“The only reason we came here is to get my car,” Gus said. “If we had it back, it’d be like we were never here at all.”

“It’s a big yard, must be thousands of cars here,” Shawn said. “No one’s going to notice if one blue Echo is missing.”

The potatoes thought that over. “It is a big yard, and there are thousands of cars here,” he agreed. “No one’s going to notice if one blue Echo has a couple of bodies in the trunk.”

“Good, then we’re-” Gus said, then broke off. “Bodies?”

The potatoes moved so fast they barely realized he was reaching under the counter before the barrel of the shotgun was leveled at them.

“Got a song for this, pretty boy?” the potatoes said.

Shawn and Gus dived below the counter as flame erupted from the shotgun and a rain of pellets tore holes in the corrugated wall.

“Okay, this is not how I planned things,” Shawn said.

“I’m certainly glad to hear that.”

“All he had to do was give you back your car,” Shawn said. “It wasn’t like it was his car. Hell, it isn’t even like it’s your car, technically.”

“It’s still my responsibility!”

“Exactly. Your responsibility, not his. So why is he trying to kill us? Because there’s something going on here. Something he’s willing to kill to cover up.”

Shawn was right-they had stumbled onto some major criminal enterprise. That was the only explanation for the potatoes’ behavior. As a detective, Gus knew he should care about this. He should be working through the clues, piecing together the puzzle, unmasking the mystery.

“I don’t hear any singing!” the potatoes said, slapping two more shells into the gun.

On the other hand, what good would solving one more mystery do for Gus if he was dead? “So let him cover it up. We’ll pretend we don’t know anything about his massive criminal conspiracy if he lets us live.”