S Is for Silence

restrictions, we hovered on the sidelines as though magnetized. Conversations were restrained, and I noticed no laughter at all, unusual in a situation that generated an eerie tension of its own.
    Judging by the mountain of dirt, I could tell that the hole had been considerably deepened, and the operation had shifted from machinery back to shoveling by hand. From our vantage point, there was nothing visible of the vehicle, but I gathered a narrow channel had been created on each side as additional sections of the car were exposed. Tom Padgett stood as close to the excavation as he could manage without risking arrest. His bulldozer was on call, as was a flatbed truck that had been brought over from the yard, and he was behaving as though this gave him proprietary rights, which perhaps it did. When he wasn’t focused on the excavation, he was chatting with Detective Nichols like an old pal of his.
    Calvin Wilcox was parked behind Daisy, about twenty feet down the road. He’d arrived shortly after we had and he was sitting in a black pickup truck with his company name emblazoned on the sides. He smoked a cigarette, his left arm resting on the open windowsill. I could hear his radio blasting country music. Like Daisy, he was permitted at the site by reason of his relation to Violet. There was no interaction between the two of them, which struck me as odd. As far as I knew, Calvin was Daisy’s only uncle, and it seemed natural to assume they’d established a relationship over the years. Not so, judging by their manifest uninterest. Neither acknowledged the presence of the other by so much as a nod or a wave.
    “What’s the deal with you and your uncle Calvin?”
    “Nothing. We get along fine. Just no warm, fuzzy feelings between the two of us. When I was growing up, he and my aunt made very little effort to maintain contact. It’s been so long since I’ve seen my cousins, I doubt I’d recognize them.”
    “Mind if I talk to him?”
    “About what?”
    “Just some questions I have.”
    “Be my guest.”
    Calvin Wilcox watched without expression as I approached. I saw him flip aside his cigarette butt and then he leaned forward and turned off the radio. Up close, I could see he hadn’t shaved that morning, and the stubble along his jaw was a mixture of gray and faded red. With his ruddy complexion, his green cotton shirt made his eyes look luminous. As before, I felt I was looking at a version of Violet—same coloring, opposite sex, but electric nonetheless. “Looks like you pulled a rabbit out of a hat,” he said when I reached the open driver’s-side window. “How’d you come up with this?”
    The question seemed ever so faintly hostile, but I smiled to show what a good sport I was. “I’d say ‘dumb luck’ but I don’t want to be accused of false modesty.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “Me, too.” I went through my standard explanation, trying a variation just to keep the story interesting. “Someone saw Violet’s car parked out here the night she disappeared. After that, it was never seen again so it dawned on me maybe it hadn’t gone anywhere. In retrospect, it seems dumb I didn’t twig to it before.”
    “Who saw the car?”
    I went through a lightning-quick debate with myself and decided naming Winston was a very bad idea. It was as Detective Nichols had said: the less information in circulation, the better. I waved the question aside. “I don’t remember offhand. It’s one of those things I heard in passing. What about you; how’d you hear about this?” I asked, indicating the excavation.
    “I was listening to the radio on the way home from work when it came on the news. I called the sheriff’s office as soon as I got home.”
    “Were you out here last night?”
    “For a while. I wanted to see for myself, but the deputy wouldn’t let me get anywhere near. They knocked off at ten and said they’d be starting again this morning at six.”
    “You have a guess about how long it would take to dig a hole that size? I’m talking way back when.”
    “I don’t know the details. You’ll have to fill me in.”
    “From the scuttlebutt yesterday, the guy made a long shallow ramp, eight feet wide and maybe fifteen feet at its deepest point. The back end of the car is buried at the bottom with the front on an incline about like this.” I held my arm out at roughly a thirty-degree angle.
    He sat, blinking, while he ran the numbers through his head. “I’d have to do the math to give