He passed the iPad to Ralph. Here were two sets of prints, one labeled VAN UNKNOWN SUB and the other BELT BUCKLE UNKNOWN SUB. They did look alike, but only sort of. No way would they stand up in court as proof of anything, especially if a bulldog defense attorney like Howie Gold challenged them. Ralph was not in court, however, and he thought the same unsub had made them both, because it fit with what he’d learned from Marcy Maitland the night before. Not a perfect fit, no, but close enough for a detective on administrative leave who didn’t have to run everything by his superiors . . . or by a district attorney hellbent for election.

While Yune ate his huevos rancheros, Ralph told him about his meeting with Marcy, holding back one thing for later.

“It’s all about the van,” he finished. “Forensics may find a few prints from the kid who originally stole it—”

“Already did. We had Merlin Cassidy’s prints from the El Paso police. Computer guy matched them to some of the stray prints in the van—mostly on the toolbox, which Cassidy must have opened to see if there was anything valuable inside. They’re clear, and they’re not these.” He swiped back to the blurry UNSUB prints, labeled VAN and BELT BUCKLE.

Ralph leaned forward, pushing his plate aside. “You see how it dovetails, don’t you? We know it wasn’t Terry who stole the van in Dayton, because the Maitlands flew home. But if the blurry prints from the van and those from the buckle really are the same . . .”

“You think he had an accomplice, after all. One who drove the van from Dayton to Flint City.”

“Must have,” Ralph said. “No other way to explain it.”

“One who looked just like him?”

“Back to that,” Ralph said, and sighed.

“And both sets of prints were on the buckle,” Yune pushed on. “Meaning Maitland and his double wore the same belt, maybe the whole set of clothes. Well, they’d fit, wouldn’t they? Twin brothers, separated at birth. Except the records say Terry Maitland was an only child.”

“What else have you got? Anything?”

“Yes. We have arrived at the really weird shit.” He brought his chair around and sat next to Ralph. The picture now on his iPad showed a close-up of the jeans, socks, underpants, and sneakers, all in an untidy pile, next to a plastic evidence-marker with a 1 on it. “See the stains?”

“Yes. What is that crap?”

“I don’t know,” Yune said. “And the forensics guys don’t, either, but one of them said it looked like jizz, and I sort of agree with that. You can’t see it in the picture very well, but—”

“Semen? Are you kidding?”

The waitress came back. Ralph turned the iPad screen side down.

“Either of you gents want a refill on the coffee?”

They both took one. When she left, Ralph went back to the photo of the clothes, spreading his fingers on the screen to enlarge the image.

“Yune, it’s on the crotch of the jeans, all down both legs, on the cuffs . . .”

“Also on the underpants and socks,” Yune said. “Not to mention the sneakers, both on em and in em, dried to a nice crack-glaze, like on pottery. Might be enough of the stuff, whatever it is, to fill a hollow nine iron.”

Ralph didn’t laugh. “It can’t be semen. Even John Holmes in his prime—”

“I know. And semen doesn’t do this.”

He swiped the screen. The new picture was a wide shot of the barn floor. Another evidence tab, this one marked 2, had been placed next to a pile of loose hay. At least Ralph thought it was hay. On the far left side of the photo, evidence tab 3 had been placed atop a softly collapsing bale that looked like it had been there for a long, long time. Much of it was black. The side of the bale was also black, as if some corrosive goo had run down it to the floor.

“Is it the same stuff?” Ralph asked. “You’re sure?”

“Ninety per cent. And there’s more in the loft. If it’s semen, that would be a nocturnal emission worthy of The Guinness Book of Records.”

“Can’t be,” Ralph said, low. “It’s something else. For one thing, semen wouldn’t turn hay black. It makes no sense.”

“Not to me, either, but of course I am just the son of a poor Mexican farming family.”

“Forensics is analyzing it, though.”

Yune nodded. “As we speak.”

“And you’ll let me know.”

“Yes. You see what I meant when I said this just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

“Jeannie called it inexplicable.” Ralph cleared his throat. “She actually used the word supernatural.”

“My Gabriela has suggested the same,” Yune said. “Maybe it’s a chick thing. Or a Mexican thing.”

Ralph raised his eyebrows.

“Sí, señor,” Yune said, and laughed. “My wife’s mother died young, and she grew up at her abuela’s knee. The old lady stuffed her full of legends. When I was talking this mess over with her, Gaby told me one about the Mexican boogeyman. He was supposedly a dude dying of tuberculosis, see, and this old wise man who lived in the desert, an ermitaño, told him he could be cured by drinking the blood of children and rubbing their fat on his chest and privates. So that’s what this boogeyman did, and now he lives forever. Supposedly he only takes children who misbehave. He pops them in a big black bag he carries. Gaby told me that when she was a little girl, maybe seven, she had a screaming fit one time when the doctor came to the house for her brother, who had scarlet fever.”

“Because the doctor had a black bag.”

Yune nodded. “What was that boogeyman’s name? It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t pick it off. Don’t you hate that?”

“So is that what you think we’ve got here? The boogeyman?”

“Nope. I may be the son of a poor Mexican farming family, ese, or possibly the son of an Amarillo car dealer, but either way, I ain’t atontado. A man killed Frank Peterson, as mortal as you and me, and that man was almost certainly Terry Maitland. If we could figure out what happened, everything would fall into place and I could go back to sleeping through the night. Because this bugs the shit out of me.” He looked at his watch. “Gotta go. Promised my wife I’d take her to a craft fair in Cap City. Any more questions? You ought to have at least one, because yet one more weird thing is staring you right in the face.”

“Were there vehicle tracks in the barn?”

“That’s not what I was thinking of, but as a matter of fact, there were. Not useful ones, though—you can see the impressions, and there’s a little oil, but no tread marks good enough for comparison. My guess is they were made by the van Maitland used to abduct the kid. They weren’t close enough together to have been made by the Subaru.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, you’ve got all the witness interviews on your magic gadget, right? Before you split, find the one I did with Claude Bolton. He’s a bouncer at Gentlemen, Please. Although he took issue with that word, as I remember.”

Yune brought up one file, shook his head, brought up another, and handed the iPad to Ralph. “Scroll down.”

Ralph did so, went past what he wanted, and at last centered on it. “Here it is. Bolton said, ‘I remember one other thing, no big deal but kind of spooky if he really was the one who killed that kid.’ Bolton said the guy cut him. When I asked what he meant, Bolton said he thanked Maitland for working with his friend’s nephews, then shook with him. When he did, Maitland’s pinky fingernail grazed the back of Bolton’s hand. Made a little cut. Bolton said it reminded him of his drug days, because some of the MCs he ran with used to grow out their pinky nails to scoop coke with. Apparently it was a fashion statement.”