He knocked again, and the door to unit two opened.

An elderly man popped his head out of a foot-wide crack. “Jerry’s gone.”

“Gone?” Max asked in surprise. “Gone where?”

“Dunno. He left and hasn’t come back.”

“But his car is still here,” Max said. “Did someone pick him up?”

“Dunno,” the man said. “He beat it out of here after the sheriff’s deputies started showin’ up in the middle of the night.”

I stepped forward. “Hi. I’m Carly, and I was in room twenty.” I gestured toward my room. “I was wondering if you happened to see or hear anything.”

“I heard you screamin’ bloody murder,” Big Joe said with a look of outrage. “Woke me out of a good dream.”

“You do realize that Seth Chalmers was murdered here last night?” Max asked, his words drenched in disgust. “A boy died.”

“Ain’t my concern,” Big Joe said and started to close the door.

Max moved faster than I would have thought possible for a person with a hangover, shoving the door back open with the palm of his hand and his foot. “You have two days to vacate the premises.”

The older man’s eyes bulged, and it took him a second to respond. “What?” he finally asked.

“If you don’t give a shit about the murder of a teenage boy—a good kid at that—then I want you the hell out of my motel.”

“Your motel?” Big Joe asked with a sneer. “You mean your daddy’s motel.”

Max’s face reddened. “My father may own it, but I run it. So if I say you’re gone, you’re gone. If you want to protest, you can take it up with Bart Drummond personally.”

Fear filled Big Joe’s eyes. “No. That’s okay.” Then the reality of his situation seemed to hit him. “I’ve rented from you for three years, Max. Never been late with my rent. I ain’t got nowhere else to go,” he whined.

“Did you see anything or not?” Max asked in the same tone he’d used on Bingham the night before.

“No!” Big Joe protested. “I done told you I didn’t! I only heard her screaming, but I ignored it, thinking it was just a ho pissed she hadn’t gotten her twenty bucks. Didn’t think much about it until I heard the sirens.”

“Nothin’ else?” Max asked, his face tight.

“Nothin’. So can I stay?”

Max turned to me. “Carly, you satisfied?”

My mouth dropped open. “Uh…yeah.”

Max turned to Big Joe. “You can stay, but you better make an appearance at the funeral, and I expect you to make a donation to the funeral fund. There’ll be a jar on the counter in the bar, but you can hand it to me personally.”

Big Joe nodded emphatically. “Yeah. Can do.”

“Then you can stay.”

Detective Daniels was giving us an assessing look I didn’t much like. I averted my gaze toward the street and spotted Ruth approaching us from the café. “I think we should go now. Ruth’s back.”

Max shot a pointed look at his elderly tenant. “I’ll be lookin’ for that donation,” he said.

Big Joe bobbed his agreement, then quickly shut his door.

“Do you believe him?” I asked as we started across the street. “Do you think he didn’t see anything?”

He grimaced. “Yeah, Big Joe’s one of the laziest men I know. I’m surprised he got up to answer the door. He must have been worried we were cops.”

“What about Jerry? Do you think he’s okay?”

He paused, then said, “When Jerry gets scared, he wanders off sometimes. He’ll be okay.”

“Do you think he saw something that scared him?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Max said with a worried look. “I guess we’ll ask him when he turns up.”

Ruth had almost reached us when I asked, “Would you have really kicked Big Joe out?”

“Yep.” He turned his gaze to me. “That place might not be much, but I still control who lives there. And if he doesn’t have more concern for a good kid than that, then I don’t want him.”

“But you let him stay.”

He started to answer, but Ruth held up a drink carrier with three coffees and two bags as if they were sacred offerings. “The front bag’s yours, Maxwell. I can’t guarantee that Greta didn’t spit on it.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh.

She gave him a pointed gaze, which then drifted to me before landing back on him. “I hope you learned a valuable lesson, Maxwell. You don’t shit where you eat.”

“Point taken,” he grumbled.

“Good.”

He pointed at Ruth. “You better have Carly back by noon. You know it’s bound to be as busy as shit with the nosy people comin’ in. I’m gonna need her and then some.” The pleading look on his face made it clear he was asking her to volunteer to work too.

“No freakin’ way,” she said. “I deserve a day off, Max, and you damn well know it, and I’m not even getting that. Just the lunch shift.”

“Fine,” he grunted, then reached for a coffee cup in the tray and pulled it free. “But just remember it’s Carly you’re leavin’ hangin’.”

Ruth’s lips pursed. “I guess I’ll just take that chance.”

She headed around the building toward the back parking lot, leaving me to follow.

“Y’all be careful,” Max called after her. “The bridges might still be icy.”

Ruth lifted her hand in the air in a half wave. “It’s warmin’ up and you damn well know it. Love you too.”

We were silent while we walked to her car. As we headed out of town, the opposite way that I’d come in with Wyatt, she tossed me the bag.

“Put two of those flavored creamers in my coffee and hand it over, would you?” she said. “I’m needin’ a caffeine fix.”

“How long have you worked for Max?” I asked, stirring her creamer into her coffee and replacing the lid.

“That’s a good question,” she said, taking the cup without shifting her gaze from the windshield. “Max has owned the place about eight years. He took it over from Wyatt right after his arrest.”

I blinked in surprise. “What?”

She cast me a confused look. “I already told you that Wyatt went to prison.”

“Not that part. The part about Wyatt owning the tavern.”

She released a bitter laugh. “Wyatt never owned it. He ran it for his parents. Max was at college and had to come home to take over the business. Bart was too busy runnin’ Drum to run it himself.” She took a sip of her coffee and cursed. “Why do they have to make it so damn hot it scalds your tongue?”

“Good question,” I said as I started doctoring my own. “But Max owns the tavern now?”

“Yep. Bart signed it over to him when Max came back. Max said he wouldn’t run it unless it was good and truly his.”

“Did that piss Wyatt off?”

“You would think so,” she said, risking another sip. She had to be really desperate for caffeine. “But Wyatt had turned his back on ’em all, even Max, while he was waiting for his trial, then totally snubbed his family when he came home.”