“They’re going to try to get the coach off the Hummer,” I said to Hooker. “I’m going out for a better view.”

I was afraid to climb onto the car again. Too many lights now. Too many people looking around. So I stood beside the SUV with my sweatshirt hood up and my hands in my pockets, hunched against the cold.

After a lot of discussion, the tow-truck driver attached a chain to the coach and slowly winched it back. The rear on the Hummer had been squashed down to about three feet of compressed fiberglass and steel, so the coach didn’t actually have all that far to drop. It came off with a decent amount of grinding noise and a loud wump when it hit the ground. It bounced and jiggled a little, and then it went stoic, silently enduring its disgraced condition.

Now that the motor coach was off the Hummer, it was easy to see how Rodriguez had escaped. The right front had taken the biggest hit, and the shell of the coach had completely peeled back, leaving a gaping hole where the door used to be. Rodriguez had probably gotten yanked out of his seat and then found that the handrail had broken free of its moorings.

Hooker had his head out. “What’s going on?”

“They pulled the coach off the Hummer. And now I think they’re going in to investigate. Probably want to make sure no one’s inside.”

Hooker pulled his head back into the SUV and slunk down. They were about to discover poor Bernie Miller in the motor-coach bedroom. And he wasn’t exactly Sleeping Beauty.

I watched two cops enter with flashlights. Long moments passed while I held my breath. The cops came out and stood beside the bus. One was on his talkie. More cops came over. Some suits pushed through the crowd. A uniform unrolled yellow crime scene tape, securing the area around the bus.

I leaned into the SUV. “They found him,” I whispered to Hooker.

Hooker looked at me. “Why are you whispering?”

“It’s too horrible to say out loud.”

An unmarked cop car with its Kojak light flashing cut through traffic and eased up to the outer perimeter of the smashed cars. Two suits got out, followed by Spanky and Delores. They all power-walked to the bus, and even from my distance, I could see Spanky’s eyes go wide. He stopped and stared, mouth agape, arms dangling at his sides. If I’d been closer, I’m sure I could have seen the blood drain from his face and his breathing get shallow. He swayed slightly, and one of the cops moved him forward, toward the coach. They got to the door and stood talking. One of the cops was gesturing at the coach, and Spanky was appearing to listen, but I suspected nothing was registering in his brain.

I popped back into the SUV and grabbed a bag from the back. “I have my binoculars in here somewhere,” I said to Hooker. “I need to see this. I think they’re going to take Spanky into the coach. I bet they want him to ID the body!”

Hooker put his hood up and pulled the drawstring. “No way I’m going to miss this.”

I found the binoculars, and we both got out and stood beside the SUV. Spanky was obviously inside the coach with the police. Delores was at a slight distance, flanked by two uniforms. A news helicopter hovered overhead, and a mobile satellite truck from one of the Charlotte stations crept up to the tangle of cars.

I had the binoculars trained on the hole where the door used to be, waiting for Spanky to appear. A cop came into view first, then Spanky. A normal person would be horrified by finding his spotter dead on his bed. And Bernie was especially horrifying since we’d dug him up. On the heels of the horror, you’d expect sadness or at least a solemn respect for the dead. Spanky, true to form, was pissed off. And it would seem he wasn’t pissed off because someone had killed Bernie. Spanky was pissed because his coach was ruined. I’m not a professional at reading lips, but this was easy. Spanky was in a rage, stomping around, hands on hips, screaming the f word, his face brick red, the cords standing out in his neck.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He threw his hands into the air and pointed at his trashed motor coach. “How the fuck did this happen? Who fucking did this? Do you know how much this fucking coach cost?” he asked a cop.

He was pacing and gesturing and somehow our eyes caught. I saw recognition register. For a long moment he seemed in suspended animation. Not sure what to think. Not sure what to do. Finally, he snapped his mouth shut, turned on his heel, and stalked back to the unmarked cop car. He pulled the door open and rammed himself into the backseat. Delores minced over in her high-heeled boots. The two plainclothes cops followed, looking like maybe they should check their bullets at the door so they wouldn’t be tempted to shoot Spanky.

“This might be a good time to try to leave,” I said to Hooker. “I think Spanky spotted us.”

The traffic wasn’t moving forward yet, but some cars had crossed the median and some SUVs had done the all-terrain thing and rumbled over curbs and climbed embankments to reach intersecting parking lots and ultimately other roads. The traffic jam wasn’t nearly as dense as it had originally been, and Hooker was able to work his way through the pack and go off-road.

The SUV lumbered over hill and dale, and as luck would have it, ended up at a fast-food joint. We bought a bag of food, stopped at a neighboring gas station and filled up, bought more food at the gas station convenience store, and skulked away.

Hooker drove north out of habit. We couldn’t go back to the warehouse. We were afraid to check into a motel. We didn’t want to involve friends. So we parked in a supermarket lot and fed Beans and started eating our way through a bag of doughnuts. I was on my second doughnut when Hooker’s phone rang. It was Spanky, and Hooker didn’t need to use the speakerphone function for me to hear. Spanky was yelling into the phone.

“You sonovabitch,” Spanky yelled. “I know you’re responsible for all of this. I saw you sitting there watching. You think this is funny, don’t you? You did this just to ruin my week. You knew I had a new motor coach that was better than yours. So you had it wrecked. And it wasn’t enough to waste Oscar and your poor retard rent-a-cop, you had to leave Bernie in my bed. You are such a dumb sick fuck.”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Hooker said. “You think I killed three men and arranged to have your motor coach trashed because why?”

“Because you’re jealous of me. You can’t stand that I won the championship. And I know you put Oscar in my new truck, too. I’m gonna get you for this. You better watch your ass.”

Hooker disconnected. “Spanky’s an idiot.”

Hooker’s phone rang again.

“Uh-huh,” Hooker said. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.”

“Now what?” I asked when he was done.

“Skippy calling back. He wanted to remind me that the banquet was black tie.”

“It’s Sunday, and the banquet is Friday. There’s no way.”

“Obviously you’ve never been called into the NASCAR hauler after a race you just screwed up and had to face Skippy. Remember the time I flipped Junior the bird on national television? And the time I got pissed off and punted Shrub into the wall and caused a seven-car wreck? Trust me, we’ll make the banquet.”

“Where are we going?” I asked Hooker. “Where are we going to sleep tonight?”

“I thought I’d go to Kannapolis. I figure they won’t look for us there. No one intentionally goes to Kannapolis.”

“This is it?” I asked Hooker. “This is where we’re going to spend the night?”

“You don’t like it?”

“We’re parked in front of a house.”

“Yeah, we’re tucked between a bunch of cars that belong here. We’re invisible. And my buddy Ralph lives two houses down. He lives alone in one of these ramshackle little houses, and he’ll leave for work tomorrow at six in the morning. And he never locks his house. Got nothing worth taking, if you don’t count a fridge full of Bud. So we can go in and use his bathroom and not get busted.”