The body stuffed inside was wrapped in a plastic sheet.
One pale arm lay exposed, the fingers bent and hooked. I pulled some of the sheet away, just enough for a brief look at the dead woman's face. Mottled, the tongue protruding and blackened. Strangled.
"Noreen Chalfont," I said. "Where were you taking her, Barlow? Some remote spot in the mountains for burial?"
He made a keening, hurt-animal sound. "Oh God, I didn't mean to kill her… we had an argument about the money and I lost my head, I didn't know what I was doing… I didn't mean to kill her…"
His legs quit supporting him; he sat down hard on the pavement with legs splayed out and head down. He didn't move after that, except for the heaving of his chest. His face was wetter than ever, a mingling now of sweat and drizzle and tears.
I looked over at the misted store window. That poor bastard in there, I thought. He wanted to make his wife pay for what she did, but he'll go to pieces when he finds out Barlow did the job for him.
I closed the trunk lid and stood there in the cold, waiting for the law.
Sometimes it happens like this, too.
You're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and still things work out all right. For some of the people involved, anyway.