Free Doing Hard Time by Stuart Woods Page A

“No, I was home with my sick wife most of last week. If my nephew Bobby didn’t see them, Billy Burnett might have.”
    “That’s what Bobby told me. He also said that Billy moved on late last week. Do you have any idea where he went? I’d like to talk to him.”
    “No, he just said he had a lot of country to see. He had recently sold his business in New York State and retired. He happened to land here, looking for fuel, and we got to talking, had lunch together. He knew his way around cars and machinery, and I invited him home for supper and asked if he’d like to work for me for a while. He did, but he never would take any money.”
    “Do you have his address or a phone number?”
    “I don’t think he has an address anymore, but I think I have his cell phone number in the office. Come on, and I’ll see if I can find it.”
    “Mr. Fields, before we go, can you tell me what that is?” He pointed to the big indentation in the desert soil.
    “Never seen that before,” Fields replied. “Looks like something heavy must have made it.”
    “Or maybe there was a hole dug, then refilled.”
    “Could be that, too,” Fields agreed.
    “Is that your backhoe in the building next to your shop?”
    “Yes, I’ve got a little equipment-rental business.”
    “Did Billy Burnett know how to operate a backhoe?”
    “Might’ve. He was handy with machinery.”
    “Do you think he might have used your backhoe to bury something out here?”
    Fields looked at the indentation, then back at Igor. “What, exactly, are you getting at?”
    Igor didn’t speak for a moment.
    “You mean, like a Lincoln Navigator?”
    “It seems like a possibility.”
    “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” Fields said. “Why would Billy do a thing like that?”
    “I don’t know,” Igor said honestly. “Do you, by any chance, have a metal detector?”
    “No, I don’t, and I don’t know where you’d find a thing like that. I mean, this area isn’t exactly a Civil War battlefield. You’re not going to find any old bayonets out here.”
    “Mr. Fields, you say you rent equipment. Could I rent your backhoe for an hour or two?”
    “Do you know how to operate a backhoe?”
    “No, sir, but I expect you do.”
    Fields looked at the indentation, then back at Igor. “It’s a hundred dollars an hour, plus operator,” he said.
    Igor produced some bills, peeled off five hundred dollars, and offered it to Fields. “Will that do it?”
    “Yessir, it will,” Fields said, pocketing the money. “Hang on a minute, I’ll go crank up the backhoe. You’ve got me interested, now. I’ll get Billy’s number for you, too.”
    “Thank you, sir.” Igor stood and stared at the indentation. Ten minutes later, he heard the backhoe coming.
    Fields stopped and handed him a slip of paper. “There’s Billy Burnett’s cell number. You want this whole area dug up?”
    “I think just a trench down the middle would do it,” Igor replied.
    • • •
    A little under an hour later, the scoop of the backhoe struck something hard, making a noise.
    “Sounds like metal,” Fields said, climbing down from the backhoe and taking a shovel out of the toolbox bolted to the side. He walked into the trench and started digging.
    Igor followed him. “Here, let me do that,” he said. He took the shovel from the older man and started a new trench within the old one. Soon, he had a hole two feet by three. “What do you make of that?” he asked Fields, nodding at the hole.
    Fields got down on his knees and brushed away some soil with his hands. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I reckon that’s the underside of a car or truck,” he said. “Or maybe a Lincoln Navigator.” He got back on the backhoe and started to enlarge the trench he had dug.
    After another fifteen minutes of digging, he had exposed the entire bottom of the vehicle. He switched off the backhoe. “Take a look at this,” he shouted to the man behind him. He didn’t get a reply,