dumped him in a place he’d be found. But I’d stake my badge on the fact no woman was involved.”
“That happens,” Lance noted. “That kind of act of remorse.”
“Yup. And since we got nothin’, we’ve got nothin’ we can rule out.”
Lance looked to the table and back to Hix.
“This man a man who’d stop for someone who looked like he needed some help?” he asked.
“Yup,” Hix answered.
“So you gotta find that truck,” Lance said quietly.
“We gotta find that fuckin’ truck,” Hix replied.
Lance tipped his head to the side. “Wife hold it together?”
Hix clenched his teeth before he forced himself to release them but still had to bite out his, “Nope.”
“This guy’s twenty-eight, how old’s she?”
“Twenty-six and they got two kids, eight and five.”
“Shit,” Lance muttered.
“Yeah,” Hix agreed.
“She got kin close?”
Hix nodded. “Her sister, his sister and brother, all their folks. Before Larry and I left, his mother was there. As we were walkin’ out, the rest were descending.”
“Least she’s got support,” Lance muttered.
“Least she’s got that.”
Lance held his eyes. “Somethin’ll break, Hixon.”
Hix had worked as a detective for two years in crimes against persons at Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.
He and his partner had a good close rate.
They also had cases they couldn’t solve.
And from that first look he had of Faith Calloway’s face while she was sitting next to Larry’s desk yesterday, Hix knew the sour feeling in his gut was not only about what they were going to find when they found Nat Calloway.
It was the feeling that this was what they were going to get.
What appeared to be a random crime on a lonely stretch of road, the only reason behind it being stealing a man’s truck.
They had that rain that likely washed away evidence and time was not on their side.
Unless the person who did it felt compelled to walk into his station and make a confession, Hix had the very bad feeling that nothing was going to break in this case. He had four people on it all day, five when Bets came back to them, a forensics team, a coroner who’d already done his autopsy, and they didn’t have a single lead. They had no crime scene, no shell casings, no witnesses, one bullet, a dump site and a victim that it would seem no one had one single reason to want dead.
“Somethin’ll break, Hix,” Lance repeated into Hix’s thoughts, doing it more firmly this time, and Hix focused on him again.
“We’ll work to that,” Hix told him.
“Know you will. Now like you said to your deputy, it’s been a long day. Go home. Face this head on tomorrow,” Lance replied.
Hix gave him a nod, a low wave, and murmured, “Thanks, Lance.”
Lance nodded back.
Hix went out to his Ram, drove it to the station, parked it next to his Bronco and went in.
Ida was in dispatch.
He greeted her by lifting a hand and flicking out two fingers before he went right back to his office.
He’d ordered all his deputies home for a good night’s sleep so the place was deserted, lights on in his office as he’d left them, the rest of the lights were out, outside the ones they always left on over reception.
He sat at his desk, opened the file on it and spread out the photos Hal had printed out.
He looked them over. He looked them over again. He studied each one from corner to corner. Then he stood up, bent over them, unfocused his gaze and stared at them all at once.
Nothing jumped out at him.
They were just photos of a man, clothes and hair wet, face down, head turned to his left, right arm cocked and up, left arm caught under him, both legs arranged haphazardly like he’d fallen, put a hand out to stop his fall, but hit his head and went unconscious.