He believed it.”

I sat with that.

“Tell me about the phone call,” I said.

“He was in the lot maybe ninety seconds. He punched the number in from memory — I remember that, because he had to stop and close his eyes to get it — and then he held it up and I watched him hold it up for about ten seconds and then he took it down and looked at it and put it in his pocket.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He said ‘wrong number.’ Then he got in the truck. Then about four miles down 90 he said, ‘She’s got a rule about strange numbers, I bet. That’s smart.