Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

him, Jack reached for the rock, tugged it from its ancient nest. “I got it.” It was smaller than a soccer ball, but too lightweight to be a rock.
    “I bet it’s a dog skull,” Leon said with a nervous giggle. “Look at them eye holes.”
    “Musta been a big dog.” Jack brought it to him, blew the dust off, and turned it over in his hands.
    “Holy shit!” Leon sprang to his feet.
    Jack Mott stared down at the human skull in his hands, and then he started to scream.
    *   *   *
    The Voss Brothers Body Shop sits at the edge of town next to a junkyard that’s enclosed by a tall corrugated barrier fence. I pull into the pothole-laden lot, steering the Explorer around holes large enough to swallow a tire. A small frame house with a big stump in the yard serves as the office. Through the door I see a heavyset man in bib overalls behind the counter, watching us. Though the Explorer is clearly marked with the Painters Mill PD insignia, he makes no move to greet us.
    The shop consists of a large metal building with two overhead doors in front. One of the doors stands open and I see a silver Toyota Camry on a hydraulic lift. A shop light dangles from the undercarriage and two men in coveralls squint up at the bottom side of the engine. Parked next to the building, an SUV that looks as if it’s been run through an auto crusher waits its turn.
    I park adjacent the office and Rasmussen and I get out. We’re midway to the door when a man yells, “Hey!”
    We turn simultaneously to see a large, round-bodied man clad in denim bib overalls striding toward us. His gray hair and weatherworn face tell me he’s well into his sixties. “I’m Bob Voss.” From ten feet away, he sticks out his hand, leaves it extended as he closes the space between us.
    Rasmussen and I identify ourselves. When we shake, Voss grins from ear to ear. “I’ve never met a lady cop before.”
    “There’s a first time for everything,” I tell him.
    “Thank goodness for that,” he says with a chuckle.
    Rasmussen gets right down to business. “You called the hotline about a customer that had the front end of his truck reinforced.”
    “Hope I ain’t wasting your time. But when I saw the news about that hit-and-run kilt that Amish family, I remembered this guy bringing in a truck. I thought I should let someone know.”
    “We’re glad you did,” the sheriff says. “What kind of work did he have done?”
    “Well, that’s the thing. He had the front end reinforced with a steel plate. We don’t get requests like that every day so it kind of stuck out.”
    “Did he say why?” I ask.
    “Said he had this old stump he needed pushed out of the way.” He scratches his head. “Anyone with a brain knows you don’t use the front of your truck for that. You burn it or grind it or get a backhoe after it, but you don’t use your damn bumper. To tell you the truth, he didn’t look like the stump-pullin’ type.”
    “You get a name?” Rasmussen asks.
    “I got everything.” Giving us some Groucho Marx eyebrow action, he motions toward the office. “Pulled the invoice ’fore I called. Come on in and I’ll show you.”
    Rasmussen and I follow him to the house. He takes us up the steps, across the porch, and through the entrance, the old screen door banging shut behind us. The office is small with dirty linoleum floors, a ragtag sofa set against the wall, and a chest-high counter that looks as if it came from some highway roadhouse that got shut down by the health department. I glance at the man behind the counter and do a double take. He’s an exact duplicate of Bob Voss, replete with a matching crew cut, bib overalls, and the SUV-size gut. He gives me a gotcha grin and I notice the only difference is that the man behind the counter is missing a lower tooth in the front.
    The two men giggle like schoolgirls and I realize this is an entertaining moment for them. “I’m Billy Voss,” the look-alike says, moving toward us, his hand outstretched.
    “D’you see the look on her face?” Chuckling, Bob Voss wipes his eyes with a white kerchief.
    “I guess your customers keep you two pretty amused,” Rasmussen says, and I realize his sense of humor is the first thing to go when he’s sleep deprived.
    “You guys are twins?” I ask.
    “Born ten minutes apart,” Billy tells us as he slides a folder from the top of the file cabinet. “I got the brains, he got the looks.”
    Bob pours coffee into a nasty-looking mug. “You guys