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“No I doubt there’son there Feds probably interviewed all of theo If they try to leave the area, they’ll probably be really sorry Let’s see if they’re keeping them under surveillance”

The truck pulled onto the road and sped off They waited for thirty seconds but no other car followed

Annabelle put her car in gear “Okay, the Feds are very trusting And we’re not”

“Where do you think they’re headed?” asked Reuben

“There’s a bar in that direction Let’s hope they pull off for happy hour after all that interrogation”

They did go to the bar And Annabelle and Reuben waited for the in

“You speak Spanish?” Reuben asked

“I spent a long time in LA, so yeah, pretty fluently You?”

“I know more Vietnamese than Spanish”

“Then order your beer in English and let ”

“And my role?”

“If a guy e’re not interested in hits on me, take him out”

“Great, thanks Nice to use my finely honed skills”

Inside, the four Latinos were huddled around one table, beers already in hand They were talking in low voices and casting furtive glances at the few other people in the bar

Annabelle and Reuben sat at a table near them and then Annabelle put some money in the jukebox On the way back she dropped her car keys near the table One of the men bent down to pick them up When he handed them back, she thanked him in Spanish Then she pulled athat she and her friend were trying to find a tree farm The man told her that he and his friends worked at this very same tree farm

Annabelle s Reuben to stay where he was She sat down and said, “We’re looking to buy a dozen cypress and were told that your place had so firm in Delaware,” she explained All of this was spoken in rapid Spanish and seemed to put the men at ease

The first man told Annabelle that they indeed had such trees, but she could not get them

“Why not?” she asked

He explained about what had happened

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed “That’s awful I read about it in the paper, of course, but they didn’t say the name of the tree farht who did it”

The men shook their heads

“And was this John Kravitz a friend of yours? His na up here”

Kravitz had not been a close friend, and the men seemed stunned to learn that he had been involved with the boton

“That’s really a shame,” said Annabelle

One of the men said that he believed John Kravitz to be innocent

“But I heard on the news that they found bo material at his home That’s pretty serious”

Whether the man had heard this too wasn’t clear He insisted that Kravitz was innocent

“And were you all there when the people were killed?”

They nodded

“That uess you’re lucky you weren’t killed too”

They had been out in the fields, they told her They had heard and seen nothing

“I guess the police have questioned you,” said Annabelle

The surly looks on the men’s faces confirmed that

“Well, it looks like whoever did it et away Too bad,” she said Annabelle left that coht inspire One of theto the first He looked at Annabelle

“The police didn’t ask about the basketball hoop,” he said

“Basketball hoop?” Annabelle feigned ignorance even though Stone had told her about thehoop

“We had a basketball hoop up at one of the outbuildings We would play ball there at lunch John played too soood”

“And what happened to the hoop?”

The first lanced over at his companion who’d whispered to him