The Body Farm

13

Detective Mote had been moved to a private room and was in stable but guarded condition when I went to see him later that day. Not knowing my way around town very well, I'd resorted to the hospital gift shop, where they had but a very small selection of flower arrangements to choose from behind refrigerated glass.

"Detective Mote?" I hesitated in his doorway. He was propped up in bed dozing, the TV on loud.

"Hi," I said a little louder. He opened his eyes and for an instant had no idea who I was. Then he remembered and smiled as if he'd been dreaming of me for days.

"Well, Lord have mercy. Dr. Scarpetta. Now I never would've thought you'd still be hanging'round here."

"I'm sorry about the flowers. They didn't have much to choose from downstairs." I carried in a pitiful bunch of mums and daisies in a thick green vase.

"How about if I just put them right here?"

I set the arrangement on the dresser, and felt sad that his only other flowers were more pathetic than mine.

"There's a chair right there if you can sit for a minute."

"How are you feeling?" I asked. He was pale and thinner, and his eyes looked weak as he stared out the window at a lovely fall day.

"Well, I'm just trying to go with the flow, like they say," he said.

"It's hard to know what's around the corner, but I'm thinking about fishing and the woodworking I like to do. You know, I've been wanting for years to build a little cabin someplace. And I like to whittle walking sticks from basswood."

"Detective Mote," I said hesitantly, for I did not want to upset him, "has anyone from your department come to visit?"

"Why sure," he answered as he continued staring out at a stunning blue sky.

"A couple fellas have dropped by or else called."

"How do you feel about what's going on in the Steiner investigation?"

"Not too good."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm not there, for one thing. For another, it seems like everybody's riding off in his own direction. I'm worried about it some."

"You've been involved in the case from the start," I said.

"You must have known Max Ferguson pretty well."

"I guess not as well as I thought."

"Are you aware that he's a suspect?"

"I know it. I know all about it." The sun through the window made his eyes so pale they seemed made of water. He blinked several times and dabbed tears caused by bright light or emotion. He talked some more.

"I also know they're looking hard at Creed Lindsey, and you know it's sort of a shame for either of'em."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Well, now. Dr. Scarpetta, Max ain't exactly here to defend himself."

"No, he isn't," I agreed.

"And Creed couldn't begin to know how to defend himself, even if he was here."

"Where is he?"

"I hear he's run off someplace, not that it's the first time. He done the same thing when that little boy was run over and killed. Everybody thought Creed was guiltier than sin. So he disappeared and turned up again like a bad penny. Now and again he just goes off to what they used to call Colored Town and drinks himself into a hole."

"Where does he live?"

"Off Montreal Road, up there in Rainbow Mountain."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with where that is."

"When you get to the Montreal gate, it's the road going up the mountain to the right. Used to be only mountain folk up there, what you'd probably call hillbillies. But during the last twenty years a lot of them has gone on to other places or passed on and folk like Creed's moved in." He paused for a minute, his expression distant and thoughtful.

"You can see his place from down below on the road. He's got an old washing machine on the porch and pitches most his trash out the back door into the woods." He sighed.

"The plain fact is. Creed wasn't gifted with smarts."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he's scared of what he don't understand, and he can't understand something like what's going on around here."

"Meaning you also don't think he's involved in the Steiner girl's death," I said. Detective Mote closed his eyes as the monitor over his bed registered a steady pulse of 66. He looked very tired.

"No ma'am, I don't for a minute. But there's a reason he's running, you ask me, and I can't get that out of my mind."

"You said he was scared. That seems reason enough."

"I just have this feeling there's something else. But I guess there's no point in my stewing over it. Not a darn thing I can do. Not unless all of 'em want to line up outside my door and let me ask'em whatever I want, and that sure isn't likely to happen."

I did not want to ask him about Marino, but I felt I must.

"What about Captain Marino? Have you heard much from him?" Mote looked straight at me.

"He came on in the other day with a fifth of Wild Turkey. It's in my closet over there." He raised an arm off the covers and pointed. We both sat silently for a moment.

"} know I'm not supposed to be drinking," he added.

"I want you to listen to your doctors. Lieutenant Mote. You've got to live with this, and that means not doing any of those things that got you into trouble."

"I know I got to quit smoking."

"It can be done. I never thought I could."

"You still miss it?"

"I don't miss the way it made me feel."

"I don't like the way any bad habit makes me feel, but that's got nothing to do with it." I smiled.

"Yes, I miss it. But it does get easier."

"I told Pete I don't want to see him ending up in here like me. Dr. Scarpetta. But he's a hardhead."

I was unsettled by the memory of Mote turning blue on the floor as I tried to save his life, and I believed it was simply a matter of time before Marino suffered a similar experience. I thought of the fried steak lunch, his new clothes and car and strange behavior. It almost seemed he had decided he did not want to know me anymore, and the only way to bring that about was to change into someone I did not recognize.

"Certainly Marino has gotten very involved. The case is terribly consuming," I lamely said.

"Mrs. Steiner can't think of much else, not that I blame her a bit. If it was me, I reckon I'd put everything I got into it, too."

"What has she put into it?" I said.

"She's got a lot of money," Mote said.

"I wondered about that. " I thought of her car.

"She's done a lot to help in this investigation."

"Help?" I asked.

"In what way, exactly?"

"Cars. Like the one Pete's driving, for example. Someone's got to pay for all that."

"I thought those things were donated by area merchants."

"Now, I will have to say that what Mrs. Steiner's done has inspired others to pitch in. She's got this whole area thinking about this case and feeling for her, and not a soul wants someone else's child to suffer the same thing.

"It's really like nothing I've ever seen in my twenty- two years of police work. But then, I have to say I've never seen a case like this to begin with."

"Did she actually pay for the car I'm driving?" It required great restraint on my part not to raise my voice or seem anything but calm.

"She donated both cars and some other business people have kicked in the other things. Lights, radios, scanners."

"Detective Mote," I said, "how much money has Mrs. Steiner given to your department?"

"I reckon close to fifty."

"Fifty?" I looked at him in disbelief.

"Fifty thousand dollars?"

"That's right."

"And no one has a problem with that?"

"Far as I'm concerned, it's no different than the power company donating a car to us some years back because there's a transformer they want us to keep an eye on. And the Quick Stops and 7-Elevens give us coffee so we'll come in all hours. It's all about people helping us to help them. It works fine as long as nobody tries to take advantage." His eyes were steady on me, his hands still on top of the covers. "} guess in a big city like Richmond you got more rules."

"Any gift to the Richmond Police Department that is over twenty-five hundred dollars has to be approved by an O and R," I said.

"I don't know what that is."

"An Ordinance and Resolution, which has to be brought before the city council."

"Sounds mighty complicated."

"And it should be, for obvious reasons."

"Well, sure," Mote said, and mainly he just sounded weary and worn down by the revelation that his body was not to be trusted anymore.

"Can you tell me just what this fifty thousand dollars is to be used for, besides acquiring several additional cars?" I asked.

"We need a chief of police. I was pretty much the whole enchilada, and it don't look too good for me at this point, to be honest. And even if I can go back to some sort of light duty, it's time the town has someone with experience in charge. Things aren't the way they used to be."

"I see," I commented, and the reality of what was happening was clarifying in a very disturbing way.

"I should let you get some rest."

"I'm mighty glad you came by." He squeezed my hand so hard I was in pain, and I sensed a deep despair he probably could not have explained were he completely conscious of it. To almost die is to know that one day you will, and to never again feel the same about anything.

Before I returned to the Travel-Eze, I drove to the Montreal gate, went through it, and turned around. I went back out the other side as I tried to think what to do. There was very little traffic, and when I pulled off on the shoulder and stopped for a bit, people passing me probably assumed I was but one more tourist who was lost or looking for Billy Graham's house. From where I was parked, I had a perfect view of Creed Lindsey's neighborhood. In fact, I could see his house and its old boxy white washing machine on the porch.

Rainbow Mountain must have been named on an October afternoon like this one. Leaves were varying intensities of red, orange, and yellow that were fiery in the sun and rich in the shade, and shadows crept deeper into clefts and valleys as the sun settled lower. In another hour light would be gone. I might not have decided to drive up that dirt road had I not detected wisps of smoke drifting from Creed's leaning stone chimney.

Pulling back out on the pavement, I crossed to the other side and turned onto a dirt road that was narrow and rutted. Red dust boiled up from the rear of my car as I climbed closer to a neighborhood that was about as unwelcoming as any I had ever seen. It appeared that the road went to the top of the mountain and quit. Scattered along it were a series of old humpbacked trailers and dilapidated homes built of unpainted boards or logs. Some had tar paper roofs while others were tin, and the few vehicles I saw were old pickup trucks and a station wagon painted a strange creme de menthe green.

Creed Lindsey's place had an empty patch of dirt beneath trees where I could tell he usually parked, and I pulled in and cut the engine. For a time, I sat looking at his shack and its dilapidated, slanting porch. It seemed a light might have been on inside, or it could have been the way the window caught the low sun. As I thought about this man who sold red-hot toothpicks to children and had picked wildflowers for Emily as he swept floors and emptied trash at their school, I debated the wisdom of what I was doing.

My original intention, after all, had been to see where Creed Lindsey lived in relation to the Presbyterian church and Lake Tomahawk. Now that certain questions were answered, I had other ones. I could not just drive away from a fire on a hearth in a home where no one was supposed to be. I could not stop thinking about what Mote had said, and of course there were the Fireballs I had found. They really were the main reason I had to talk to this man called Creed.

I knocked on the door for a long time, thinking I heard someone move around inside, and feeling watched. But no one came to let me in, and my verbal salutations went unanswered. The window to my left was dusty and had no screen. On the other side I could see a margin of dark wood flooring and part of a wooden chair illuminated by a small lamp on a table.

Though I reasoned that a lamp on did not mean anyone was home, I smelled wood smoke and thought the stack of kindling on the porch was piled high and freshly split. I knocked again and the wooden door felt loose beneath my knuckles, as if it wouldn't take much to kick it in.

"Hello?" I called.

"Is anybody home?"

I was answered by the sound of trees shaken by gusts of wind. The air was chilled in the shade and I detected the faint odor of things rotting, mildewing, and falling apart. In the woods on either side of this one- or two-room shack with its rusting roof and bent TV antenna was the trash of many years blessedly covered in part by leaves. Mostly I saw disintegrating paper, plastic milk jugs, and cola bottles that had been lying out there long enough for labels to be bleached.

So I concluded that the lord of the manor had forsaken his unseemly way of pitching garbage out the door, since none of it looked recent. As I was momentarily lost in this observation, I became aware of a presence behind me. I felt eyes on my back so palpably that hair raised on my arms as I slowly turned around.

The girl was a strange apparition on the road near the rear bumper of my car. She stood as motionless as a deer staring at me in the gathering dusk, dull brown hair limp around her narrow pale face, eyes slightly crossed. She held herself very still. I sensed in her long, lanky limbs that she would bound out of sight if I made any movement or sound the least bit startling. For the longest time, she continued to stare and I looked right back as if I accepted the necessity of this strange encounter. When she shifted her stance a little and seemed to breathe and blink again, I dared to speak.

"I wonder if you can help me," I said gently without fear. She slipped bare hands in the pockets of a dark wool coat that was several sizes too small. She wore wrinkled khaki pants rolled up at the ankles, and scuffed tan leather boots. I thought she was in her early teens, but it was hard to say.

"I'm from out of town," I tried again, "and it's very important that I locate Creed Lindsey. The man who lives here, or at least I think he lives in this house. Can you help me?"

"Whadyou want thar fer?" Her voice was high- pitched and reminded me of banjo. strings. I knew I would have a hard time understanding a word of what she might have to say.

"I need him to help me," I said very slowly. She moved several steps closer, her eyes never leaving mine. They were pale and crossed like a Siamese cat's.

"I know he thinks there are people looking for him," I went on with deadly calm.

"But I'm not one of them. I'm not one of. them at all.

I'm not here to cause him harm in any way. "

"What's thar name?"

"My name is Dr. Kay Scarpetta," I answered her. She stared harder at me as if I had just told her the most curious secret. It occurred to me that if she knew what a doctor was, she might never have encountered one who was a woman.

"Do you know what a medical doctor is?" I asked her. She stared at my car as if it contradicted what I had just said.

"There are some doctors who help the police when people get hurt. That's what I do," I said.

"I'm helping the police here. That's why I have a car like this. The police are letting me drive it while I'm here because I'm not from these parts. I'm from Richmond, Virginia." My voice trailed off as she looked silently at my car, and I had the disheartening feeling that I had said too much and all was lost. I would never find Creed Lindsey. It had been incredibly foolish to imagine for even a moment that I could communicate with a people I did not know and could not begin to understand.

I was about to decide to return to my car and drive away when the girl suddenly approached. I was startled when she took my hand and without a word tugged me toward my car. She pointed through the window at my black medical bag on the passenger's seat.

"That's my medical bag," I said.

"Do you want me to get it?"

"Yes, get thar," she said. Opening the door, I did. I wondered if she was merely curious, but then she was pulling me out onto the unpaved street where I had first seen her. Wordlessly, she led me up the hill, her hand rough and dry like corn husks as it continued to grasp mine firmly and with purpose.

"Would you tell me your name?" I asked as we climbed at a brisk pace.

"Deborah." Her teeth were bad, and she was gaunt and old before her time, typical in the cases of chronic malnutrition that I often saw in a society where food was not always the answer. I expected that Deborah's family, like many I encountered in inner cities, subsisted on all the high empty calories that food stamps could buy.

"Deborah what?" I asked as we neared a tiny slab house. It appeared to have been built of trimmings from a sawmill and covered with tar paper, portions of which were supposed to look like brick.

"Deborah Washbum."

I followed her up rickety wooden steps leading to a weathered porch with nothing on it but firewood and a faded turquoise glider. She opened a door that hadn't seen paint in too long to remember its color, and pulled me inside, where the reason for this mission became instantly clear.

Two tiny faces too old for their very young years looked up from a bare mattress on the floor where a man sat bleeding into rags in his lap as he tried to sew up a cut on his right thumb. On the floor nearby was a glass jar half filled with a clear liquid that I doubted was water, and he had managed to get a stitch or two in with a regular needle and thread. For a moment, we regarded each other in the glare of an overhead bare light bulb.

"Thar's a doctor," Deborah said to him. He stared at me some more as blood dripped from his thumb, and I guessed he was in his late twenties or early thirties. His hair was long and black and in his eyes, his skin sickly pale, as if it had never seen the sun. Tall and thick through the middle, he stunk of old grease, sweat, and alcohol.

"Where'd you get her from?" the man asked the child. The other children stared vacantly at the TV, which as best I could see was the only electrical object in the house besides the one light bulb.

"Thar was looking for thar," Deborah said to him, and I realized with amazement that she used thar for every pronoun, and that the man must be Creed Lindsey.

"Why'd you bring her?" He didn't seem particularly upset or afraid.

"Thar hurt."

"How did you cut yourself?" I asked him as I opened my bag.

"On my knife."

I looked closely. He had raised a substantial flap of skin.

"Stitching's not going to be the best thing to do here," I said, and I got out topical antiseptic, Steristrips and Benzoin-glue.

"When did you do this?"

"This afternoon. I come in and tried to pry the lid off a can."

"Do you remember the last time you had a tetanus shot?"

"Naw."

"You should go get one tomorrow. I'd do it but I don't have anything like that with me." He watched me as I looked around for paper towels. The kitchen was nothing but a woodstove, and water came from a pump in the sink. Rinsing my hands and shaking them dry as best I could, I knelt by him on the mattress and took hold of his hand. It was callused and muscular, with dirty, torn nails.

"This is going to hurt a little," I said.

"And I don't have anything to help with pain, so if you've got something, go ahead." I looked at the jar of clear fluid. He looked down at it, too, then reached for it with his good hand. He took a swallow and the white lightning or corn liquor or whatever the hell it was brought tears to his eyes. I waited until he took another swallow before cleaning his wound and holding the flap in place with glue and paper tapes. When I was finished he was relaxed. I wrapped his thumb with gauze and wished I had an Ace bandage.

"Where's your mother?" I said to Deborah as I put wrappers and the needle inside my bag, since I didn't see a trash can.

"Thar's at thar Burger Hut."

"Is that where she works?" She nodded as one of her siblings got up to change channels.

"Are you Creed Lindsey?" I matter-of-factly asked my patient.

"Why're you asking?" He spoke with the same twang, and I did not think he was as mentally slow as Lieutenant Mote had indicated.

"I need to speak to him."

"What for?"

"Because I don't think he had anything to do with what happened to Emily Steiner. But I think he knows something that might help us find who did." He reached for the jar of liquor.

"What would he know?"

"I guess I'd like to ask him that," I said.

"I suspect he liked Emily and feels real upset about what happened. And I also suspect that when he feels upset he gets away from people like he's doing now, especially if he thinks he might be in any sort of trouble." He stared down at the jar, slowly swirling its contents.

"He never did nothing to her that night."

"That night?" I asked.

"Do you mean the night she disappeared?"

"He saw her walking with her guitar and slowed his truck to say hi. But he didn't do nothing. He didn't give her a ride or nothing. "

"Did he ask to give her a ride?"

"He wouldn't have 'cause he'd know she wouldn't have a-taken it."

"Why wouldn't she have?"

"She don't like him. She don't like Creed even though he gives her presents." His lower lip trembled.

"I hear he was very nice to her. I hear he gave her flowers at school. And candy. "

"He never gave her no candy 'cause she wouldn't have a-taken it."

"She wouldn't take it?"

"She wouldn't. Not even the kind she liked. I seen her take it from others."

"Fireballs?"

"Wren Maxwell trades'em to me for the toothpicks and I seen him give the candy to her."

"Was she by herself when she was walking home that night with her guitar?"

"She was."

"Where?"

"On the road. About a mile from the church."

"Then she wasn't walking on the path that goes around the lake?"

"She was on the road. It was dark."

"Where were the other children from her youth group?"

"They was way behind her, the ones I saw. I didn't see but three or four. She was walking fast and crying. I slowed down when I seen she was crying. But she kept walking and I went on. I kept her in sight for a while'cause I was afeared something was wrong."

"Why did you think that?"

"She was crying."

"Did you watch her until she got to her house?"

"Yeah."

"You know where her house is?"

"I know where."

"Then what happened?" I asked, and I knew very well why the police were looking for him. I could understand their suspicions and knew they would grow only darker if they heard what he was telling me.

"I seen her go in the house."

"Did she see you?"

"Naw. Some of the time I didn't have my headlights on." Dear God, I thought.

"Creed, do you understand why the police are concerned?" He swirled the liquor some more, and his eyes turned in a little and were an unusual mixture of brown and green.

"I didn't do nothing to her," he said, and I believed him.

"You were just keeping your eye on her because you saw she was upset," I said.

"And you liked her."

"I saw she was upset, I did." He took a sip from the jar.

"Do you know where she was found? Where the fisherman found her?"

"I know of it."

"You've been to the spot." He did not answer.

"You visited the spot and left her candy. After she was dead."

"A lot of folks has been there. They go to look. But her kin don't go."

"Her kin? Do you mean her mother?"

"She don't go."

"Has anyone seen you go there?"

"Naw."

"You left candy in that place. A present for her." His lip was trembling again and his eyes watered.

"I left her Fireballs." When he said "fire" it sounded like "far."

"Why in that place? Why not on her grave?"

"I didn't want no one to see me."

"Why?" He stared at the jar and did not need to say it. I knew why. I could imagine the names the schoolchildren called him as he pushed his broom up and down halls. I could imagine the smirks and laughter, the terrible teasing that ensued if it seemed Creed Lindsey got sweet on anyone. And he had been sweet on Emily Steiner and she had been sweet on Wren. It was very dark when I went out, and Deborah followed me like a silent cat as I returned to my car. My heart physically ached, as if I had pulled muscles in my chest. I wanted to give her money but I knew I should not.

"You make him be careful with that hand and keep it clean," I said to her as I opened the door to my Chevrolet.

"And you need to get him to a doctor. Do you have a doctor here?" She shook her head.

"You get your mother to find him one. Someone at the Burger Hut can tell her. Will you do that?" She looked at me and took my hand.

"Deborah, you can call me at the Travel-Eze. I don't have the number, but it's in the phone book. Here's my card so you can remember my name."

"Thar don't have a phone," she said, watching me intently as she held on to my hand.

"I know you don't. But if you needed to call, you could find a pay phone, couldn't you?" She nodded.

A car was coming up the hill.

"Thar's thar mother."

"How old are you, Deborah?"

"Eleven."

"Do you go to the public school here in Black Mountain?" I asked, shocked to think she was Emily's age. She nodded again.

"Did you know Emily Steiner?"

"Thar was ahead of thar."

"You weren't in the same grade?"

"No." She let go of my hand. The car, an ancient heap of a Ford with a headlight out, rumbled past, and I caught a glimpse of the woman looking our way. I would never forget the weariness of that flaccid face with its sunken mouth and hair in a net. Deborah loped after her mother, and I shut my door.

I took a long hot bath when I got back to the motel and thought about getting something to eat. But when I looked at the room service menu I found myself staring mindlessly and decided instead to read for a while. The telephone startled me awake at half past ten.

"Yes?"

"Kay?" It was Wesley.

"I need to talk to you. It's very important."

"I'll come to your room."

I went straight there and knocked on the door.

"It's Kay," I said.

"Hold on." His voice sounded from the other side.

A pause, and the door opened. His face confirmed that something was terribly wrong.

"What is it?" I walked in.

"It's Lucy." He shut the door, and I judged by the desk that he had spent most of the afternoon on the phone. Notes were scattered everywhere. His tie was on the bed, his shirt untucked.

"She's been in an accident," he said.

"What?" My blood went cold.

He shut the door and was very distracted.

"Is she all right?" I could not think.

"It happened earlier this evening on Ninety-five just north of Richmond. She'd apparently been at Quantico and went out to eat and then drove back. She ate at the Outback. You know, the Australian steakhouse in northern Virginia? We know she stopped in Hanover at the gun store-at Green Top-and it was after she left there that she had the accident." He paced as he talked.

"Benton, is she all right?" I could not move.

"She's at MCV. It was pretty bad, Kay."

"Oh my God."

"Apparently she ran off the road at the Atlee/Elmont exit and over corrected When the tags came back to you, the state police called your office from the scene and the service got Fielding to track you down. He called me because he didn't want you to get the news over the phone. Well, the point is, since he's a medical examiner he was afraid of what your first reaction would be if he started to tell you that Lucy had just been in an accident" - "Benton!"

"I'm sorry." He put his hands on my shoulders.

"Jesus. I'm not good at this when it's… Well, when it's you. She's got some cuts and a concussion. It's a damn miracle she's alive. The car flipped several times. Your car. It's totaled. They had to cut her out of it and Medflight her in. To be honest, they thought by the look of the wreck that it wasn't survivable. It's just unbelievable she's okay."

I closed my eyes and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Was she drinking?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Tell me the rest of it."

"She's been charged with driving under the influence. They took her blood alcohol at the hospital and it's high. I'm not sure how high."

"And no one else was hurt?"

"No other car was involved."

"Thank God." He sat next to me and rubbed my neck.

"It's a wonder she made it as far as she did without incident. She'd had a lot to drink when she was out to dinner, I guess." He put his arm around me and pulled me close.

"I've already booked a flight for you."

"What was she doing at Green Top?"

"She purchased a gun. A Sig Sauer P230. They found it in the car."

"I have to get back to Richmond now."

"There isn't anything until early in the morning, Kay. It can wait until then."

"I'm cold," I said. He got his suit jacket and put it over my shoulders. I began to shiver. The terror I'd felt when I saw Wesley's face and felt the tension in his tone brought back the night when he had called about Mark.

I had known the instant I'd heard Wesley's voice on the line that his news was very bad, and then he had begun to explain about the bombing in London, about Mark being in the train station walking past at the very moment it happened, and it had nothing to do with him, wasn't directed at him, but he was dead. Grief was like a seizure that shook me like a storm. It left me spent in a way I had never known before, not even when my father had died. I could not react back then, when I was young, when my mother was weeping and everything seemed lost.

"It will be all right," Wesley said, and now he was up pouring me a drink.

"What else do you know about it?"

"Nothing else, Kay. Here, this will help." He handed me a Scotch straight up. Had there been a cigarette in the room, I would have put it between my lips and lit it. I would have ended my abstinence and forgotten my resolve just like that.

"Do you know who her doctor is? Where are the cuts? Did the air bags deploy?" He began kneading my neck again and did not answer my questions because he had already made it clear he knew nothing more. I drank the Scotch quickly because I needed to feel it.

"I will go in the morning, then," I said. His fingers worked their way up into my hair and felt wonderful. My eyes were shut as I began to talk to him about my afternoon. I told him about my visit in the hospital with Lieutenant Mote. I told him about the people on Rainbow Mountain, about the girl who knew no pronouns and Creed, who knew that Emily Steiner had not taken the shortcut around the lake after her youth group meeting at the church.

"It's so sad, because I could see it as he was telling me," I went on, thinking of her diary.

"She was supposed to meet Wren early and of course he did not show. Then he ignored her completely, so she didn't wait until the meeting was over. She ran ahead of everyone else.

"She hurried off because she was hurt and humiliated and didn't want anyone to know. Creed just happened to be out in his truck and saw her, and wanted to make sure she got home okay because he could tell she was upset. He liked her from afar just as she liked Wren from afar. And now she's horribly dead. It seems this is all about people loving people who don't love them back. It's about hurt getting passed on."

"Murder is always about that, really."

"Where's Marino?"

"I don't know."

"What he's doing is all wrong. He knows better than this."

"I think he's gotten involved with Denesa Steiner."

"I know he has."

"I can see how it would happen. He's lonely, had no luck with women, and in fact hasn't even had a clue about women since Doris left. Denesa Steiner's devastated, needy, appeals to his bruised male ego. "

"Apparently, she has a lot of money."

"Yes."

"How did that happen? I thought her late husband taught school."

"I understand his family had a lot of money. They made it in oil or something out west. You're going to have to pass on the details of your encounter with Creed Lindsey. It's not going to look good for him."

I knew that.

"I can imagine how you feel about it, Kay. But I'm not even sure I'm comfortable with what you've told me. It bothers me that he followed her in his truck and had his headlights off. It bothers me that he knew where she lived and had been so aware of her at school. It bothers me a great deal that he visited the spot where her body was found and left the candy."

"Why was the skin in Ferguson's freezer? How does Creed Lindsey fit with that?"

"Either Ferguson put the skin in there or someone else did. It's as simple as that. And I don't think Ferguson did it."

"Why not?"

"He doesn't profile right. And you know that, too."

"And Gault?"

Wesley did not answer.

I looked up at him, for I had learned to feel his silence. I could follow it like the cool walls of a cave.

"You're not telling me something," I said.

"We've just gotten a call from London. We think he's killed again, this time there."

I shut my eyes.

"Dear God, no."

"This time a boy. Fourteen. Killed within the past few days."

"Same MO as Eddie Heath?"

"Eradicated bite marks. Gunshot to the head, body displayed. Close enough."

"That doesn't mean Gault wasn't in Black Mountain," I said as my doubts grew.

"At this moment we can't say it doesn't mean that. Gault could be anywhere. But I don't know about him anymore. There are many similarities between the Eddie Heath and Emily Steiner cases. But there are many differences."

"There are differences because this case is different," I said.

"And I don't think Creed Lindsey put the skin in Ferguson's freezer."

"Listen, we don't know why that was there. We don't know that someone didn't leave it on his doorstep and Ferguson found it the minute he got home from the airport. He put it in the freezer like any good investigator would, and didn't live long enough to tell anyone."

"You're suggesting Creed waited until Ferguson got home and then delivered it?"

"I'm suggesting the police are going to consider Creed left it."

"Why would he do that?"

"Remorse."

"Whereas Gault would do it to jerk us around."

"Absolutely."

I was silent for a moment. Then I said, "If Creed did all this, then how do you explain Denesa Steiner's print on the panties Ferguson was wearing?"

"If he had a fetish about wearing women's clothing when he did his auto erotic thing, he could have stolen them. He was in and out of her house while he was working Emily's case. He could have taken lingerie from her very easily. And wearing something of hers while he masturbated added to the fantasy."

"Is that really what you think?"

"I really don't know what I think. I'm throwing these things out at you because I know what's going to happen. I know what Marino will think. Creed Lindsey is a suspect. In fact, what he told you about following Emily Steiner gives us probable cause to search his house and truck. If we find anything, and if Mrs. Steiner thinks he looks or sounds like the man who broke into her house that night. Creed's going to be charged with capital murder."

"What about the forensic evidence?" I said.

"Have the labs come back with anything more?" Wesley got up and tucked his shirttail in as he talked.

"We've traced the blaze orange duct tape to Attica Correctional Facility in New York. Apparently, some prison administrator got tired of duct tape walking off and decided to have some specially made that would be less convenient to steal.

"So he picked blaze orange, which was also the color of the clothes the inmates wore. Since the tape was used inside the penitentiary to repair things like mattresses, for example, it was essential that it be flame-retardant. Shuford Mills made one run of the stuff-I think around eight hundred cases-back in 1986. "

"That's very weird."

"As for the trace evidence on the adhesive of the strips used to bind Denesa Steiner, the residue is a varnish that's consistent with the varnish on the dresser in her bedroom. And that's pretty much what you would expect, since he bound her in her bedroom. So that information is relatively useless."

"Gault was never incarcerated at Attica, was he?" I asked. Wesley was putting on his tie in front of the mirror.

"No. But that wouldn't preclude his getting hold of the tape in another way. Someone could have given it to him. He did have a close friendship with the warden when the state pen was in Richmond-the warden he later murdered. I suppose it's worth checking that out, in the event some of the tape somehow ended up there."

"Are we going somewhere?" I asked as he slipped a fresh handkerchief into his back pocket and his pistol into a holster on his belt.

"I'm taking you out to dinner."

"What if I don't want to go?"

"You will."

"You're awfully sure of yourself." He leaned over and kissed me as he removed his jacket from my shoulders.

"I don't want you by yourself right now." He put the jacket on and looked very handsome in his precise, somber way. We found a big brightly lit truck stop that featured everything from T-bones to a Chinese buffet. I ate egg drop soup and steamed rice because I did not feel well. Men in denim and boots heaped ribs and pork and shrimp in thick orange sauces on their plates and stared at us as if we were from Oz. My fortune cookie warned of fair-weather friends while Wesley's promised marriage. Marino was waiting for us at the motel when we got back at shortly after midnight. I told him what I knew and he was not happy about it.

"I wish you hadn't gone up there," he said. We were in Wesley's room.

"It's not your place to be interviewing people."

"I am authorized to investigate any violent death fully and to ask any questions I wish. It's ridiculous for you to even say such a thing, Marino. You and I have worked together for years."

"We're a team, Pete," Wesley said.

"That's what the unit's all about. It's why we're here. Listen, I don't mean to be a hardass, but I can't let you smoke in my room. " He put his pack and lighter back into his pocket.

"Denesa's told me Emily used to complain about Creed."

"She knows the police are looking for him?" Wesley asked.

"She's not in town," he evasively replied.

"Where is she?"

"She's got a sick sister in Maryland and went up there for a few days. My point is. Creed gave Emily the creeps. "

I envisioned Creed on the mattress sewing up his thumb. I saw his crooked stare and pasty face, and I was not surprised that he might have frightened a little girl.

"A lot of questions still aren't answered," I said.

"Yeah, well, a lot of questions have been answered," Marino countered.

"To think that Creed Lindsey did this doesn't make sense," I said.

"It's making more sense every day."

"I wonder if he has a television in his house," Wesley said.

I thought for a minute.

"Certainly, people don't have much up there, but they seem to have TVS."

"Creed could have learned all about Eddie Heath from television. Several of these true crime and news shows did segments on the case. "

"Shit, stuff about that case was all over the friggin' universe," Marino said.

"I'm going to bed," I said.

"Well, don't let me hold you up." Marino glared at both of us as he got up from his chair.

"I sure wouldn't want to do that."

"I've about had enough of your insinuations," I said as my anger boiled up.

"I sure as hell ain't insinuating. I'm just calling'em as I see'em."

"Let's not get into this," Wesley calmly said.

"Let's do." I was tired and stressed and fueled by Scotch.

"Let's just do it right here in this room, the three of us together. Since this is all about the three of us."

"It sure as hell isn't," Marino said.

"There's only one relationship in this room, and I'm not part of it. My opinion of it's my own business, and I have a right to it."

"Your opinion is self-righteous and wrongheaded," I said, furious.

"You're acting like a thirteen-year-old with a crush."

"If that ain't just the biggest load of bullshit I ever heard." Marino's face was dark.

"You're so damn possessive and jealous you're making me crazy."

"In your dreams."

"You've got to stop this, Marino. You're destroying our relationship."

"I wasn't aware we had one."

"Of course we do."

"It's late," Wesley warned.

"Everybody's under a lot of stress. We're tired. Kay, now is not a good time for this."

"Now is all we've got," I said.

"Marino, goddam it, I care about you, but you're pushing me away. You're getting into things here that are scaring me to death. I'm not sure you even see what you're doing."

"Well, let me tell you something." Marino looked as if he hated me.

"I don't think you're in a position to say I'm into anything. In the first place, you don't know shit. And in the second, at least I'm not screwing anybody who's married. "

"Pete, that's enough," Wesley snapped.

"You're damn right it is." Marino stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard I was certain it could be heard throughout the entire motel.

"Dear God," I said.

"This is just awful."

"Kay, you spurned him, and that's why he's out of his mind."

"I did not spurn him." Wesley was walking around, agitated.

"I knew he was attached to you. All these years I've known he really cares about you. I just had no idea it went this deep. I had absolutely no idea. "

I did not know what to say.

"The guy's not stupid. I suppose it was just a matter of time before he figured some things out. But I had no way of knowing it would affect him this way."

"I'm going to bed," I said again.

I slept for a while, and then I was wide awake. I stared into the dark, thinking about Marino and what I was doing. I was having an affair and did not feel concerned about it, and I did not understand that. Marino knew I was having an affair, and he was jealous beyond reason. I could never be romantically interested in him. I would have to tell him, but I could not imagine the occasion when such a conversation might occur.

I got up at four and sat out on the porch in the cold, looking at the stars. The Big Dipper was almost directly overhead, and I remembered Lucy as a toddler worrying that it would pour water on her if she stood under it very long. I remembered her perfect bones and skin, and incredible green eyes. I remembered the way she had looked at Carrie Grethen and believed that was part of what went wrong.