I grabbed a shovel and the flashlight, and I followed Hooker back to the gravesite. I took a stance, rammed the shovel into the dirt and flung the dirt about ten feet to my side. I just kept ramming the shovel in and throwing the friggin’ dirt away. I looked up and found Hooker watching me.

“You keep digging like that and you’re going to rupture something,” Hooker said. “And you have that look on your face like your underwear’s riding up.”

“I’m wearing a thong. It’s always up.”

“Oh, man,” Hooker said. “I wish you hadn’t told me that. It’s all I’m going to be able to think about.”

“Then I’m happy to be able to supply a diversion, because the other things we have to think about aren’t pleasant.”

Actually, I was digging like a demon because I was furious. There was no justice in the world. This had all started out as a good deed, and good deeds weren’t supposed to end like this. Where’s the reward for being a good person? Where’s the satisfaction?

I plunged my shovel into the dirt and hit something solid. Not a rock. A rock would go chink. This hit with a muffled thud that caused my breath to catch in my chest. I pulled my shovel back and a ragged scrap of material clung to the shovel tip. My mind went numb, and I froze with the shovel a foot off the ground. Cold horror slid through my stomach, my pulse pounded in my ears, and it was lights out. I heard someone call to Hooker. I guess it was me.

When I regained consciousness, I was in the back of the SUV and Beans was standing over me panting. Hooker’s face hovered beside Beans’s big dog head. They both looked worried.

“I think I found Bernie,” I said to Hooker.

“I know. You turned white and went face-first into the mud. Scared the crap out of me. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Do I look okay?”

“Yeah. A little muddy, but we’ll get you cleaned up and you’ll be good as new. You can breathe through your nose, right?”

“Yeah. Now that we’ve found him, what should we do with him?”

“We have to move him,” Hooker said.

“No way! It’s so horrible. The rain, and the mud, and the body’s probably all wormy.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s too soon for maggots, but there are some real good night crawlers back there. Big suckers.”

The bells started clanging in my head again.

“I feel like a grave robber,” I whispered.

“Darlin’, we’re doing him a favor. He doesn’t want to be buried behind my shop. He didn’t like me. We’ll put him in a nice clean garbage bag and take him to a better place. We could even buy him flowers.”

“Flowers would be nice.”

I thought I saw Hooker roll his eyes, but I could be wrong. I was still sort of cobwebby.

“Stay here with Beans,” Hooker said. “I can finish up.”

I lay perfectly still, willing my head to clear. Beans flopped down next to me, warm and reassuring. When the feeling returned to my lips and my fingertips, I crawled out of the SUV. It was dark and still drizzling. No moon. No stars. No streetlights. Only degrees of blackness to differentiate between sky and building.

I heard Hooker before I saw him. He was dragging Bernie. And it looked like he had Bernie by the foot, although it was hard to tell since Bernie was bagged and wrapped with bungee cords.

“It’s sort of an odd shape for a body,” I said to Hooker.

“Yeah, I don’t know how he got like this. He had to have been folded up in the trunk when he went rigor-mortis central. Only thing I can figure is his arms popped out when he started to bloat.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth and told myself this wasn’t a good time to get hysterical. I could get hysterical later when I found a bathroom and I could drown out my screaming by flushing the toilet.

Beans was dancing around in the back of the SUV, barking, eyes focused on Bernie.

“We can’t put him in the back,” I said to Hooker. “Beans will want to play with him.”

We looked up at the roof rack, and then we looked over at Bernie. He was all odd angles inside the shiny black plastic bags.

“He’s heavy,” Hooker said. “You’re going to have to help me get him up there.”

I gingerly felt the bag.

“I think that’s his head,” Hooker said. “Maybe it would be better if you came over here and took his foot.”

I clenched my teeth and grabbed what I hoped was a foot, and after a lot of maneuvering we got Bernie onto the roof rack. Not sure we could have done it if he wasn’t so stiff. Hooker secured the body with the bungee cords, and we both stepped back.

“That’s not so bad,” Hooker said. “You wouldn’t know it was a body. It looks like we wrapped up a bicycle or something. See, doesn’t it look like he’s got handlebars?”

I clapped my hand over my mouth again.

Hooker tossed the shovels into the back of the SUV and closed the door. “Let’s roll.”

Ten minutes later we were still rolling without incident. The garbage bags were rattling in the wind as we drove, but the bungee cords were holding. We were taking the scenic route, avoiding the highway, Hooker reasoning that it would be easier to retrieve Bernie if he blew off the roof on a country road.

“Where are we going?” I asked Hooker.

“Back to Concord. My original plan was to leave him someplace where he was sure to be found. On the doorstep to Huevo corporate, or maybe take him back to his house. But now I’m thinking I don’t want him found right away. With the kind of luck I’m having, Rodriguez and Lucca will be the ones to find him. And they’d probably rebury him in the same shallow grave. I don’t want to have to dig him up a second time.

“I’d still like to leave him on Huevo property, but someplace where he’d be on ice for a while. I was thinking we could leave him in a motor coach. We keep our coaches parked on shop property, hooked up to electric. The air runs all the time so the coach doesn’t get funky and the veneers stay nice. Huevo probably works the same way. We could put him in Spanky’s coach. Spanky won’t be using it until February. All we have to do is turn the temperature down.”

I stared at Hooker in openmouthed stupefaction.

“What?” Hooker said. “Do you have a better idea?”

The Huevo campus is huge. Acres of landscaped lawn and clusters of perfectly maintained, brilliant white, two-story blocky buildings that house the Huevo offices, cars, transporters, and shops that build the cars. We wound our way between the buildings to the transporter garage, and just as Hooker had predicted, six motor coaches were parked in stalls, hooked to electric. The coaches were dark, no lights burning, not even running lights. There were security floods on the buildings, but not a lot of the light reached to the bus lot.

Hooker parked, and we both got out and looked up at Bernie. He looked none the worse for the trip. His garbage bags were still intact.

“You take the bungee cords off, and I’ll get a towel,” I told Hooker. “I don’t want Bernie getting Spanky’s coach all wet.”

Motor coaches have keypad locks, but everyone in the drivers’ lot uses the same universal code. I was hoping that held true when the coaches were stored. I punched in the standard number of 0’s and blew out a sigh of relief when the door unlocked. I switched my flashlight on, went inside, and found my way to the rear bathroom. I grabbed a couple large towels, leaving one on the bed, taking the other with me.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Hooker said.

We tugged at Bernie, and he tumbled off. A lot easier to get him down than it had been to get him up. Hooker took what he thought was Bernie’s head, and I grabbed Bernie’s foot again, and we tried to wrestle him into the coach.

“The coach door is too narrow,” I said to Hooker after several attempts. “Try turning him again.”

“Darlin’, we’ve turned him every possible way.”

“It’s this thing sticking straight out. It must be his arm. It just doesn’t fit through the door.”