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“Shoot. I’m right as rain. Nothing even bit me.”

“What were you doing out there?” I asked.

“The same I’m always doing, I guess. Cleaning up the damn desert.”

Also known as looking for bones.

“Do you remember what happened?” Calloway asked.

Jerry frowned. “Not really. I mean, some of it.”

“Tell us what you can,” Calloway said.

Jerry nodded. “I don’t think it was anything criminal, Sheriff, but I just can’t be sure. I think I saw a man. He had bones. I don’t think he was happy to see me. He could have hit me, but maybe I tripped and fell as I was walking toward him. That’s all I remember. When I woke up, I thought maybe he’s the one who got me here, but then I was told how long I was out there. Now I wonder if I dreamed the man. Surely, a man wouldn’t leave another out there to die. Right?”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Baseball hat. Sunglasses. Medium build, white. Not even a little bit of a tan.” Jerry paused. “But I can’t be sure of any of it. Like I said, maybe I dreamed it.”

“Good to know, Jerry, but I want you to call us if you think of anything else important.”

“Sure. Sure. Have you found my Joey? Trisha told me that you’re looking for him. She said she’d come get me if I needed her.”

“We haven’t. We do have his cell phone, though.”

“The one in our place, in the drawer?” Jerry asked.

“Yes,” Calloway said. “What was it doing there?”

“That’s where he likes to keep it when he goes down to Mexico. He doesn’t like Trisha to know where he’s gone, and they have that tracer app.” Jerry sighed. “I’m not to let her know. She’ll probably break up with him, and he’ll be heartbroken, but the boy has to learn that he shouldn’t lie to his people.”

“Who might have been in your trailer and turned it on briefly?” I asked.

“Joey’s the only one I can think of. Dang him. He keeps finding a good path, but then he veers. I love him with all my heart, but I want him to be a better man. Trisha is the best thing that ever happened to him.”

I nodded. Neither Calloway nor I knew how much Jerry knew about everything else that had been going on near Black Vulture. Without discussing it, we both must have decided not to bring it up or question him further. He seemed fine, but we’d promised not to agitate.

I did have one more question for him, though. “Jerry, was Joey seeing Danielle Harold?”

“Romantically you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Good Lord, no. I know he did some work at her place, but no, not romantically. That boy loves Trisha, even if he does end up screwing it all up.”

We thanked him for his time. I hugged him and told him we’d have dinner when he was home. Tears filled his eyes as we left, and he thanked me for finding him, but we confirmed that they wouldn’t let us break him out early.

We were almost to the doors at the end of the hallway when we heard him yell, “Hazel! Calloway!”

We hurried back inside the room, a nurse on our tail.

“The man. He had a motorbike thing, I think,” Jerry said when we got there.

“Describe it.” Calloway pulled out a notebook and a pen.

Jerry closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again. “Silver. That’s all I got. I only saw it briefly before I went down. No, no, no, wait!”

We waited as patiently as we could.