He broke off with a single shake of his head. “Never mind. There’s no excuse for having left Ellie alone. So that’s why George wants to throw me through a wall, and Ellie doesn’t trust me. I’m actually surprised they came.”
“Oh.” Daisy blinked. “Wow.” Even as isolated as she was, she’d heard of the search and rescue leader who’d been killed by a drug dealer. She just hadn’t realized it had happened at George and Ellie’s house, or that Ellie had been Anderson King’s other victim that night. Daisy tried to process that information while thinking of something she could tell him that would erase Chris’s grim, guilty look. Before she could say anything else, though, she heard the rest of the group approaching. With a final, worried glance at Chris’s averted face, she turned toward Rory and Lou, sports drinks extended. Later, once she thought of the right words, she’d reassure him that Ellie’s injury wasn’t his fault. In the meantime, she offered him a sports drink, which he accepted with a small but genuine smile.
*
Sitting back with a sigh, Ellie patted her stomach. “There’s nothing like pigging out after working out. All the pleasure with none of that nasty guilt.”
“I hear you,” Lou agreed, grabbing another cookie. “Daisy, those biscuit things were awesome.”
“Thanks.” Daisy heard Chris grumble under his breath, and she held back a smile. Rather than the entire batch, Chris had managed to grab only two of the biscuits before the ravening horde had made them disappear.
“Now that our mouths aren’t full…” Lou regarded her half-eaten cookie and shrugged. “Well, now that most of us are done eating, can we talk about dead people?”
“I won’t be able to contribute,” Chris warned. “I’ll listen, but I can’t give out information about an active case.”
“Understood.” Callum gave him a brisk nod.
“Do you mind starting from the beginning?” Daisy asked, playing with the cap on her sports-drink bottle. “Lou gave me the basics the other day, but mostly we talked about my”—she made a face—“dead body.”
“What?” asked a chorus of voices, as almost everyone sitting around the dining room table stared at her.
Daisy flushed. “I saw someone putting…something into the back of a sheriff’s department SUV really early one morning. It ended up being a deputy who was hired to clear junk out of the empty house. His car was too small, so he used a sheriff’s department vehicle.” She turned to Chris. “Will you have any trouble with the deputy for getting him in trouble with the sheriff?”
“No.” Chris shook his head. “Rob said he didn’t tell Macavoy who’d reported seeing him.”
“Good.” She’d worried about it causing an issue, especially since Chris’s job could be a lot more dangerous if his backup was holding a grudge.
“Why was he moving junk at—what was it, Daisy? Three in the morning?” Lou asked.
“He’d just gotten off a swing shift.”
Callum’s grunt was skeptical as he looked at Chris. “How well do you know this guy?”
“Not that well,” Chris said, frowning thoughtfully. “He started last fall, so he’s still the new guy. He’s pretty quiet, keeps his head down. A lot of deputies don’t last a year out here, so it takes a while for them to…integrate, I guess. Why do you ask?”
“When you’re moving a bunch of junk, how do you carry it?” Callum asked instead of answering.
Lou made an amused sound. “Here we go with the Socratic method again.”
Ignoring her, he just waited for Chris to answer.
“Depends on what I’m moving. I’d try to make as few trips as possible. Big, heavy pieces, though, I’m going to have to move one at a time.”
“Small stuff, I’ll throw in a box or wheelbarrow.” George’s contribution made everyone jump. Daisy was pretty sure that was the first time she’d heard the man speak.
Callum nodded. “This guy was carrying something wrapped in a tarp, right, Daisy?”
She sat up straight in her chair. Callum’s stern tone made her feel like she was back in school being called on by the teacher. “Yes.”
“If you’re using a tarp, let’s say in place of Holloway’s box, how do you load up the junk?”
It was Ian’s turn to contribute. “I’d stretch the tarp out flat, pile everything in the middle, and wrap it up like Santa’s bag of toys.”
Turning to Daisy again, Callum asked, “Is that how he was carrying it?”
“No.” The image was still clear in her mind. “It was rolled, like a rug or a burrito. The ends were open, since the boot fell out of the bottom.”