An Ice cold Grave

Six

TOLLIVER was livid when he came in the room the next morning. The nurses had been full of the night's excitement, and they'd been quivering to fill him in on the big event. They'd pounced on him with avidity. The result was that Tolliver was all but breathing fire when he flung open my door.

"I can't believe it," he said. "Those bastards! To sneak into a hospital in the night and actually into your room! Jeez, you must have…were you asleep? Did they really scare you?" He went from rage to concern in two seconds flat.

I was too tired to put a good face on for him. I'd come awake with a jolt at least three times during the night, sure there was someone else in the room with me.

Tolliver said, "How'd they even get in here, anyway? The doors are supposed to be locked after nine o'clock. Then you have to punch a big button outside the emergency room door to get in. At least that's what the sign says."

"So either a door was left open by accident or someone let them in. Might not have known who they were, of course." I was trying to be fair. I'd really gotten good treatment at this little hospital, and I didn't want to believe any of the staff had been bribed or were malicious enough to simply let reporters in for the hell of it.

Tolliver even sounded off to the doctor about it.

Dr. Thomason was back on duty. He seemed both angry and embarrassed, but he also looked as though he'd heard enough about the incident.

I gave Tolliver a look, and he was smart enough to back off.

"You're still going to let me go, right?" I said, trying to smile at the doctor.

"Yeah, I think we'll toss you out. You're recovering well from your injuries. Traveling isn't going to be easy on you, but if you're determined, you can leave. No driving, of course, not until your arm is well." The doctor hesitated. "I'm afraid you'll leave our town with a bad impression."

A serial killer, an attack out of the blue, and a rude awakening…why would I get a negative picture of Doraville? But I had manners and sense enough to say, "Everyone here has been very kind to me, and I couldn't have gotten better treatment in any hospital I've seen." It was easy to see the relief pass across Dr. Thomason's face. Maybe he'd been concerned that I was the kind of person who slapped a lawsuit on anyone who looked at me cross-eyed.

I'd been thinking of the good people I'd met here, and the fact that Manfred and Xylda had come here expressly to see us. That had made me wonder if we shouldn't spend the rest of the day here in town to wind up our loose ends. But after the scare the night before, I was twitching with my desire to get out of this place.

Of course, there was the usual long wait while the paperwork made its way around the hospital, but finally, about eleven o'clock, a nurse came in with the mandated wheelchair, while Tolliver bundled up and went out to pull our car around to the entrance to pick me up. There was another wheelchair waiting just inside the front door. A very young woman, maybe twenty, was perched in it, her arms full of a swaddled bundle. An older woman who had to be her mother was with her. The mother was herding a cart loaded down with pink flower arrangements, a pile of cards that were also predominantly pink, and some gift boxes. There was a pile of pamphlets, too. The top one was titled "So You're Taking Your Baby Home."

The new grandmother beamed at me, and she and my nurse began chatting. The young woman in the wheelchair looked over at me. "Look what I got," she said happily. "Man, the last time I was in the hospital I left my appendix. Now I get to leave with a baby."

"You're lucky," I said. "Congratulations. What have you named her?"

"We named her Sparkle," she said. "Isn't that cute? No one will ever forget her."

That was the absolute truth. "It's unforgettable," I agreed.

"There's Josh," the grandmother said and wheeled her daughter and granddaughter through the automatic door.

"Wasn't that the cutest little old girl?" my nurse asked. "The first grandbaby in that family." Since the grandmother had been in her late thirties, at the most, I was relieved to hear it.

I wondered if my lightning-fried body could produce a child.

Then it was my turn to be wheeled to the cut-down curb, and Tolliver leaped from the car to hurry around to help me. After I'd carefully eased into the car, he bent over to fasten my seat belt and then rounded the car again to get in the driver's seat.

The nurse leaned down to make sure I was sitting straight with all my bits in so she could close the door. "Good luck," she said, smiling. "Hope we don't see you back here anytime soon."

I smiled back. I was sure the other departing patient had felt sorry for me, but I felt much better now that I was in our familiar car and Tolliver was with me. I had prescriptions and doctor's instructions, and I was free to leave. That was a great feeling.

We turned right out of the hospital parking lot, and I didn't see any traffic out of the ordinary. No reporters. "Back to the motel, or can we leave?" I asked.

"We're getting your prescriptions filled and then we're leaving town," Tolliver said. "What more could they want from us?"

We stopped at the first pharmacy we saw. It was a couple of blocks from the hospital, and it was a locally owned business. Inside it was a cheerful mixture of smells: candy, medicine, scented candles, potpourri, nickel gum machines. You could get stationery, a picture frame, a Whitman's Sampler, a heating pad, a magazine, paper party plates, or an alarm clock. And at a high counter in the very back, you could actually get your prescriptions filled. There were two plastic chairs arranged in front of that counter, and the young man behind it was moving with such a languid air that I was sure Tolliver and I would have time to find out how comfortable they were.

My only exertion had been getting out of the car and walking into the pharmacy, so it was unpleasant to find how relieved I was to see those plastic chairs. I sat in one while Tolliver surrendered the prescription slips to the young man, whose white coat looked as if it had been bleached and starched—or maybe it was the first one he'd ever worn. I tried to read the date on the framed certificate displayed on the wall behind him, but I couldn't quite manage the small print at that distance.

The young pharmacist was certainly conscientious. "Ma'am, you understand you have to take these with food," he said, holding up a brown plastic pill container. "And these have to be taken twice a day. If you have any of these symptoms listed here on this sheet, you need to call a doctor." After we'd discussed that for a moment, Tolliver asked where we paid, and the pharmacist pointed to the register at the front of the store. I had to get up to follow Tolliver, and when we got to the checkout clerk, we had to wait for another customer to get her change and have her chat. Then we had to reveal to the clerk that our insurance didn't cover a pharmacy bill and that we were paying cash for the entire amount. She seemed surprised but pleased.

We'd actually stepped outside the store to get back in the car when the sheriff found us. We got so close to being out of Doraville.

"I'm sorry," she said. "We need you again."

It wasn't snowing at the moment, but it was still gray everywhere. I looked up into Tolliver's face, which seemed as pale as the snow.

"What do you need?" I asked, which was probably stupid.

"It's possible there are more," she said.

WE had to renegotiate. The consortium hadn't written me a check for the first successful episode, and I didn't work for free. And the reporters were everywhere. I don't work in front of cameras, not if I can help it.

Since the parking lot at the back of the police station was protected by a high fence topped with razor wire, we got in the back door of the police station without anyone the wiser—anyone among the media, that is. Everyone on duty that wasn't out at the burial site made an opportunity to walk past Sheriff Rockwell's office to have a peek at me. With my arm in a cast and a little bandage on my head, I was something to look at, all right. Tolliver sat at my good side so he could hold my right hand.

"You need to be in bed," he said. "I don't know what we're going to do about housing if we stay. I gave up our motel room, and I'm sure it's gone by now."

I shook my head silently. I was trying to decide if I was up to any more bodies or not. There was always the fact that it was the way I made our living; but there was also the fact that I felt like hell.

"Who do you think the bodies are?" I asked the sheriff. "I found all the locals that were missing."

"We went over the missing persons reports for the past five years," Rockwell said. "We found two more, somewhat over the age range of the boys in the Davey homesite."

"The what?"

"That house and garage and yard used to belong to Don Davey and his family. Don was a widower in his eighties. I barely remember him. He died about twelve years ago, and the house has been empty since. The relative who inherited lives in Oregon. She's never come back over here to look at the property. She hasn't made any move at all to dispose of it. She's about eighty herself and very indifferent to the idea of doing anything at all with the land."

"Did anyone offer to buy it before?"

Rockwell looked surprised. "No, she didn't mention anything like that."

"So where is this other place?"

"Inside an old barn. Dirt floor. Hasn't been used in ten years or more, but the owners just left it to fall down."

"Why do you think there might be more bodies there, specifically?"

"It's actually on the property of a mental health counselor named Tom Almand, who never comes this far back on the property. With all the to-do at the Davey place, the next-door neighbor, a deputy named Rob Tidmarsh, thought he'd check it out because it meets the same criteria as the Davey place: secluded, not in use, easy to dig. The barn floor's mostly dirt. Lo and behold, Rob found some disturbed spots on the floor."

"Have you checked it out yourself?"

"Not yet. We thought you could point us in the right direction."

"I don't think so. If the spots are that easy to make out, just sink a rod in and see if smell comes up. Or go for broke and dig a little. The bones won't be that deep, if the surface disturbance is so easy to see. It'll be a lot cheaper, and I can get out of Doraville."

"They want you. Twyla Cotton said they had money left, since you found the boys in one day." Sheriff Rockwell gave me a look I couldn't read. "You don't want the publicity? The press is all over this, as you found last night."

"I don't want any more to do with this."

"That's not my call," she said, with some apparently genuine regret.

I looked down at my lap. I was so sleepy, I was worried I'd drift off while I sat there in the sheriff's office. "No," I said. "I won't do it."

Tolliver rose right along with me, his face expressionless. The sheriff was staring at us as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You have to," she said.

"Why?"

"Because we're telling you to. It's what you can do."

"I've given you alternatives. I want to leave."

"Then I'll arrest you."

"On what grounds?"

"Obstructing an investigation. Something. It won't be hard."

"So you're trying to blackmail me into staying? What kind of law enforcement officer are you?"

"One who wants these murders solved."

"Then arrest me," I said recklessly. "I won't do it."

"You're not strong enough to go into jail," Tolliver said, his voice quiet. I leaned against him, fighting a feeling of terrible weariness. His arms went around me, and I rested my head against his chest. I had a few seconds' peace before I made my brain begin working again.

He was right. With a cracked arm and a head that hadn't healed, I wouldn't have a good time even in a small-town jail like the one in Doraville. And if the town shared a jail with other nearby towns, as was probably the case, I might fare even worse. So I'd have to do what "they" wanted me to, and I might as well bite the bullet and get it done. But who were "they"? Did Sheriff Rockwell mean the state police?

I had to pull myself away from Tolliver. I was accepting his support under false pretenses, and sooner or later I'd have to admit it.

"You need to eat," he said, and I thudded back down to reality.

"Yes," I said. I did need something to eat, and it would help if we had a place to stay afterwards. I'd need to rest, whether or not the result was a fresh crop of bodies.

"All right then," I said. "I'm going to go eat something, and then we'll meet you."

"Don't think you can get out of town without us seeing you," she said.

"I really don't like you," I said.

She looked down. I don't know what expression she wanted to hide. Maybe at the moment she wasn't too fond of herself.

We stole out of the back of the station and finally found a fast-food chain place that looked pretty anonymous. It was too cold to eat in the car. We had to go in. Fortunately, no one in there seemed to read the papers, or else they were simply too polite to accost me. Which meant there weren't any reporters. Either way, I got to eat the food in peace. At least with food this simple, there was nothing Tolliver had to cut up for me. All the aid he had to supply was ripping open the ketchup packets and putting the straw in the drink. I ate slowly because after we finished I'd have to go to the damn barn, and I didn't want to.

"I think this sucks," I said after I'd eaten half the hamburger. "Not the food, but the situation."

"I do, too," he said. "But I don't see how we can get out of it without more fuss than doing it will be."

I started to snap at him, to remind him that it was me that would be doing the unpleasant task; that he would be standing by, as always. Fortunately, I shut my mouth before those awful words came out. I was horrified at how I could have ripped up our relationship based on a moment's peevishness. How many times a week did I thank God that I had Tolliver with me? How many times did I feel grateful that he was there to act as a buffer between me and the world?

"Harper?"

"What?"

"You're looking at me weird. What's the matter?"

"I was just thinking."

"You must have been thinking some bad thoughts."

"Yeah."

"Are you mad at me for some reason? You think I should have argued more with the sheriff?"

"I don't think that would've done any good."

"Me, either. So why the mad face?"

"I was mad at myself."

"That's not good. You haven't done anything wrong."

I tried not to heave a sigh. "I do wrong things all the time," I said, and if my voice was morose, well, I just couldn't help it. I knew I wanted more from Tolliver than he could or should give me, and I had to hide that knowledge from everyone, especially from him.

I was definitely on a "my life sucks" kick, and the sooner I got off of it, the better life would be.

We called Sheriff Rockwell on our way back to the station so she could meet us outside. We parked our car and climbed into hers. "He doesn't need to come," she said, nodding her head at Tolliver.

"He comes," I said. "That's not a negotiation point. I'd rather talk to the reporters for an hour than go somewhere without him."

She gave me a very sharp look. Then she shrugged. "All right," she said. "He comes along."

As she turned out of the parking lot, she turned yet again so she wouldn't drive past the front of the station. I'd wondered if she might be a glory hound, yet she was avoiding the media. I couldn't figure her out at all.

Even though I'd had some food and some time out, by the time we reached our destination at the very edge of town I was realizing my body was far from healed. There were some pain pills in the pharmacy bag back in our car. I wished I'd brought them with us, but I had to admit to myself that I wouldn't have taken one before I worked. I didn't know what would happen if I fiddled with the procedure. For a moment, I entertained myself with a few possibilities, but the fun of that palled pretty quickly. By the time Sheriff Rockwell pulled to a stop, I was leaning my head against the cold glass of the window.

"Are you feeling well enough to do this?" she asked reluctantly.

"Let's get it over with."

Tolliver helped me out of the car and we walked toward the cluster of men standing at the entrance to a barn that had formerly been red. It wasn't in as bad shape as the garage of the house in the foothills, but there were gaps between the boards, the paint was only clinging to the boards in streaks, and the tin roof seemed to be all that was holding the structure together. I looked around: there was a house a distance away at the front of the property, a house that seemed in much better condition than the barn. So, someone hadn't wanted to farm or keep livestock; they'd just wanted the house and maybe some space around them.

The little knot of men unraveled to show two people standing huddled at its center. One was a man about forty, wearing a heavy coat that he hadn't buttoned. He was a small man, no larger than Doak Garland. The coat engulfed him. I could see a dress shirt and tie underneath. He had his arm around a boy who was possibly twelve. The boy was short, thickset, with long blond hair, and he had a huskier build than his father. At the moment he looked overwhelmed with shock and a kind of anticipatory excitement.

Whatever was in the barn, the boy knew about it.

The sheriff didn't pause as we passed the two, and I let my eyes linger on the boy. I know you, I thought, and I knew he could see my recognition. He looked a little frightened.

My connection is with the dead, but every now and then I come in contact with someone who has his or her own preoccupation with the departed. Sometimes these people are quite harmless. Sometimes such a person will decide to work in the funeral industry, or become a morgue worker. This boy was one of those people. I'm sure a lot of times I don't pick up on it—but since the boy didn't have all the mental guards and trip wires of the average adult, I could see it in him. I just didn't know what form this preoccupation had taken.

The barn had an overhead bulb that left more in darkness than it illuminated. It was a fairly large structure, quite open except for three stalls in the back full of moldy hay. They looked like they hadn't been touched in years. There were old tools hanging on the walls, and there was the detritus of a household: an old wheelbarrow, a lawn mower, a few bags of lawn fertilizer, old paint cans stacked in a corner.

The air was very cold, very thick, very unpleasant. Tolliver seemed to be trying to hold his breath. That wasn't going to work.

This was more a job for Xylda Bernardo than me, I could tell already.

I told the sheriff so.

"What, that crazy old woman with the dyed red hair?"

"She looks crazy," I agreed. "But she's a true psychic. And what we've got here isn't dead people."

"Not corpses?" It was hard to say if Rockwell was disappointed or relieved.

"Oh, I think we've got corpses. They're just not human. There's death, but I can't find it. If you don't mind, I'll call her. If she can tell you what's here, you can give her my fee."

Rockwell stared at me. The cold had bleached the color out of her face. Even her eyes looked paler. "Done," she said. "And if she makes a fool out of you, it's your own fault."

Xylda and Manfred got there pretty quickly, all things considered. Xylda came into the barn wearing her ratty plaid coat, her long dyed bright red hair wild and tangled around her head. She was a big woman in all ways, and her round face was lavishly decorated with powder and lipstick. She was wearing heavy support hose and loafers. Manfred was a loving grandson; most young men his age would run screaming before they'd appear in public with someone as crazy-looking as Xylda.

Xylda, who was carrying a cane, didn't greet us, or even acknowledge we were there. I couldn't remember if she'd needed one a couple of months ago or not. It gave her a rakish air. I noticed that Manfred kept his hands lightly on her waist, as if she might topple over all of a sudden.

She pointed with the cane to one of the slightly mounded areas in the dirt floor. Then she stood absolutely still. The men who'd come in with her—everyone who'd been outside, with the addition of the boy and the man I was sure was his father—had been eyeing her with derision, and a few of them had made comments not quite softly enough. But now they were silent, and when Xylda closed her eyes and appeared to be listening to something no one else could hear, the level of tension rose almost palpably.

"Tortured animals," she said crisply. She spun with as much agility as you can expect from a rather old and hefty woman. She pointed the cane at the boy. "You're torturing animals, you little son of a bitch."

You couldn't accuse Xylda of mincing words.

"They cry out against you," she said, her voice falling to an eerie monotone. "Your future is written in blood."

The boy looked as if he wanted to break and run when those old eyes fixed on him. I didn't blame him.

"Son," said the little man with the big coat. He looked at the boy with a heartbreaking doubt in his face. "Is what she says true? Could you have done something like that?"

"Dad," the boy said pleadingly, as if his father could stop what would happen next. "Don't make me go through this."

Tolliver's arm tightened around my waist.

The man gave the boy a little shake. "You have to tell them," he said.

"It was already hurt," the boy said, his voice exhausted and dead. "I just watched it till it died."

"Liar," Xylda said, her voice dripping with disgust.

After that, things really went downhill.

THE deputies did their digging and found the aforementioned cat, a dog, some rabbits—baby rabbits—and a bird or two. They kicked around the stalls, making dust from the stale hay rise up in thick clouds. All they discovered was the stalls had bare-board flooring, so there couldn't be any animal corpses underneath. The father, Tom Almand, seemed absolutely stunned. Since he was a counselor at the mental health center, he would know as well as anyone there that one of the early signs of a developing serial killer was the torture of animals. I wondered how many kids who tortured animals didn't grow up to be murderers, but I assumed that would be impossible to document. Was it possible to do something so vile and yet become a well-adjusted adult with healthy relationships? Maybe. I hadn't studied the phenomenon, and I sure didn't plan to do any research on it. I saw enough in my day-to-day work life to convince me that people were capable of dreadful things…and wonderful things, too. Somehow as I looked at the tear-wet face of Chuck Almand, age thirteen, budding sadist, I couldn't feel optimistic.

I was sure that Sheriff Rockwell would be pleased. We'd kept the locals from making a foolish mistake, we'd uncovered a genuinely disturbed source of future trouble, and I wasn't going to charge a penny on my own behalf for the distress I'd been put through. They did owe Xylda some cash, though, and I wanted to be sure they'd pay it.

The sheriff was not looking sunny, though. In fact, she looked tired, discouraged, and disheartened.

"Why so glum?" I asked her. Tolliver was making conversation with Manfred; he'd forced himself to do the polite thing. Xylda had hold of the arm of one of the officers, and she was giving him an earful of talk. He looked dazed.

"I hoped we'd wrap it up," she said. She seemed too down to disguise her thoughts and emotions. "I hoped this would be it. We'd find more bodies here. We'd find evidence—maybe trophies—tying someone, maybe Tom, to all the murders. It would all be over. We would have solved the case ourselves, instead of having to turn it over to the state boys or the FBI."

Sandra Rockwell was not the clear pool she'd seemed at first.

"There aren't any human corpses here. I'm sorry we can't wave a magic wand and make that come true for you," I said. And I was sincere. Like most other people, I wanted the bad guys caught, I wanted justice to prevail, and I wanted punishment of the wicked. But so often you didn't get all three at the same time, or in the same degree. "Can we leave now?" I asked.

The sheriff closed her eyes, just for a second. I had a creepy-crawly feeling in my belly. She said, "The SBI has asked that you remain on site for another day. They want to question you some more."

The creepy-crawly feeling resolved into a knot of anxiety. "I thought we'd get to leave after we did this." My voice must have gone up, because a lot of people turned to look at us. Even the boy at the heart of this brouhaha turned to look. I stared right into Chuck Almand's face, and for the first time I consciously looked into another human being.

"You might as well shoot him now," I said. It was an awful feeling. I wondered if this was how Xylda saw things, if this was what had made her so peculiar. I wondered if Manfred would go the same way. It wasn't like free choice had been taken away from the boy, that he was doomed from the beginning by his nature. It was more like I could see what choices he would make. And they were almost all on the side of becoming one of those people who end up as the subject of a documentary on A&E.

Was what I was seeing the truth? Was it inevitable? I hoped not. And I hoped I never experienced it again. Maybe I was able to see inside Chuck Almand only because I was close to two genuine psychics, and their proximity sparked a touch of it in myself. Maybe it was the rumble of thunder far away. That sound always triggered the lightning feelings in me—a jittery combination of fear and agitation. Maybe I had the completely wrong perspective.

"Tolliver," I said, "we have to find a place to stay. They're not going to let us leave after all." We should have taken off from the pharmacy, taken off and never looked back.

My brother was beside me instantly. He looked at Sheriff Rockwell for a long, long moment. "Then you have to find us a place to stay," he said. "We gave up our motel room."

With unexpected lucidity, Xylda said, "You can stay with us. It'll be cramped, but it's better than staying in the jail."

I thought of squeezing in a bed with Xylda while Tolliver and Manfred slept two feet away. I thought of other possible sleeping arrangements. I thought the jail might be better. "Thanks so much," I said, "but I'm sure the sheriff can help us find something."

"I'm not your travel agent," Rockwell said. She seemed to be glad to find something to be mad about. "But I realize you had planned on leaving, and I'll try to think of something. It's your fault the town's this crowded."

There was a long moment of silence in the barn, as everyone within hearing range stared at her.

"Not exactly your fault," she said.

"I think not," I said.

"Everyone in town has rented out every room they've got," a deputy said. His uniform said he was Tidmarsh—Rob Tidmarsh, the neighbor, then. "The only place I can think of is Twyla Cotton's lake house."

The sheriff brightened. "Give her a call, Rob." She turned back to us. "Thanks for coming here, and we'll figure out what to do with the juvenile delinquent here."

"He won't go to jail?"

"Tom," the sheriff said, raising her voice, "you and Chuck come here."

The two looked relieved that someone was finally talking to them. I didn't want Chuck anywhere close to me, and I took a couple of steps back. I knew he was only thirteen. I knew he wasn't going to hurt me there and then. And I knew that his life was still full of choices and possibilities, and he could change himself if he saw the need to.

Sheriff Rockwell said, "Tom, we're not going to take Chuck away from you."

Tom Almand's narrow shoulders slumped in relief. He was such a pleasant-looking man, the kind of guy who'd be glad to accept your UPS package from the carrier or to feed your cat while you were out of town. "So what will we need to do?" His voice caught on the words as though his mouth were dry.

"There'll be a hearing with the judge. We'll work it all out. What would help is you getting Chuck into some counseling—that should be easy, huh?—even before the hearing. And you gotta keep a watch on your kid."

Sheriff Rockwell looked down at the boy, so I did, too. For God's sake, he had freckles. There'd never been an Andy Griffith episode called "Opie Skins a Cat."

Chuck was looking at me with almost equal fascination. I don't know why most young men are so interested in me. I don't mean guys my own age, I mean younger. I sure don't intend to attract them. And I don't look like anybody's mom.

"Chuck, you look at me," the sheriff said.

The boy did look toward Rockwell, with eyes as blue and clear as a mountain lake. "Yes'm."

"Chuck, you've been having bad thoughts and doing bad things."

He looked down hastily.

"Did any of your friends help you, or was this all your doing?"

There was a long pause while Chuck Almand tried to work out which answer would give him some advantage.

"It was just me, Sheriff," Chuck said. "I just felt so bad after my mom…"

He paused artistically, as if he could not speak the word.

Tolliver and I knew lying when we heard it. We had lied convincingly to everyone in the school system in Texarkana to keep our family together as our parents circled the drain. We knew this boy was not telling the truth. I was ashamed of him hiding behind his mother's death. At least she'd died of something honorable. She hadn't wanted to leave her family.

The boy made the mistake of glancing back at me. He probably thought he could pull any adult female under with that little hitch in his voice. When my eyes met his, he twitched—not quite a flinch, but close.

"Maybe the psychic could tell us more," Sheriff Rockwell suggested. "Such as whether he's telling the truth about working alone or not." I don't think she meant it; I think she was looking for a reaction from the boy that would tell her what she wanted to know. But of course, the psychic in question took her quite seriously.

Xylda said from behind me, "I'm not going within a yard of the little bastard," and Tom Almand said desperately, "This is my son. My child." He put his arm around the boy, who made a visible effort not to throw it off.

I turned to look at the old psychic. Xylda and I exchanged a long gaze. Manfred looked down at his grandmother and shook his head. "You don't have to, Grandmother," he said. "They wouldn't believe you anyway. Not the law."

"I know." She looked sadder and older in that moment.

"Lady," said Chuck Almand. His voice was very young and very urgent, and I found he was talking to me. "It's true that you can find bodies?"

"Yes."

"They have to be dead?"

"Yes."

He nodded, as if confirming a suspicion. "Thanks for telling me," he said, and then his father drew him away to talk to a few more people.

After that, the day was out of our hands. After a lot of chatter right out of our range of hearing, Sheriff Rockwell told us that Twyla had said we could use her lake house.

"It's at Pine Landing Lake," Sandra Rockwell said. "Parker, Twyla's son, is coming to lead you there."

It was a huge relief to have a place to stay, though if no one had supplied a bed, they would simply have had to let us leave town. I was definitely feeling just like a person who'd been released from the hospital that morning; not seriously ill, but tired and a little shaky. The police were digging for the animal corpses, I suppose to make sure there weren't any human remains mixed in. We were shunted over to the side of the barn where the earth was clearly undisturbed. Tolliver and I, Manfred, and Xylda stood in a silent row. Every now and then someone in uniform would dart a curious glance in our direction.

By the time Parker McGraw got there to take us to his mother's lake house, the media had discovered the police were at the old barn and were swarming around like flies on a carcass, though they were kept at a distance by the town cops. They were yelling my name from time to time.

After a handshake with Tolliver, Manfred led Xylda out to draw them off us. "Grandmother loves the photographers," he said. "Just watch." We did. Xylda, her flaming red hair outlining her creased round face like a scarf, strode off across the empty meadow with Manfred in colorful attendance. She paused by her car, with a reluctance so fake it was almost funny, to give the eager reporters a few well-chosen words. "She's ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille," Manfred said. He leaned over to kiss my cheek and followed her.

While Xylda was enjoying her moment, Tolliver and I did an end run around the mob to reach Parker's truck. Though I had only a faint recollection of what the truck looked like, Tolliver had admired it when we'd seen it in Twyla's driveway and he led me right to it.

Twyla's son was big and burly, dressed in the usual jeans and flannel shirt and down vest. His boots were huge and streaked with dirt. His mom hadn't had enough money when he was young to take him to the orthodontist.

He shook Tolliver's hand heartily. He was a little more tentative about shaking mine, as if women in his milieu didn't often offer to shake.

"Let's get out of here while the getting's good," he said, and we slid into his truck as quickly as we could. Tolliver had to give me a boost. We were really jammed in, since Parker had brought his son Carson. He introduced us, and even under the circumstances, Parker's pride in the boy shone through.

Carson was a dark boy, with a husky build. He was short; he hadn't gotten his growth yet. He had a broad face like his grandmother, and his eyes were clear and brown. He was subdued and silent, which I guess was no wonder, since the body of his brother had been discovered.

"Our car's at the back of the police station," Tolliver said, and Parker nodded. He seemed friendly enough, but he was a man of few words.

However, once we were clear of the media traffic Parker said, "I didn't get a chance to thank you the other day. We didn't show you any hospitality, either, but I guess you can understand why."

"Yes," I said, and Tolliver nodded. "Don't think twice about it. We did the job we came here to do."

"Yes, you did it. You didn't take my mama's money and run for the hills with it. She's a woman who's always done what she thought was right, and she thought calling you two in was right. I don't mind telling you, I disagreed with her real strong, and I told her so. But she knew her own mind, and she was right. Them other two…" He shook his head. "We didn't know how lucky we was with you-all until we saw those two."

He meant Manfred and Xylda. I glanced to my side to see how Carson was taking all this. He was certainly listening, but he didn't seem upset.

"I'm glad you have a high opinion of us," I said, struggling to find a way to express myself tactfully. "But you really can't judge a book by its cover, at least in Xylda Bernardo's case. She's the real deal. I do realize that the way she looks and acts does put some people off." I hoped I'd been conciliatory enough to coax him into listening to me.

"That was real Christian of you," Parker McGraw said after he'd thought over my words for a few minutes. Just when I was beginning to think the subject was closed he added, "But I guess we'll be coming to you for all our supernatural needs." He had a sense of humor after all. But it went back behind the cloud of his grief as soon as I'd glimpsed it. "It don't seem right, enjoying anything, when our son is gone from this earth." In a gesture that just about broke my heart, Carson laid his head on his dad's shoulder just for a second.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I wish I could tell you who did it."

"Oh, we're going to find out who done it," he said, without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. "Me and Bethalynn, we got to. We got Carson here, he deserves to grow up without being afraid."

Carson's eyes met mine. He didn't seem afraid right now, but he had his dad beside him. The boy's calm eyes told me that Carson had been brought up in the expectation that adults would protect him from harm. Nothing had happened to shake that expectation. Even though his brother had been taken, Carson was sure he would not be. I hoped he was right.

Parker seemed to think that Doraville would be safe if he discovered and eliminated the man who'd killed his son. He seemed to think it would be easy to do this. For a moment, I jeered at him in my head; but then I reminded myself of what this man had gone through. He had a right to any fantasy he chose if it would help him get through this life.

We all have our fantasies.