Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery)

wouldn’t have to sacrifice all her belongings and a perfectly good house.”
    “I don’t think many houses in Vegas are perfectly good anymore,” Snow countered. “Most of them are upside down; I think the owners would be happy to burn them down.”
    A rattling sound from the road caught Snow’s attention. He turned his head toward it and saw a man with a floppy hat slowly pushing a grocery cart along the edge of the pavement. He had a bushy gray beard and wore faded jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, and tennis shoes with the backs flattened from walking on them. His cart was filled with clothes, a sleeping bag, and what appeared to be a rolled-up tent.
    He stopped pushing the cart a short distance from the Sonata and turned his head toward Alice and Snow. Then he reached behind him with his left hand up under his shirt and scratched his back.
    Snow looked at Alice. “You seen enough here, Alice?”
    She nodded, and they walked back to the road.
    As they approached, the homeless man pushed his grocery cart to a stop in front of them. He reached under his shirt and scratched his back again in the same spot. Then he looked at Snow.
    “You folks need any help?” he said.
    “No, we’re fine,” Snow said.
    The old man nodded. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a black comb. Holding it out in front of him, he asked, “Did you drop this?”
    Snow smiled. “No, I didn’t. But that looks like a really nice comb. You wouldn’t want to sell it, would you?”
    The old man shrugged. “I don’t know. How much you want to pay for it?”
    “How much you want for it?” Snow said.
    The old man shrugged again. “Couple bucks?”
    “I don’t know,” Snow said. “Looks like it’s worth more than that.”
    “How much you offering?” the old man asked.
    “I was thinking somewhere around forty,” Snow said.
    The old man’s eyes widened. His mouth hung open. “Forty bucks?”
    “Sure.”
    “Alright.” The old man held it out to him.
    Snow pulled his wallet out and produced two twenties. He looked at the comb. “The only problem,” he said, “is that I already have a comb. I really don’t need another one to carry with me.”
    The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Oh.”
    “You spend much time on this road?” Snow asked.
    “Every day I’m on it,” the old man said. “At least once or twice, I like to walk it. It makes me feel like I’m going somewhere. Like I’m on vacation.”
    Snow chuckled. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Tell you what—you hang onto the comb. Keep it with you. If I happen to be driving by and need to comb my hair and discover that I’ve forgotten my comb, I can use that one. How about if I pay you another twenty for a carrying charge. Would you be agreeable to that arrangement?”
    The old man’s eyes widened again. “Oh, very agreeable,” he said.
    “Good.” Snow slipped another twenty out of his wallet and handed the three bills to him.
    The old man folded the bills in half and shoved them into his front pocket. “Anything else you need?” he said.
    “No, I think that should do it,” Snow said, smiling.
    He and Alice walked toward the car.
    Behind him, Snow heard the old man raise his voice slightly. “I noticed you folks were out looking at the burn spot.”
    Alice and Snow turned to look at him. “That’s right. We were.”
    “Find what you were looking for?”
    “Maybe,” Snow said. “Why do you ask?”
    “I take it you’re investigating what happened here.”
    Snow nodded. “Yes, we are.”
    “In that case, you might be interested to know about what I’ve seen.”
    “And what would that be?”
    “A little white car,” the old man said. “Saw it driving by here quite a few times since that body burned up out there. I’d say at least once a day. Two women in it.”
    “That’s interesting,” Snow said. “A little white car with two women in it. Had you ever seen them before last week?”
    “Nope,” he said. “And I’ll tell you something else interesting: after they took down the yellow tape and the police cleared out of here two days ago, those women stopped and got out of their little white car and walked out there to where the two of you were standing. They had a tire iron with them. And I saw them rubbing the ground with it. I was back the road a ways, but I could see what they were doing. I thought it was some kind of a goofy ritual or something. And after I thought about it, I figured they must have had something to do with that