Free A grave denied by Dana Stabenow Page B

fixer-upper stuff for Gary Drussell, some foundation work for the Hagbergs.”
     
    “Old Sam says you did some work on the
Freya
, too.”
     
    “Oh yeah, forgot about that. Last September, maybe? Old Sam had her in dry dock. He flew us both down.” Dandy grinned. “I like Cordova. It’s a great little town.”
     
    Translated into Dandyspeak, that meant one or more willing women per block.
     
    “Did Len socialize any?”
     
    “Not that I noticed. He was always on time for work, I remember that. It got to be really annoying after a while.” A sly grin appeared. “I oversleep a lot.”
     
    The grin creased his cheeks and lit his eyes and displayed a full set of white, even teeth to best advantage. He was a good-looking, well-spoken man, and not for the first time Kate wondered why she’d always been immune to his charm. She hadn’t even had a crush on him in high school like all the other girls. He had no focus, she thought, and no ambition beyond the next beer and the next girl.
     
    She wondered if there was any White Anglo-Saxon Protestant in her background. Certainly some ancestor had hardwired her with a respect for the work ethic that wouldn’t quit. The jury was still out on how grateful she was for it. “Anything else you can tell me?” she said. “What’d he do for fun? Who did he hang with? He ever married? Have a girlfriend? Did he read? Did he listen to music? What did he spend his money on?”
     
    “He never mentioned a wife or a girlfriend. Hell, I never saw him with a man friend. He didn’t like Megadeath. He did like Poison, or at least he liked ‘Something to Believe In’ when I played it. Asked me to play it again. He didn’t smoke. Never saw him drunk.” Dandy thought. “I don’t know, Kate, when it comes right down to it, Len Dreyer could’ve taught dull to a brick.” He looked over her shoulder to where Sally was standing at the bar, waiting on beer and flirting with Bart Grosdidier. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a previous engagement.”
     
    “Dandy.” She restrained him with one hand. “There’s nothing else you can tell me?”
     
    “No,” he said. “Nothing.”
     
    You’re lying to me, you miserable little shit, Kate thought. Should she warn him to keep his nose out of it, or not? Not, she decided. Riding herd on Dandy Mike wasn’t her job, and he wouldn’t listen to her anyway.
     
    She made it back to Bobby’s just as Dinah was pulling steaks off the barbecue.
     
    Bobby shoved a fistful of paper at Kate. “Brendan came through.”
     
    She looked at the first page. “Great,” she said with a sigh. “There are eleven Dreyers in the system. None of them are named Leonard.”
     
    “It would certainly be easier on you if he was on the lam, with a rap sheet a mile long,” Bobby agreed.
     
    Kate mumbled something that might have been “Oh, shut up,” and turned the page. “Okay,” she said after a minute. “This is weird. According to Brendan, Dreyer never had a driver’s license.” She paged through more of the pile. “And I don’t see a vehicle registration, either.” She looked at Bobby. “He must have had transportation. Any handyman has to have something to haul his tools around in.” She thought. “I seem to remember, what, a pickup, maybe?”
     
    Bobby frowned. “Yeah, he had a truck. Old Chevy, I think it was, a V8 crew cab with a long bed. A 1981, maybe? Maybe 1982. It might have been silver originally, but that might just have been the primer he was using to patch the rust.”
     
    Kate looked at Dinah. Dinah grinned. Men couldn’t tell you the color of a woman’s eyes they’d spent the previous night with but they never forgot a vehicle. She looked back at the paperwork. “He never applied for a hunting or a fishing license, either. No moose permits, no bear tags.”
     
    “Doesn’t mean he didn’t hunt and fish, Kate,” Bobby said very dryly.
     
    “No, but still.”
     
    “Not everyone hunts and fishes, either.