* * *
We crossed into the village of Orchard Park and found the Orchard Park PD located in the Municipal Center, a brick structure with a faux-colonial facade. We parked and headed inside. Detective Hayden was in. The receptionist first called him, then ushered us through a series of halls to his office.
Hayden sat behind a big, ugly, steel-and-Formica desk littered with stacks of case files, papers, and official-looking garbage. He held a mug of coffee in one hand and a jelly doughnut in the other. Confectioners’ sugar clung to his upper lip.
“You two joined at the hip?” he asked, eyeing Richard.
“Are you really the stereotypical cop who drinks coffee and eats doughnuts?” I shot back.
Richard glared at me. “I have the car,” he explained.
Hayden pointed to the two chairs in front of his desk. “Sit. I checked with NYPD. You really were mugged.”
“You couldn’t tell?” I said, brandishing my broken arm.
Hayden shrugged. “So why’d you want to see me?”
“The Sumner murder.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Of course. Dig up any clues?” His sarcasm bugged me.
“Only his guts.”
He looked skeptical. “That was you, huh?”
I pulled out my notebook, giving him specifics that hadn’t been mentioned in the media. “We called 911 from the Jubilee parking lot on Kenmore Avenue at one forty-seven on Saturday afternoon. The remains were found on Route 14, two-point-three miles south of Vermont Hill Road.”
His skepticism dissolved. “Yeah?”
“We left our shovel out in the field. It was made by the Hawking Company.”
His expression turned absolutely grim. “How’d you find . . . them?”
“Then the uh . . . viscera . . . matched Sumner’s DNA?”
“Yeah. Now answer my question. How’d you know where to look?”
“This is the part you’re not going to believe.”