The Body Farm

19

I did not follow Wesley's advice but returned to my same room at the Hyatt. I did not want to spend the rest of the day moving into someplace new when I had many calls to make and a plane to catch.

But I was very alert as I walked through the lobby and got on the elevator. I looked at every woman, and then remembered I should pay attention to men, too, for Denesa Steiner was very clever. She had spent most of her life in deceptions and incredible schemes, and I knew how intelligent evil could be.

I saw no one who caught my eye as I walked briskly to my room. But I got my revolver out of the briefcase I had checked in baggage. I had it next to me on the bed as I got on the phone. First, I called Green Top, and Jon, who answered, was very nice. He had waited on me many times, and I did not hesitate to ask pointed questions about my niece.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am," he said again.

"I just couldn't believe it when I read the papers."

"She is doing well," I said.

"Her guardian angel was with her that night."

"She's a special young lady. You must be proud of her." It occurred to me that I was no longer sure, and the thought made me feel terrible.

"Jon, I need to know several important details. Were you working when she came in that night and bought the Sig?"

"Sure. I'm the one who sold it to her."

"Did she get anything else?"

"An extra magazine, several boxes of hollow points. Uhhhh. I think they were Federal Hydra-Shok. Yup, pretty sure of that. Let's see. I also sold her an Uncle Mike's paddle holster, and the same ankle holster I sold to you last spring. A top-of-the-line Bianchi in leather."

"How did she pay?"

"Cash, and that surprised me a little, to be honest. Her bill was pretty high, as you might imagine." Lucy had been good about saving money over the years, and I had given her a substantial check when she turned twenty-one. But she had charge cards, so I assumed she didn't use them because she didn't want a record of her purchase, and that didn't necessarily surprise me. She was afraid and very paranoid, as are most people who have been intensely exposed to law enforcement. For people like us, everybody is a suspect. We tend to overreact, look over our shoulders, and cover our tracks when we feel the slightest bit threatened.

"Did Lucy have an appointment with you or did she just stop in?" I asked.

"She had called first and said exactly when she would be here. In fact, she even called again to confirm."

"Did she talk to you both times?"

"No, just the first time. The second time Rick answered the phone."

"Can you tell me exactly what she said to you when she called the first time?"

"Not much. She said she'd been talking to Captain Marino, who had recommended the Sig P230 and he had also recommended that she deal with me. As you may know, the captain and I fish together. Anyway, she asked if I would still be here around eight p.m. on Wednesday."

"Do you remember what day she called?"

"Well, it was just a day or two before she wanted to come in. I think it was the Monday before. And by the way, I asked her early on if she was twenty-one."

"Did she tell you she is my niece?"

"Yes, she did, and she sure reminded me a lot of you-even your voices sound alike. You both have sort of deep, quiet voices. But she really was very impressive on the phone. Extremely intelligent and polite. She seemed familiar with guns and clearly had done a fair amount of shooting. In fact, she told me that the captain's given her lessons. "

I was relieved Lucy had identified herself as my niece. It told me she wasn't terribly concerned about my finding out she had purchased a gun. I supposed Marino eventually would have told me, too.

I was sad only because she had not talked to me first.

"Jon," I went on, "you said she called a second time. Can you tell me about that? First of all, when was it?"

"That same Monday. Maybe a couple hours later."

"And she talked to Rick?"

"Very briefly. I remember I was waiting on a customer and Rick had answered the phone. He said it was Scarpetta and she couldn't remember when she told me we would meet. I said Wednesday at eight, which he relayed to her. And that was the end of it."

"Excuse me," I said.

"She said what?"

Jon hesitated.

"I'm not sure what you're asking."

"Lucy identified herself as Scarpetta when she called the second time?"

"That's what Rick told me. He just said it was Scarpetta on the line."

"Her last name is not Scarpetta."

"Jeez," he said after a startled pause.

"You're kidding. I just assumed. Well, that's kinda weird."

I thought of Lucy paging Marino, who then returned her call, quite likely from the Steiner home. Denesa Steiner must have thought he was talking to me, and how simple it would have been for her to wait until Marino was out of the room and get directory assistance to give her the number for Green Top. Then all she had to do was call and ask the questions she did. It was an odd sense of relief mingled with fury I felt. Denesa Steiner had not attempted to kill Lucy, nor had Carrie Grethen or anyone else. The intended victim had been me.

I asked Jon one last question.

"I don't want to put you on the spot, but did Lucy seem intoxicated when you waited on her?"

"If she had, I never would have sold her anything."

"What was her demeanor?"

"She was in a hurry but joking around and very nice." If Lucy had been drinking as much as I suspected she had for months or longer, she could have had a.12 and seemed to function fine. But her judgment and reflexes would have been impaired. She would not have reacted as well to what happened on the road. I hung up and got the number for the Asheville-Citizen Times, and was told by the city desk that the name of the person who had written about the accident was Linda Mayfair. Fortunately, she was in, and momentarily I had her on the line.

"This is Dr. Kay Scarpetta," I said.

"Oh! Gosh, what can I do for you?" She sounded very young.

"I wanted to ask about a story you wrote. It was about an accident involving my car in Virginia. Are you aware that you were incorrect to say that I was driving and subsequently arrested for DUI?" I was very calm but firm.

"Oh, yes, ma'am. I'm really sorry, but let me tell you what happened. Something brief about the wreck came over the wire very late the night of the accident. All it said was that the car, a Mercedes, was identified as yours and it was suspected the driver was you and alcohol was involved. I happened to be working late finishing up something else when the editor came over with the printout. He told me to run it if I could confirm that the driver was you. Well, by now we're on deadline and I didn't think there was a chance.

"Then out of the blue, a call gets rolled over to my desk. And it's this lady who says she's a friend of yours and is calling from a hospital in Virginia. She wants us to know that you were not badly injured in the accident. She thought we should know since Dr. Scarpetta-you-have colleagues still in our area working on the Steiner case. She says she doesn't want us hearing about the accident some other way and printing something that would alarm your colleagues when they pick up the paper. "

"And you took the word of a stranger and ran a story like that?"

"She gave her name and number and both of them checked out. And if she wasn't someone familiar with you, how could she have known about the accident and that you have been here working on the Steiner case?" She could have known all of that if she were Denesa Steiner and were in a phone booth in Virginia after attempting to kill me. I asked, "How did you check her out?"

"I called the number right back and she answered, and it was a Virginia area code."

"Do you still have the number?"

"Gosh, I think so. It should be in my notepad."

"Will you look for it now?"

I heard pages flipping and a lot of shuffling around. A long minute passed, and she gave me the number.

"Thank you very much. I hope you've gotten around to printing a retraction," I said, and I could tell she was intimidated. I felt sorry for her and did not believe she had intended harm. She was just young and inexperienced, and was certainly no match for a psychopath determined to play games with me.

"We ran a We Were Wrong the next day. I can send you a copy."

"That won't be necessary," I said as I recalled the reporters turning up at the exhumation. I knew who had tipped them off. Mrs. Steiner. She couldn't resist more attention. The phone rang for a long time when I dialed the number the reporter had given me. Finally, it was answered by a man.

"Excuse me," I said.

"Hello?"

"Yes, I need to know where this phone is."

"Which phone. Yours or mine?" The man laughed. " Cause if you don't know where yours is, you're in trouble. "

"Yours."

"I'm at a pay phone outside a Safeway getting ready to call my wife to ask what kind of ice cream she wants. She forgot to tell me. The phone started ringing so I answered it."

"Which Safeway?" I asked.

"Where?"

"On Cary Street."

"In Richmond?" I asked in horror.

"Yeah. Where are you?"

I thanked him and hung up and began pacing around the room. She had been to Richmond. Why? To see where I lived? Had she driven past my house?

I looked out at the bright afternoon, and the clear blue sky and vivid colors of the leaves seemed to say that nothing bad like this could happen. No dark power was at work in the world, and none of what I was finding out was real. But I always felt the same disbelief when the weather was exquisite, when snow was falling, or the city was filled with Christmas lights and music. Then morning after morning I would go into the morgue and there would be new cases. There would be people raped and shot, and killed in mindless accidents.

Before I vacated the room, I tried the FBI labs and was surprised the scientist I intended to leave a message for was in. But like so many of us who seemed to do nothing but work, weekends were for others.

"The truth is I've done all with it I can," he said of the image enhancement he had been working on for days.

"And nothing?" I asked, disappointed.

"I've filled it out a little. It's a little clearer, but I can't begin to recognize whatever it is that's there."

"How long will you be in the lab today?"

"For another hour or two."

"Where do you live?"

"Aquia Harbor."

I would not have enjoyed that commute every day, but a surprising number of Washington agents with families lived there and in Stafford and Montclair. Aquia Harbor was maybe a half hour drive from where Wesley lived.

"} hate to ask you this," I went on.

"But it's extremely important that I get a printout of this enhancement as soon as I can. Is there any possibility you could drop one by Benton Wesley's house? Round trip, it would be about an hour out of your way." He hesitated before saying, "I can do that if I leave now. I'll call him at home and get directions."

I grabbed my overnight bag. I did not return my revolver to my briefcase until I was at the Knoxville airport behind a shut door in the ladies' room.

I went through the usual routine of checking that one bag and letting them know what was in it, and they marked it with the usual fluorescent orange tag, which brought to mind the duct tape again. I wondered why Denesa Steiner would have blaze orange duct tape and where she might have gotten it.

I could see no reason for her to have any connection to Attica and decided as I crossed the tarmac to board the small prop plane that the penitentiary had nothing to do with this case.

I took my aisle seat and was completely caught up in my contemplations, so I did not notice the tension among the other twenty or so passengers until I was suddenly aware of police on board. One of them was saying something to a person on the ground, eyes darting furtively from face to face. Then my eyes did the same as I went into their mode. I knew the demeanor so well, and my mind went into gear as I wondered what fugitive they were looking for and what he might have done. I raced through what action I would take if he suddenly jumped out of his seat. I would trip him. I would tackle him from behind as he went past.

There were three officers panting and sweating, and one of them stopped right by me and his eyes dropped to my belt. His hand subtly dropped to his semiautomatic pistol and released the thumb snap. I did not move.

"Ma'am," he said in his most official police voice, "you're going to have to come with me."

I was shocked.

"Are those your bags under the seat?"

"Yes." Adrenaline was roaring through me. The other passengers were absolutely still. The officer quickly stooped to pick up my purse and overnight bag, his eyes not leaving me. I got up and they led me out. All I could think was that someone had planted drugs in one of my bags. Denesa Steiner had, and I crazily looked around the tarmac and at the plate glass windows of the terminal. I looked for someone looking at me, a woman who was back in the shadows watching the latest dilemma she had caused me.

A member of the ground crew in a red jumpsuit pointed at me.

"That's her!" he said excitedly.

"It's on her belt!"

I suddenly knew what this was about.

"It's just a phone." I slowly raised my elbows so they could see beneath my suit jacket. Often when I wore slacks, I carried my portable phone on my belt so I didn't have to keep digging it out of my bags.

One of the officers rolled his eyes. The ground crewman looked horrified.

"Oh, no," he said.

"It looked exactly like a nine- millimeter, and I've been around FBI agents before and she looks like one of them."

I just stared at him.

"Ma'am," one of the officers said, "do you have a firearm in either of these bags?"

I shook my head.

"No, I do not."

"We're really sorry, but he thought you were wearing a gun on your belt, and when the pilots checked the passenger list, they didn't see anyone on it who was authorized to carry a gun on the plane."

"Did someone tell you I was wearing a gun?" I demanded of the man in the jumpsuit.

"If so, who?" I glanced around some more.

"No. No one told me. I thought I saw it when you walked past," he lamely went on.

"It's that black case it's in. I'm sure sorry."

"It's all right," I said, my graciousness strained.

"You were just doing your job." An officer said, "You can go back on the plane." By the time I returned to my seat, I was trembling so violently my knees were almost knocking, and I felt eyes on me. I did not look at anyone as I tried to read the paper. The pilot was considerate enough to announce what had happened.

"She was armed with a nine-millimeter portable phone," he continued to explain the delay as everybody laughed. This was one upset I could not blame on her, but I realized with stunning clarity that assuming she had caused it was automatic. Denesa Steiner was controlling my life. People I loved had become her pawns. She had come to dominate what I thought and did, and was always at my heels, and the revelation sickened me. It made me feel half crazy. A soft hand touched my arm and I jumped.

"We really feel bad about this," a flight attendant said quietly. She was pretty, with per med blond hair.

"At least let us buy you a drink."

"No, thank you," I said.

"Would you like a snack? I'm afraid all we've got are peanuts."

I shook my head.

"Don't feel bad. I would hope you would check out anything that might jeopardize the safety of your passengers." I talked on, saying exactly the right words as my mind soared in flight patterns that had nothing to do with where we were.

"It's nice of you to be such a good sport."

We landed in Asheville as the sun went down, and my briefcase quickly came off the one carousel in the small baggage department. I went back into a ladies' room and transferred my handgun to my purse, then I went out on the curb and got a cab. The driver was an old fellow in a knit cap that he had pulled below his ears. His nylon jacket was dingy and frayed around the cuffs, and his big hands looked raw on the wheel as he drove at a prudent speed and made sure I understood it was quite a distance to Black Mountain. He was worried on my behalf about the fare because it could be close to twenty dollars. I closed my eyes as they began to water, and I blamed it on the heat blasting to drive out the cold.

The roar inside the ancient red-and-white Dodge reminded me of the plane as we headed east toward a town that had been shattered without being aware of it. Its citizens could not even begin to understand what really had happened to a little girl walking home with her guitar. They could not comprehend what was happening to those of us who had been called in to help.

We were being destroyed one by one because the enemy had an uncanny ability to sense where we were weak and where we could be hurt. Marino was prisoner and weapons carrier for this woman. My niece, who was like my daughter, was head injured in a treatment center, and it was a miracle she had not died. A simple man who swept floors and sipped moonshine in the mountains was about to be lynched for a hideous crime he had not committed, and Mote would retire on disability, while Ferguson was dead.

The cause and effect of evil spread out like a tree that blocked all light inside my head. It was impossible to know where the wickedness had started and where it would end, and I was afraid to analyze too closely if one of its twisted limbs had caught me up. I did not want to think my feet might no longer be in contact with the ground.

"Ma'am, is there anything else I can do for you?" I was vaguely aware that the driver was speaking to me.

I opened my eyes. We were parked in front of the Travel-Eze, and I wondered how long we had been there.

"I hated to wake you. But it'd be a lot more comfortable to get in your bed instead of sitting out here. Maybe cheaper, too." The same yellow-haired clerk welcomed me back as he checked me in. He asked me which side of the motel I'd like to be on. As I recalled, one side viewed the school where Emily had gone and the other offered a panorama of the interstate. It didn't matter because the mountains were all around, blazing in the day and black against the starry night sky.

"Just put me in nonsmoking, please. Is Pete Marino still here?" I asked.

"He sure is, though he don't come in much. Would you rather be next to him?"

"No, I'd rather not. He's a smoker and I'd like to be as far away from that as I can." This was not my reason, of course.

"Then I'll just put you on a different wing."

"That would be fine. And when Benton Wesley gets in, will you have him ring my room immediately?" Then I asked him to call a car rental company and have something with an air bag delivered to me early in the morning.

I went to my room and locked and chained the door and propped a chair beneath the knob. I kept my revolver on top of the toilet while I took a long, hot bath with several drops of Hermes perfuming the water. The fragrance stroked me like warm, loving hands, moving up my throat and face and lightly through my hair. For the first time in a while I felt soothed, and at intervals I ran more hot water and the perfume's sweet oily splashes swirled like clouds. I had pulled the shower curtain shut, and in this fragrant sauna I dreamed.

The times I had relived loving Benton Wesley could not be counted. I did not want to admit how often the images leaned against my thoughts until I could no longer resist giving myself up to their embrace. They were more powerful than anything I had ever known, and I had stored every detail of our first encounter here, though it had not happened exactly here. I had memorized the number of that room and would know it forever.

In truth, my lovers had been few, but they had all been formidable men who were not without sensitivity and a certain acceptance that I was a woman who was not a woman. I was the body and sensibilities of a woman with the power and drive of a man, and to take away from me was to take away from themselves. So they gave the best they had, even my ex-husband. Tony, who was the least evolved in the lot, and sexuality was a shared erotic competition. Like two creatures of equal strength who had found each other in the jungle, we tumbled and took as much as we gave.

But Benton was so different I still could not quite believe it. Our male and female pieces had interlocked in a manner unparalleled and unfamiliar, for it was as if he was the other side of me. Or maybe we were the same.

I did not quite know what I had expected, and certainly I had imagined us together long before we were. He would be soft beneath his hard reserve, like a warrior sleepy and warm in a hammock tethered between mighty trees. But when we had begun to touch on the porch in the early morning, his hands had surprised me.

As his fingers undid clothing and found me, they moved as if they knew a woman's body as well as a woman did, and I felt more than his passion. I felt his empathy, as if he wanted to heal those places he had seen so hated and harmed. He seemed sorrowed by everyone who had ever raped or battered or been unkind-as if their collective sins had cost him the right to enjoy a woman's body as he was enjoying mine.

I had told him in bed that I had never known a man to truly enjoy a woman's body, that I did not like to be devoured or overpowered, which was why sex for me was rare.

"I can see why anyone would want to devour your body," he matter-of-factly had said in the dark.

"I can see why anyone would want to devour yours," I said with candor, too.

"But people overpowering people is why you and I have the work we do."

"Then we won't use devour and overpower anymore. No more words like that. We'll come up with a new language." The words of our new language came easily, and we had gotten fluent fast.

I felt much improved after my bath and rummaged through my carry-on bag for something new and different to wear. But that was an impossibility, and I put on the deep blue jacket, pants, and turtleneck sweater I had been wearing for days. The bottle of Scotch was low, and I sipped slowly as I watched the national news. Several times I thought of calling Marino's room, only to put the receiver down before I dialed.

My thoughts traveled north to Newport, and I wanted to talk to Lucy. I resisted that impulse, too. If I could get through, it would not be good for her. She needed to concentrate on her treatment and not on what she had left at home. I called my mother instead.

"Dorothy's staying the night up there in the Marriott and flying back to Miami in the morning," she told me.

"Katie, where are you? I've been trying you at home all day."

"I'm on the road," I said.

"Well, a lot that says. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff you do. But you would think you could tell your mother."

I could see her in my mind puffing a cigarette and holding the phone. My mother liked big earrings and bright makeup, and she did not look northern Italian like I did. She was not fair.

"Mother, how is Lucy? What has Dorothy said?"

"She says Lucy's queer, for one thing, and she blames it on you. I told her that was ridiculous. I told her just because you're never with men and probably don't like sex doesn't mean you're a homo. It's the same thing with nuns. Though I've heard the rumors" - "Mother," I interrupted, "is Lucy okay? How was the trip to Edgehill? What was her demeanor? "

"What? She's a witness now? Her demeanor? The way you talk to your simple mother and don't even realize. She got drunk on the way up, if you want to know."

"I don't believe it!" I said, furious with Dorothy yet again.

"I thought the point of Lucy being with her mother was so something like that wouldn't happen. "

"Dorothy says that unless Lucy was drunk when they put her in detox, insurance won't pay. So Lucy drank screwdrivers on the plane the entire trip."

"I don't give a damn if insurance pays. And Dorothy isn't exactly poor."

"You know how she is about money."

"I will pay for anything Lucy needs. You know that, Mother."

"You talk as if you're Ross Perot."

"What else did Dorothy say?"

"All I know, in summary, is Lucy was in one of her moods and upset with you because you couldn't be bothered to take her to Edgehill. Especially since you picked it out and are a doctor and all. "

I groaned, and it was like arguing with the wind.

"Dorothy didn't want me to go."

"As usual, it's your word against hers. When are you coming home for Thanksgiving?" Needless to say, when our conversation was ended, which simply meant I could take no more and got off the phone, my bath had been undone. I started to pour more Scotch, but stopped, because there was not enough alcohol in the world when my family made me angry. And I thought of Lucy. I put away the bottle and not many minutes later there was a knock on my door.

"It's Benton," his voice said. We hugged for a long time, and he could feel my desperation in the way I clung to him. He led me over to the bed and sat beside me.

"Start from the beginning," he said, holding both my hands.

I did. When I was finished, his face held that impervious look I knew from work, and I was unnerved by it. I did not want that look in this room when we were alone.

"Kay, I want you to slow down. Do you realize the magnitude of our going forward with an accusation like that? We can't just close our minds off to the possibility that Denesa Steiner is innocent. We just don't know.

"And what happened on the plane should tell you that you're not being a hundred percent analytical. I mean, this really disturbs me. Some bozo on the ground crew's just being a hero, and you immediately think the Steiner woman's behind that, too; that she's screwing with your mind again."

"It isn't just my mind she's screwing with," I said, removing one of my hands from his.

"She tried to kill me."

"Again, that's speculative."

"Not according to what I was told after making several phone calls."

"You can't prove it. I doubt you'll ever be able to prove it."

"We've got to find her car."

"Do you want to drive by her house tonight?"

"Yes. But I don't have a car yet," I said.

"I have one."

"Did you get the printout of the image enhancement?"

"It's in my briefcase. I looked at it." He got up and shrugged.

"It meant nothing to me. Just a hazy blob that's been washed with a zillion shades of gray until it's now a denser, more detailed blob."

"Benton, we've got to do something." He looked a long time at me and pressed his lips together the way he did when he was determined but skeptical.

"That's why we're here, Kay. We're here to do something. " He had rented a dark red Maxima, and when we went outside, I realized that winter was not far off, especially here in the mountains. I was shivering by the time I got into the car, and I knew this was partially due to stress.

"How are your hand and leg, by the way?" I asked.

"Pretty much good as new."

"Well, that's rather miraculous, since they weren't new when you cut them." He laughed, more out of surprise than anything else. At the moment, Wesley wasn't expecting humor.

"I've got one piece of information about the duct tape," he then said.

"We've been looking into who from this area might have worked at Shuford Mills during the time the tape was manufactured."

"A very good idea," I said.

"There was a guy named Rob Kelsey who was a foreman there. He lived in the Hickory area during the time the tape was made, but he retired to Black Mountain five years ago."

"Does he live here now?"

"He is deceased, I'm afraid." Damn, I thought.

"What do you know about him?"

"White male, died at age sixty-eight of a stroke. Had a son in Black Mountain, which was why Kelsey wanted to retire here, I guess. The son's still here."

"Do you have his address?"

"} can get it." He looked over at me.

"What about the son's first name?"

"Same as his father's. Her house is right around this bend. Look how dark the lake is. It's like a tar pit."

"That's right. And you know Emily wouldn't have followed its shore at night. Creed's story verifies that."

"I'm not arguing. I wouldn't take that route."

"Benton, I don't see her car."

"She could be out."

"Marino's car is there."

"That doesn't mean they aren't out."

"It doesn't mean they are." He said nothing. The windows were lit up, and I felt as if she were home. I had no proof, no indication, really, but I sensed her sensing me, even if she was not conscious of it.

"What do you think they're doing in there?" I asked.

"Now, what do you think?" he said, and his meaning was clear.

"That's cheap. It's so easy to assume people are having sex."

"It's so easy to assume because it's so easy to do."

I was quite offended because I wanted Wesley to be deeper.

"That surprises me, coming from you."

"It should not surprise you coming from them. That was my point." Still, I was not sure.

"Kay, we're not talking about our relationship here," he added.

"I certainly didn't think we were." He knew I wasn't telling the whole truth. Never had I been so clear on why it is ill-advised for colleagues to have affairs.

"We should go back. There's nothing more we can do right now," he said.

"How will we find out about her car?"

"We will find out in the morning. But we've already found out something now. It's not there right this minute looking like it hasn't been in an accident."

The next morning was Sunday, and I woke up to bells tolling and wondered if I was hearing the small Presbyterian church where Emily was buried. I squinted at my watch and decided probably not, since it was only a few minutes past nine. I assumed their service would start at eleven, but then, I knew so little about what Presbyterians did.

Wesley was asleep on what I considered my side of the bed. That was perhaps our only incompatibility as lovers. We both were accustomed to the side of the bed farthest from the window or door an intruder was most likely to come in, as if the space of several feet of mattress would make all the difference in grabbing for your gun. His pistol was on his bedside table and my revolver was on mine. Odds were, if an intruder did come in, Wesley and I would shoot each other.

Curtains glowed like lamp shades, announcing a sunny day. I got up and ordered coffee sent to the room, then inquired about my rental car, which the clerk promised was on its way. I sat in a chair with my back to the bed so I would not be distracted by Wesley's naked shoulders and arms outside the tangled covers. I fetched the printout of the image enhancement, several coins, and a lens, and went to work. Wesley had been right when he'd said the enhancement seemed to do nothing but add more shades of gray to an indistinguishable blob. But the longer I looked at what had been left on the little girl's buttock, the more I began to see shapes.

The density of grayness was greatest in an off-center part of the incomplete circular mark. I could not say where the density would be in terms of the hours on a clock, because I did not know which way was up or down or sideways for the object that had begun to oxidize beneath her body. The shape that interested me was reminiscent of the head of a duck or some other bird. I saw a dome, then a protrusion that looked like a thick beak or bill, yet this could not be the eagle on the back of a quarter because it was much too big.

The shape I was studying filled a good fourth of the mark, and there was what appeared to be a slight dent in what would be the back of the bird's neck. I picked up the quarter I was using and turned it over. I rotated it slowly as I stared, and suddenly the answer was there. It was so simple, so exact in its match, and I was startled and thrilled. The object that had begun to oxidize beneath Emily Steiner's dead body was indeed a quarter. But it had been face up, and the birdlike shape was the indentation of George Washington's eyes, and the bird's head and bill were our first president's proud pate and curl at the back of his powdered wig. This only worked, of course, if I turned the quarter so Washington was staring at the tabletop, his aristocratic nose pointed at my knee.

Where, I wondered, might Emily's body have been lying? I supposed any place might inadvertently have a quarter on the floor. But there had been traces of paint and pith wood too. Where might one find pith wood and a quarter? Well, a basement, of course-a basement where something once had gone on that involved pith wood paints, other woods like walnut and mahogany.

Perhaps the basement had been used for someone's hobby. Cleaning jewelry? No, that didn't seem to make sense. Someone who fixed watches? That didn't seem right, either. Then I thought of the clocks in Denesa Steiner's house and my pulse picked up some more. I wondered if her late husband had repaired clocks on the side. I wondered if he might have used the basement for that, and if he might have used pith wood to hold and clean small gears.

Wesley was breathing the deep, slow breaths of sleep. He brushed his cheek as if something had alighted there, then pulled the sheet up to his ears. I got out the phone book and looked for the son of the man who had worked at Shuford Mills. There were two Robert Kelseys, a junior and a Kelsey the third. I picked up the phone.

"Hello?" a woman asked.

"Is this Mrs. Kelsey?" I asked.

"Depends on whether you're looking for Myrtle or me."

"I'm looking for Rob Kelsey, Junior." «"Oh." She laughed, and I could tell she was a sweet, friendly woman.

"Then you're not looking for me to begin with. But Rob's not here. He's gone on to the church. You know, some Sundays he helps with communion, so he has to head on early. "

I was amazed as she divulged this information without asking who I was, and I was touched again that there were still places in the world where people were trusting.

"Which church might that be?" I asked Mrs. Kelsey.

"Third Presbyterian."

"And their service starts at eleven?"

"Just like it always has. Reverend Crow is mighty good, by the way, if you've never heard him. May I give Rob a message?"

"I'll try him later."

I thanked her for her help and hung up. When I turned around, Wesley was sitting straight up in bed staring sleepily at me. His eyes roamed around, stopping at the printout, coins, and lens on the table by my chair. He started laughing as he stretched.

"What?" I asked rather indignantly. He just shook his head.

"It's ten-fifteen," I said.

"If you're going to church with me you'd better hurry."

"Church?" He frowned.

"Yes. A place where people worship God."

"They have a Catholic church around here?"

"I have no idea." He was very puzzled now.

"I'm going to a Presbyterian service this morning," I said.

"And if you have other things to do, I might need a lift. As of an hour ago, my rental car still wasn't here."

"If I give you a lift, how will you get back here?"

"I'm not going to worry about that." In this town where people helped strangers on the phone, I suddenly felt like having few plans. I felt like seeing what might happen.

"Well, I've got my pager," Wesley said as he placed his feet on the floor and I got an extra battery from the charger plugged in near the TV.

"That's fine." I tucked my portable phone into my handbag.