Carcass Trade by Noreen Ayres

thinking. Pretty unlikely, huh?”
    I leaned the coiled wire against the trash barrel, remembering a call I went on with my husband in Oakland. We were searching for a weapon all the bystanders said they saw in the hand of the suspect a moment before we arrived. I was sure the suspect passed it off to someone, but Bill said evidence hides in strange places. He went up on the roof of the house next door. The kid had tossed the pistol there.
    I said, “Our victim had wire around his neck. It was so embedded. It could have been this. I never pricked myself, though, when I touched it.”
    â€œTake it. It’s your call.”
    Picking the scary Slinky up again, I said, “You couldn’t grab this for a garrote,” I said. “You’re right. I’ll leave it.”
    Joe said, “Take the tape rolls. What the hell, we might get lucky. I’ll get a bag.” Prints can be obtained off tape these days, even the sticky side. They can be obtained off the inside of surgical gloves as well, surprise, surprise to the bad guys.
    I looked for a twig to move stuff around in the barrel and found a dark stick of manzanita.
    â€œThere’s a couple other pieces in here.” Using my stick, I lifted out a double-stranded copper wire, spearing through a diamond-shaped separation between the two strands. The diamonds were regular, a part of the design, as though they’d been pried apart by a tiny little Samson standing on the bottom strand. The piece was about a foot long.
    Joe shrugged, took the copper piece from me, and dropped it in a bag. He plucked out the cardboard tape rolls and the wads of tape and put them in too.
    â€œLet’s tip the barrel,” I said. We shook out a trail of garbage. We were poking around in the papers and chili cups when we heard a window slide open in the café and the waitress say, “Can I help you?”
    Joe said to me under his breath, “We need a warrant to do this?”
    â€œNo way.”
    â€œMy wife thinks she lost her ring in here. That okay?” he said to the woman, now lost in the brown shadow of screen.
    â€œThat’s why I don’t wear mine no more,” she sang back. “Good luck.”
    I used my shoe to brush aside a bagful of soiled baby diapers, revealing another strip of wire about fifteen inches long, this one so jagged it looked as if tinsnips had been taken to it to slice its length into even, backward-leaning shark’s teeth.
    â€œWoho,” Joe said. “Don’t it make your skin tingle?”
    â€œLet’s take it.” I pincered it between thumb and forefinger and dropped it into the sack. Hearing the door to the café open, I looked up expecting to see the waitress, but the small man with the white hair who had been with the lobster man stepped off the concrete platform that served as a porch. The wind lifted his beard and blew open his light green shirt, revealing his undershirt and, up by the armpit, a tan holster curved with weight.
    â€œJoe,” I said. “That guy’s packing. He’s got a shoulder holster.”
    Watching him out of the corner of my eye, I saw him go across the lot to the pickup truck with the dirt bikes in it. He opened the door and slid out a pack of cigarettes from the seat. Looking at us, he shook out a cigarette and lit it. Then he came forward.
    I stood up and faced him. The small paper sacks we had were lying on their sides, so I didn’t suppose he’d think they were anything but trash.
    â€œHow y’all doin’?” he said.
    I said, “Okay. How you all doin’?”
    Joe rose from his crouch. He said, “My wife lost her ring. I swear I can’t take her anywhere.”
    â€œI wondered what y’all were digging around in the trash for. I seen hungry and I seen poor, but I hope it don’t come down that rough on me,” he said, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He slipped the lighter into his chest