Burn by Sean Doolittle Page A

interviews. “That's the driver, ” he said for everybody's benefit, thumping the page with his finger. “Goes by Benjy We talked to him August 8.”
    “I ran the employee files for priors and popped a flag on this guy, ” Keene said. “Dinged for misdemeanor possession in ’89 and ’91. Hammered April ’95 for intent to distribute plus possession of an illegal firearm. Drew a dime at Chino, served three with good behavior.”
    Drea passed the arrest sheet to Timms. “So the guy's got a record. What's the flag?”
    “Lomax Enterprises runs security checks on all new employees, ” Keene said. “But there's no background on this in Corbin's file. I just got off the phone with the flack.”
    “Todman, ” Timms said.
    “Who explains to me that they're aware of the record, and the conviction, but Corbin is a special case, ”Keene went on. “Friend of the family. David's old high school buddy, roommate in college, even dated the sister Heather at one point.”
    “No kidding.”
    “According to Todman, ” said Keene. “Seems Benjamin hooked up with a bad crowd along the way, made some bad moves, got in a little trouble, but hey. Happens to the best of us, right? Everybody deserves another chance. So when Corbin makes his paper, David and Heather plead his case to Daddy, who brings him on at the company and gives him a shot. Guy's been clean since then, at least on the screens.”
    “Funny, ” Timms said. “I don't remember Mr. Corbin mentioning any of that in his interview. Or anybody else, come to think of it.”
    “Could be they closed ranks around Corbin because of the record, ” Carvajal said. “That'd sound about Tod-man's speed to me. Felon on the payroll, more dirty laundry they don't need aired, he'd want to keep it away from the reporters.”
    “I have a gut feeling, ” Keene said, “that says we put a tap and a tail on Corbin, we'll find our boy before long.”
    Timms nodded, despite his own gut feeling. He was learning to live with it; he'd had it ever since this case began.
    The odds had been stacked against them from the start, even setting aside the family involved. Clearance statistics for dump cases—cases in which a victim was killed in one location but discovered in another—always suffered due to the absence of an immediate crime scene. Time was a perpetual enemy. Time between the murder and the discovery of the body. Time for weather, traffic, wildlife, and water-dropping helicopters to compromise the body and the dumpsite itself.
    Based on the initial evidence, the picture they'd assembled looked something like this:
    Somebody puts a large dent in Gregor Tavlin's brain pan and loads him into the trunk of his own car. They don't take special precautions—a drop cloth, for example—because they have a plan. The plan involves driving Tavlin's Alfa up into the smoke-filled hills. Removing the body from the trunk and situating it behind the wheel. Emptying a bottle of booze over everything and tossing it into the car for appearances, but doubting it will matter. Because they finish by sending the car over in a bashing, smashing tumble, leaving it where it finally comes to rest, directly in the path of the wildfire marching toward the sea.
    The nature of the wound and the method of disposal sent mixed signals. The blow to the head—intimate, but delivered to a turned back—suggested anything from an altercation with a personal acquaintance to old-fashioned random assault. Neither scenario suggested a professional job.
    The disposal of the body, however, was leagues beyond anything the average citizen generally thought to attempt after they'd snapped and killed somebody. The dump spot itself seemed interesting, less than a mile from state land. Drea believed the dumpers may have hoped to create jurisdictional confusion in the event somebody found the body before the fire did its job.
    At least two perps seemed likely: one to drive the Alfa, one to follow in another vehicle. With