Darkness Peering
by
Alice Blanchard


ALSO BY ALICE BLANCHARD

The Stuntman's Daughter: Stories

BANTAM BOOKS

NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON

SYDNEY AUCKLAND

DARKNESS PEERING

A Bantam Book/ August 1999

All rights reserved.  Copyright 1999 by Alice Blanchard

Book design by Laurie Jewell

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any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

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without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blanchard, Alice.  Darkness peering Alice Blanchard.

p. em.

ISBN 0-553-11153-1

I. Title.

PS3552.L36512D3 1999 99-24823

8 13'.54--dc21 CIP

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FOR DOUG,

whose love sustains me, and in memory of

BEVERLY LEWIS,

whose wisdom graces these pages.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering,
fearing.  Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream
before.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

POLICE CHIEF NALEN STORROW FOUND THE DEAD GIRL LYING

faceup in a rust-colored runoff pond on the westernmost corner of Old
Mo Heppenheimer's cow pasture.  Her milky eyes were open to the morning
sky, one hand suspended as if brushing away insects.  The sun was
shining down, warming tiny black tadpoles in the shallows at her feet.
A king snake was coiled in the muddy hollow under one arm, and a daddy
long legs crawled across her extended fingers.

"Git."  Nalen waved his hand and the king snake slithered into the
duckweed.  He followed its progress until it vanished, then realized he
was biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood.  He
looked away for an instant, heart thudding dully in his chest.  A dense
forest abutted the pasture, balsam firs releasing their aromatic
fragrance from sap blisters on their trunks, leafy ferns thriving along
with golden saxifrage and wild iris at the forest's edge.  The day was
hot, the sun high, and the silence was so thick you'd've thought the
sky didn't have any air in it.

Steeling himself, he rolled up his pant legs and waded into the shallow
pond, mud sucking at his shoes.  He probed the cadaver's scalp, neck,
arms, chest and legs, careful not to shift her position before the
photographs were taken.  A foul smell lingered in the air above the
body like smoke in a bar.  He could find no entrance or exit wounds, no
blunt injuries, no ligature marks, although he detected finger markings
around the throat.  Livor mortis had set in, rendering the underside of
her body a reddish purple due to the accumulation of blood in the small
vessels.  Her elbows were blanched, as were the backs of her legs due
to compression of the vessels in this area.  Rigor mortis was fully

developed, pinning the time of death to between twelve and twenty-four
hours.  The girl's face appeared congested and cyanotic, with fine
petechial hemorrhages on her eyelids and across the bridge of her nose.
There were also contusions and fingernail abrasions on her neck near
the larynx.

Nalen recognized the dead girl from her pictures: Melissa D'Agostino,
age fourteen, missing since the previous afternoon.  Shy, chubby,
mentally retarded.  Her left hand, fisted shut, rested on her belly.
Her face with its characteristic Down's syndrome eyes, its triangular
nose and protruding tongue, was pallid in the strong sunlight, and dark
curls as thick as sausages clung to her forehead.  She wore laced
yellow sneakers and her pink shorts and short-sleeved polka-dot top
were bunched up in back from being dragged a short distance.

Nalen took a step back and scanned the horizon, a mild breeze lifting
his thinning brown hair.  He'd been a Boston patrolman for fifteen
years before moving his wife and kids to this sleepy community five
years ago to become its chief of police.  Flowering Dogwood, Maine.
Population eighteen thousand.  Nobody locked their doors here.  This
was a small town, and he was the top man in a small-town police
department, and the sight of the dead girl shook him in ways he hadn't
been shaken in quite some time.

Here, in this isolated stretch where Old Mo let his Holsteins and
Guernseys graze, local teenagers hung out late at night, smoking pot
and getting drunk.  Across the street was a dead-end dirt road, a
lover's lane, and further east was the Triangle, the town's poorest
neighborhood, whose cramped streets of dilapidated houses grew weed
like around the industrial section where the old sawmill and ceramic
plant were located.  Flowering Dogwood had prospered in the early
nineteenth century, becoming Maine's sixth-largest municipality.  The
town's boots and shoes were renowned for their craftsmanship, and the
dense, compact, fine-grained wood of the flowering dogwood was
unequaled for

the making of shuttles for weaving.  By the late 1800s, however,
Flowering Dogwood's fortunes had begun to decline, and nowadays the
town was known mostly for its historical import, its ceramics and
handcrafted furniture.

But what really distinguished this little community from other
tradition-steeped New England towns was its school for the blind.  The
sidewalks were wide for pedestrian traffic and the streetlights were
outfitted with little alarms that whooped whenever the walk light went
on.  Seeing-eye dogs were bred and trained locally and the historical
society had fought to preserve the eighteenth-century house belonging
to the school's founder.

Turning his attention back to the scene, Nalen searched the area for
footprints and found a partial in the mud.  The toe print was unclear
and didn't have any tread, making it virtually useless.  Nearby rested
a branch the perpetrator must've used to wipe away his other
footprints.  That was smart.  Nalen felt the hairs rise on the back of
his neck.

A siren whelped, and Lieutenant Jim McKissack's dusty '72 AMC Javelin
pulled onto the field, bumping over furrows.  McKissack slammed on the
brakes and the car fishtailed, stopping just short of a barbed wire
fence where cattle craning their necks toward the sweeter, taller
grasses reared back.  McKissack and Detective Hughie Boudreau got out
and headed across the field toward Nalen, a study in contrasts.

Jim McKissack was tall and good-looking, a ladies' man with a gruff
sort of charm, a meticulous dresser--everything Hughie Boudreau was
not.  Hughie was short and rumpled, fine-boned, almost girlish, with a
mustache that looked penciled on.  He had a head of prematurely graying
hair and reminded Nalen of a kid on his first roller-coaster ride, eyes
constantly roving.  Hughie was married and considered himself a good
Christian, whereas McKissack was the type of guy who'd sell his own
grandmother to the cannibals if it would help him solve a case.  The
kind of cop who smoked a cigar and wore sunglasses at five o'clock in
the morning.

"Criminy."  Hughie froze a few yards away.

"Our missing person," Nalen said.

"Jesus Cockadoodle Christ."  His eyes looked stapled open.

McKissack smirked.  "Lemme adjust the hue, Boudreau.  You're looking a
little green."

"Watch out, there's a partial right in front of you," Nalen said, and
Hughie spun around and vomited in the grass.

McKissack radiated vigor as he strode toward the runoff pond.  Parting
the black-root rushes and broad-leaved cattails, he stood studying the
dead girl with the same kind of impatient intensity he brought to every
case.  "What d'you think, Chief?"

"Strangulation, would be my guess."

McKissack shook his head.  "Petechiae could also be present for heart
failure or severe vomiting."

"Yeah, but the signs of cyanosis are most striking on the neck.  See
those contusions and fingernail markings?  He used more force than
necessary to subdue the victim."

Hughie was making retching sounds like a door being torn off its
hinges.

"Who the hell would strangle a retarded kid?"

"Some severely inadequate person," Nalen said softly, since the angrier
he got, the gentler his voice grew.  He stared at the victim's face.
During manual strangulation, the perp commonly altered his grasp of the
neck, resulting in intermittent compression of the veins and arteries
with waves of blood coursing in and out of the head, accompanying peaks
and valleys in blood pressure that resulted in the rupturing of blood
vessels.  The petechial hemorrhages on the victim's eyelids and over
the bridge of her nose were due to ruptured capillaries.

McKissack quickly unlaced his expensive Italian shoes and left them
like two footprints on the muddy bank.  "You think we've got a
pedophile on our hands?"

"I doubt it."

McKissack glanced up.  "You don't think this was a sexual homicide?"

"Let's wait for the autopsy."

"Give me your best guess, Chief."

Nalen thought for a moment.  "She was strangled in the field, then
dragged down to the pond."

"No rape?  No molestation?"

"Look at her clothes.  Nothing's twisted up or unbuttoned or put on
backwards."

"Still... I've got a hunch."  McKissack lit a cigarette.  "She was a
very trusting person, according to her mother.  She might've done a few
things willingly ... you know, not knowing any better."

"I doubt it," Nalen said.

McKissack picked up the muddy branch and turned it over.  "He erased
his own footprints?"

"Except for that partial there."

"I was hoping we'd find her alive."  Hughie straightened up and wiped
his mouth on his sleeve.  "My wife and I were on our knees last
night.."

"Whatever floats your boat," McKissack said, and Hughie spun around,
his face an ugly mottled color.

"We were praying, you ignoramus!  You should try it sometime,
McKissack, it just might do you some good."

"Yeah, well, it didn't do her any good, did it?"  He glanced sharply at
the corpse.

"Gentlemen."  Nalen snapped open his notebook, fingers cramping white
around his pen, and started ticking off points on his mental checklist:
they'd have to write a description of the scene, make sketches, take
pictures.  He'd already formed an opinion.  The medical examiner was
due any minute now, and Nalen was anxious to confirm his suspicions. 
He figured the girl had been dead for at least fourteen hours,
strangled to death by a

pair of unforgiving hands.  If they were lucky, they'd get fingernail
scrapings.

He went to his squad car, opened the trunk and got out a roll of yellow
police tape.  With measured steps, he cordoned off the area, looping
the tape around the swamp rose and cattails, making the perimeter as
wide as possible.  In the distance, people were already beginning to
congregate by the side of the road, some of them crossing into the
pasture.

"Hughie?"

"Yes, Chief?"

"Keep those rubbernecks back, would your"

"Sure thing, Chief."

"Take a look at this," McKissack said as they bent over the body
together.  There was a contusion on the back of the girl's skull, and
Nalen wondered how he'd missed it.

"The perp must've struck her from behind," McKissack conjectured, "then
raped her.  Then strangled her.  Then dragged her down here and dumped
her."

"Nothing's amiss with her clothes, McKissack.  Why rape somebody, then
rebutton their shorts?"

"I dunno.  Smells like rape to me."

"Let's wait for the autopsy."

"I bet I'm right."

"This isn't about right or wrong."  Nalen's head was throbbing, and
every shining blade of grass seemed to reflect the full glare of the
sun.  He took off his hat, mopped his brow.  McKissack wasn't a bad
cop, just a little arrogant.  He tried to macho it.  He didn't want
help, and because of that, he would fail.  They'd argued more than once
over procedure.  Still, Nalen figured that, with the proper guidance,
McKissack could turn out to be one of the best.  In the meantime, he
spent half his time at the scene playing mind games with McKissack, the
other half playing nursemaid to Hughie, when all he wanted was to keep
things rolling, keep

his team moving, no time to contemplate the tragedy here.  No time to
acknowledge this was somebody's little girl.

Nalen stooped to pick up a cigarette butt.  "Goddammit, McKissack. 
This yours?"

"Sorry, Chief."

"Now that's just irresponsible."  He pocketed the butt and continued
searching the perimeter, where he found a three inch-long piece of red
thread, a matchbook from Dale's Discount Hardware and over a dozen
glass shards, beer-bottle green.  He sealed these items in evidence
bags, then knelt to examine the body again.  Stuck to the bottom of the
girl's right sneaker, wedged into the tread, was a small piece of
yellow lined notepaper.  He removed it gingerly and held it in his
palm, letting it dry slightly before opening it.  Torn haphazardly in
the shape of Italy, it was approximately two inches by one inch.  He
slipped it into an evidence bag, then knelt to take a soil sample.

While he was scraping the mud off a rock, the image of the girl's
broken body flashed through his mind, and his stomach lurched.  A sharp
pain gripped his skull.  Nauseated, he rested his head between his
knees and took deep, shuddering breaths.

"You okay, Chief?"  McKissack took the evidence bags from him.  "I'll
finish up.  Go catch your breath."

Grateful, Nalen raised his head to the light and sat for a while, lost
in thought, as if he were waiting for a turkey sandwich.

A car horn blared, an oddly comical sound in the bright morning air,
and the medical examiner's platinum Mercedes 280CE coupe came
cata-humping across the field.

"That guy changes cars the way some people change underwear," McKissack
muttered as Archie Fortuna got out and, with a ceremonious flourish,
snapped on a pair of latex gloves.  He had delicate hands for such a
big man.  Archie was all dancing belly-a balding, fortyish indoor
enthusiast who barreled toward the

scene with the kind of eagerness most people reserved for sex or steak
dinners.

"Howdy doody, Chief."  Archie's breath was infamous for its alleged
ability to drop a Doberman at six paces.  "Whaddaya got?"

"Looks like she was struck on the head and then strangled," Nalen said.
"Possibly dragged from a car, although I think she was killed right
here in this field."

Archie clapped his hands with professional zeal.  "Let's have a
look-see."

They bent over the corpse together, shoes sinking into the muck. 
Archie had a lover's touch.  When he turned the girl's body over, a
hundred tiny beads of dew rolled off her skin.

"Petechial hemorrhages," he said.

"Mm-hm."

"Finger markings around the throat.  Possible blow to the skull.  See
this reddish area?  Look for a blunt instrument ... a rock, maybe.  You
called this one, Chief."  Archie grunted as he straightened up and
squinted at the sun, dark eyes disappearing behind greasy folds of
flesh.  "Take any prints?"

"Couldn't.  Skin's too wrinkled."

"Not to worry.  I'll finish back at the lab."

Nalen tried not to think about the process Archie would use to obtain
the girl's prints for identification purposes.  He'd seen it done once
before; Archie would peel off little ovals of skin, place the flaps
over his own fingertips, and then, using an ink pad, press them to the
blotter.

Archie let out a muffled belch.  "Mongoloid, huh?"

"Down's syndrome, they call it."

"Makes you sick, doesn't it?"  He raised the dead girl's fist and
delicately pried her fingers apart, and to the astonishment of both of
them, a tiny silver bell fell out.

"What the doohickey's this?"  Archie held it to the light.

"Looks like a cat bell," Nalen said, and Archie dropped it into his
palm, where it rolled to a stop with a little tinkling sound.

NALEN CROSSED THE D'AGOSTINOS' FRONT YARD, NOTING THE

weed-choked foundation and rusty watering can, the cracked slate slabs
leading toward the sagging front porch.  Out back, the lawn sloped
sharply toward the woods, where birch trees shot up from the ground
like jet contrails.  He could hear the cries of the neighborhood
children; they sounded like gulls.  The air was fragrant with azaleas
and sweet william, pregnant with the promise of rain.

Picking up the morning paper, he rang the doorbell.  "It's Nalen
Storrow," he said through the screen, and Frances D'Agostino let him
in.  She was in her mid-forties, built solid, with weathered skin and a
heavy brass-colored braid slung over her shoulder.  He handed her the
newspaper.

"Hello, Frances."

Hope flashed in her eyes.  "Did you find her?"

He shook his head and all hope died.  "I mean ..."  He fumbled for the
right words.  "Well ... I need to talk to you and Marty, if he's
home."

"Something's wrong, isn't it?"  She had the dried-out stare of an old
woman.

"May I come in?"

Silently, resentfully, she stepped aside.

He took a seat on the living room sofa, removed his hat and leaned
against an embroidered pillow that said "There's no place like home."
The house was neat as a pin.  Just yesterday, he'd issued a bulletin
and placed Melissa D'Agostino's name in state police files.  He'd taken
down a report--physical description, medical history, access to bank
accounts.  He'd called the county

hospital, just in case, and formed a search party.  Now the search was
over.  They could all go home.  Except that, for the D'Agostinos, this
place would never really feel like home again.

"Marty, Chief's here!"  Frances hollered up the stairs, then moved
awkwardly into the living room, her wary eyes on him.

The air smelled warm and moist, something meaty boiling away on the
stove.  "Smells good," he said politely.

"Pot roast."  Frances rubbed an arthritic hand across her belly.
"Stomach's been cramping up on me.  Hope I don't get cystitis again.
Hate those sulfa pills.  Oh, here you are, honey."

Marty D'Agostino strode into the living room and sat down opposite
Nalen in a plaid armchair.  Marty had a resonant voice, an imposing
frame and a shock of spiky gray hair.  He was an accountant for an
insurance firm in Manchester, New Hampshire, and commuted four hours
back and forth to work each day.  When Melissa was a toddler, Marty had
refused the doctors' suggestion that he commit her to an institution;
instead, he'd insisted on main streaming her into the public schools,
an uncommon request in 1970.  Heroism came in all shapes and sizes,
Nalen thought, as Frances sank onto the sofa beside him.

Marty's lower lip trembled.  "She's dead, isn't she?"

In the second or so it took him to respond, Nalen wished he could've
made something up.  A better ending.  And silence sounds no worse than
cheers, after death has stopped the ears.  He cleared his throat.  "I'm
afraid so."

He could hear the air going out of their lungs.  The living room was
all patches of color embroidered with their stunned faces.  Frances's
arthritic fingers clutched the sofa cushions.

"Where'd you find her?"  Marty asked.

"Out on Black Hill Road."

"Could you be more specific?"

"Off the road a ways ... lying in a runoff pond."

"What d'you mean?"  Marty was glaring at Nalen now.

Frances hoisted herself off the sofa, went over to a bookcase

and reached for a photo album on the top shelf, lacy yellow slip
showing beneath her floral-patterned dress.  She dropped the album in
Nalen's lap.  "There's my baby," she said, pointing at a family
portrait.

Marty fearlessly held Nalen's eye.  "How did my daughter die?  Did she
drown?"

"We think there might've been foul play."

Marty sat back.

Frances leaned over and thumbed through the photo album's thick black
pages.  "I don't understand," she said softly, "who'd want to hurt my
baby?"  She tapped one arthritic finger against a snapshot of her
daughter.  Melissa had a face like a big, sweet pie.  She mugged for
the camera, her round cheeks like two cupped hands framing her short
squat nose with its triangular nostrils.  Her eyes sparkled with
mischief and she exuded so much warmth and curiosity, it wasn't
difficult to imagine how easily she might've fallen prey.

Marty's face reddened, all its angled planes pinched with pain.  He
slammed his fist against his knee.  "What d'you mean, 'foul play'?" 
His words fired off like darts.

"We won't know for sure until after the autopsy.  I can give you more
information then."

"Give me more information now," Marty insisted, his steely gaze boring
into Nalen.  "Was she drowned in this pond?  Is that what you're
saying?  Somebody drowned my Melissa?"

"No, sir," Nalen said softly.

"What then, for chrissakes?"  Waves of anger peeled off him like heat
from an oven.  "What happened to my daughter?"

"We think she was strangled."

Frances clutched her braid, lowered her head and wept.  Nalen could
feel each sob like a body blow.  He didn't know whether to put an arm
around her or not.  He was usually good at this sort of thing, but the
murder of a child was different.  The murder of a child was
inexplicable, unforgivable.

"You're sure it's our Melissa?"  Marty pleaded, eyes like two watery
coins.  "You're absolutely certain?"

Nalen set the photo album carefully on the coffee table and stood up.
"We need you to come down and identify her for us, Marty."

Marty bowed his head.  Frances was shuddering, eerie grunting sounds
emitting from her lungs.  Nalen noticed his hands were shaking.  It
wasn't fair.  He remembered his father's words just then.  Life's a
comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.

"Marty ... Frances ..."  Nalen looked at each of them in turn. "We're
going to solve this case.  I promise you."

"You know ..."  Marty rose on tall unsteady legs.  "Melissa always told
the truth.  Children tell the truth, you know.  Us adults ... we're
good at self-deception, but not kids.  Why do you think they call it
the 'unadulterated' truth?"

"Well, you're right about that."  Nalen moved toward the door. Outside,
a light rain was beginning to fall.

"Boy oh boy, she loved cows," Marty said.  "You know Stinky Peppers?
We'd go down to his farm and visit the cows.  Melissa loved those cows
with all her heart.  Stinky let her name the calves.  You ever been out
to Stinky's place?"

"On occasion."  Stinky had a habit of getting drunk and beating his
third wife and their many children.

Frances gripped Nalen's hand, her fingers warm and rough.  "Bless you,
Chief.  She's with the Lord now."

"Stop it, Frances," Marty said, eyes blinking in irritation.

Nalen felt this sore spot between them like a slippery drop down a
granite gorge, icy as glacial meltwater.

"Almost forgot."  Nalen pulled the cat bell out of his jacket pocket.
"Do either of you recognize this?"

Marty studied it for a moment.  "Itch had one of those on her
collar."

"Itch?"

"Melissa's cat.  Got killed six months ago."  He looked away,
embarrassed.  "You know, that brouhaha with your boy."

Nalen felt his face flush, every cell in his body awake now.  "And you
haven't seen the cat collar since?"

"Nossir."

Nalen pocketed the bell.

"You know," Frances said, "when Melissa was born, I thought everybody
else's baby was just a baby ... but my little girl was a real human
being.  Isn't that funny?"

"I know what you mean," he said, thinking of Rachel.

THE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S BUILDING WITH ITS NONDESCRIPT

brick facade was sandwiched in between the First Bank of Maine and the
police station on Lagrange.  Autopsies had been performed in the
basement of this building for decades.  The lobby smelled like a
dentist's office and was decorated with the same quasi-cheerful
decor--flowery wallpaper, tangerine upholstered sofas and chairs, side
tables offering up neutral reading matter like House & Garden and
Popular Mechanics.

"Hiya, Chief!"  Archie Fortuna's irreplaceable assistant, Betty,
greeted them with a warm, gracious smile.  She tripled as receptionist,
secretary and medical assistant, and Nalen liked her a lot.  She had a
tousled head of dark hair, intelligent eyes and a bright, energetic
manner that served to neutralize the depressing atmosphere of the
morgue.  "I'll tell Archie you're here.  Please, have a seat."

They sat in silence, Marty D'Agostino's face a mask of torment.  The
viewing room was all they would see today, but Nalen

knew the rest of the building like his own sorry face--Archie's office
with its tumble of files, its mini-fridge full of hummus
and-black-olive pita bread sandwiches; the medical lab with its
formaldehyde smell and bottles of preserved body parts; the storage
room, a jumble of black metal filing cabinets and cardboard boxes
labeled 1919, 1920, 1921, and so on; and finally the basement morgue
with its cement floor and stark lighting, its walk-in refrigerator, its
body bags and gurneys and signs prohibiting eating and smoking.  Nalen
had witnessed over a hundred autopsies in his five years as police
chief and remembered every single one of them--the man who drowned in
his bathtub, people killed in car crashes, the high school cheerleader
who OD'd, the SIDS case.  He admired the way Archie bore up under
tragedy, how even the most heart-wrenching case seemed to buoy him like
an inner tube.

"Marty?"  Archie greeted them at the door.  "Chief?  Would you come
with me, please?"

They followed the rotund man in the white lab coat down a long corridor
whose carpet was a lovely cow pie brown.  Fluorescent lights flickered
overhead with irritating irregularity.  At the end of the corridor,
they entered a cramped, dimly lit room where a gurney held the body of
Melissa D'Agostino, white sheet pulled up to her shoulders.  Her eyes
were closed, her mouth sealed shut with some sort of adhesive--Nalen
detected a smear of glue on her lips.  She looked very peaceful, as if
she were sleeping.

Archie turned to Marty D'Agostino.  "We need you to ID her, then we'll
leave you two alone for a moment."

Marty's eyes had almost disappeared behind their pouchy lids.  He gave
a curt nod.  "That's my daughter."

"Thank you very much," Archie said, hitching his pants over his
prodigious belly.  "Chief?"

They stepped out into the corridor and kept their voices low.  "I've
got to testify this afternoon.  Elderly female died of dehydration,
family's suing the hospital.  I've scheduled the autopsy for this
evening.  How's five o'clock sound?"

"Good."

"I've already performed a preliminary.  No signs of penetration, no
semen or blood or bruises on her lower extremities."

"So we can rule out rape?"

"Think so.  Don't quote me yet.  Got some good fingernail scrapings,
but it looks like mostly dirt.  State lab'll give us the results in
about a week ..."

Marty D'Agostino opened the door, his bony features sunken as if some
internal structure had collapsed.

"My condolences," Archie said.

"She was a good girl."

"You okay?  Need a lift home?"  Nalen offered, even though Marty had
come in his own car.

"I'm fine, Chief.  Thanks for asking."

"Can I get you something?"  Archie offered.  "Iced tea?"

"I need to ask you gentlemen a favor."

They looked at him quizzically.

"Melissa was wearing a friendship bracelet when she disappeared.
Frances and I would like it back."

"Friendship bracelet?"

"She made it herself at summer camp.  Red and yellow yarn woven into a
sort of diamond pattern.  She kept it tied around her wrist.  Never
took it off."

Nalen and Archie traded a look.  Then Nalen spoke up.  "We didn't find
anything like that on her, Marty."

"No?"

"I'm sorry."  Nalen suddenly remembered the three-inch-long red thread
he'd found inside the perimeter and wondered if it belonged to
Melissa's friendship bracelet.

"She always wore it.  Every day.  Wouldn't leave the house without
it."

"Maybe the perp took it as a souvenir?"  Archie conjectured, and Nalen
put his arm around Marty and walked him toward the door.

"I'll have my boys scour the area," he promised as they headed out to
the parking lot.  The whole town seemed to be silently suffering its
loss, distant trees shooting into the sky like life's exposed wires.

ON HIS WAY HOME, NALEN STOPPED AT A GAS STATION TO

use the John.  His stomach growled.  The toilet gurgled.  He opened the
dirty window facing the street and heard a child's scream.  The sound
froze his blood, but now the child was laughing and he relaxed a bit.

He gazed at his reflection in the fogged mirror--bags under his eyes
despite the sleeping pills he swallowed nightly by the handful, sallow
skin, fleshy middle-aged face that used to be lean from long-ago daily
workouts, no time for that anymore--and told himself there was no
connection, no connection at all... Nalen pulled the cat bell out of
his pocket.  Six months ago, Hughie Boudreau had radioed in a
disturbing call.  Nalen met him at Ravenswood Road where the two men
hiked about a quarter of a mile into the forest and came upon a
clearing where a grisly scene assaulted their eyes: five decapitated
cats, their heads stuck on stakes, broken bodies discarded in a pile at
the base of a tree.

They soon found a suspect, Ozzie Rudd, the high school football coach's
son.  Ozzie had an insolent smirk and slicked-back hair and confessed
that he and some friends had gotten drunk and teased some cats ...
maybe shot at them with a BB gun or

something ... but he swore on a stack of Bibles he'd never decapitated
anything in his life.  Then, to Nalen's astonishment, he implicated
Nalen's own son, Billy.

That night, fighting a burning knot in the pit of his stomach, Nalen
drove his own flesh and blood to the station for an interview.  Pale
and trembling, Billy denied everything at first.  Nalen knew he was
lying because Billy had come home drunk a few nights prior, the same
night the cats were slaughtered.  But Billy kept stubbornly shaking his
head, insisting, "No way, Dad!"

It turned out that four sixteen-year-olds--Billy and Ozzie and Neal
Fliss and Boomer Blazo--had gotten drunk on illicitly purchased
tequila, rounded up some stray cats from the neighborhood, carried them
in a burlap sack into the woods and shot them to death with a BB gun.
Ozzie and Neal did most of the shooting.  The boys then left the dead
cats where they'd fallen and drove to the Triangle, where Ozzie picked
a fight with a boy named Eddy Tourneau, after which somebody called the
cops and everybody scattered to the four winds.  Despite vociferous
protests from a few fervent animal lovers, the crimes had drawn only
misdemeanor charges.  The judge handed down lenient sentences--$500
fine, one year's probation.  As added punishment, Nalen had grounded
Billy for a month and made him do volunteer work at the blind school.
But to this day, Nalen wasn't sure who'd decapitated those cats, or
just how involved Billy had been, and the whole incident left an acrid
taste in his mouth.

Now, splashing water on his face, Nalen wondered if there was any
connection between the dead cats and Melissa D'Agostino.  "Of course
not, you idiot," he said aloud.  "Give your head a shake."  Melissa
probably found the bell after her cat had disappeared and was carrying
it around like a keepsake.  That must be how it'd gotten into her
hand.

Billy was just an all-American boy drowning in raging hormones, Nalen
told himself firmly, pushing any lingering doubts

to the deep, slumbering part of his brain where all his miseries
resided.

He drove home and parked in the driveway, smiling for the first time
that day when his nine-year-old daughter, Rachel, came scooting across
the lawn toward him.  "How's my Pickle?"  She squirmed in his arms,
barefoot and giggling.  "How's my girl?"

"I fell!"  She pointed at her scraped knee.  "Mommy says I can keep the
scab.  I'm gonna put it in an envelope."

"You are?"  He laughed.

She tugged at the crotch of her creeping-up shorts and wriggled around
until he let her go.  Beautiful.  She was stunning.  Yellow hair
twisting in the hot breeze.  Blue-green eyes the color of the deepest
part of the ocean.

"Where's your mom?"

They turned toward the house and there Faye stood, almost as if they'd
willed her to appear.  She was weeding the flower bed that bordered the
house, hoe in hand, sun throwing glints of her light-colored hair back
to him in brilliant flashes.  She caught his smile and frowned.  "Did
you find her?"

"Um ..."  The words died on his lips.

Faye gave him a dark look.  "Rachel, go inside and get a popsicle."

"Oh boy!"  She scampered into the house, screen door slamming shut
behind her like a gunshot.

Faye wore a sleeveless sand-colored dress and white sandals, her short,
dirty-blond hair held in place by plastic kid's barrettes.  Her face
was flushed and it shocked him how pretty she looked.  She had a small
beige-colored mole high on her forehead and thin lips she was
constantly rubbing the lipstick off of.  "So she's dead?"  Faye asked
with grim suspicion.  Yep.

"Was it an accident?"  "No, she was strangled."

Faye stiffened, and he knew she was thinking about the children.

"I just stopped by to see how you're doing," he said.  "I've gotta head
back to the station.  Won't be home until late."

"Fine," she said, turning away from him, a mild breeze toying with her
dress.  He knew she hated his world, a world of hard information
supported by physical evidence.

"We've only got forty-eight hours, give or take, before the trail grows
cold."

She ignored him, pretending to wipe the dirt off her hands.

"Where's Billy?"

That got her attention.  "Over at Gillian's.  Why?"

"I need to talk to him."

Her eyes narrowed.  "What about?"

"Just a few questions."

She pressed her lips together, a white circle forming around her mouth,
and shivered like a horse after it's been running for a long time.
"You're never going to forgive him, are you?"

"I forgive him.  I just don't trust him."

"Great."  She threw down her hoe.  "It's not like he murdered somebody.
Or are you going to blame him for that, too?"

"Faye."  He walked up to her and ran his hand tentatively down one
naked arm.  Her skin was warm from the sun.  "I'll give you a call
tonight, okay?"

She jerked away from him.  "What about us?  Are we going to be all
right?  Is it safe here?"

"You'll be fine.  Just lock the doors."

"Lock the doors?"  He felt her anger like a blast of muggy laundromat
air.  "Great.  I'll lock the doors, Nalen.  I'll lock the doors.  In
the meantime, what exactly am I supposed to tell our children?"

He shrugged.  "Tell them the truth."

"That's your area of expertise, isn't it?  The truth?  That's what
you're forever getting to the bottom of.  So why don't you tell them,
Nalen?  You."  She spat the word like a grapefruit seed.

He watched her march off, arms and legs oddly pale in the September
sun.  The date on this milk carton had definitely expired.  She used to
wet her fingers to put out candle flames, wash her feet in the damp
grass.  She had been his view for nearly eighteen years, the bull's-eye
of his day; and all the while, a sense of privacy had been growing up
around her.  At some point, she'd lost her habit of wanting him.

"Faye, don't be mad."

She disappeared into the toolshed.

Nalen went inside the house and found Rachel planted in front of the TV
in the living room, skinny legs swinging back and forth to the tune of
some game show theme song.  She licked a strawberry popsicle, her
tongue turning obscenely red, and suddenly he envisioned her dead, sunk
in the muck, those lovely, curious eyes open to the sun, flies
feasting.  His stomach lurched.

She swung her head around.  "Daddy, it's The Match Game!"

He crouched down until he was eye-level.  "Listen, Sweet Pickle," he
said, "I've got something important to discuss with you."

"Is it about the missing girl?"

"Yes."

"She's retarded."

"Who told you that?"

"Everybody."

"Rachel," he said, taking her by the shoulders, "I've warned you not to
talk to strangers, haven't I?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Only about a million times."

"Well, not just strangers.  You've got to be careful of people you
know, too.  I don't mean to scare you.  I know this may sound strange,
but you can't trust anyone.  I don't want you going anyplace alone,
understand?  Always tell your mother where you plan to be, even if it's
with a friend, even if it's just up the street.  And if anybody starts
acting, you know ... funny ..."

Her eyes grew round with wonder, and she drew her knees to

her chest, bare legs dusty from playing in the backyard where the
grass grew spotty in patches.

"Some people can be dangerous.  It's like with the wasps in the attic,"
he said.  "You've gotta run away when they start dive bombing for your
head."

"Okay," she said, clearly puzzled.

"What I'm saying is ... if a stranger or even someone you know ... an
adult... asks you to come with them--"

"You're scaring her," Faye said.

Nalen stood, knees creaking.  Since when did his knees creak?  He felt
mildly dizzy, his vision narrowing so that, for an instant, Faye was
the only thing he could see.  He caught his breath and the world
widened.

"Rachel, go wash up," Faye said.

"But Mom!"

"I said now."

"How about a kiss?"  Nalen opened his arms.  "I won't be home until way
past your bedtime."

"Boo-hoof" She made a dramatic face, then leapt into his arms and
presented her strawberry-flavored mouth to be kissed.

He gave her a puckering, daddy like smooch, and she giggled and wiped
her lips, wiping some of the dirt away.  She slipped from his grip and
ran up the stairs to splash water on her face and pick at her scab.

"This town was supposed to be safe," Faye said, still angry.  "I
thought that's why we moved here."

She looked radiant in her indignation, and he was once again reminded
that all his love for her, all of his deep and desperate need, swung in
a soft sack between his legs.  "Well, I guess it's all my fault,
then."

Her expression softened, hips propped against the doorframe.  "You're
just never around, is all."

"Sometimes it's more of a job than other times."

Her eyes took him in.  "You look terrible, Nalen."

"I'm sorry I scared her."

"No, you're right.  She needs to hear it.  I could never do that. Steal
her innocence from her.  You're a lot braver than I am."

Sensing empathy in her voice, he hooked her by the elbow and drew her
close.  "You know what?"

"What."

"I've still got a crush on my wife."

She gave him a warm, melancholy smile.  "Being married to you has given
me ulcers."

"Being married to you," he said, "has given me a purpose."

The setting sun melted her face to honey and shadow.  "Be careful," she
whispered.

He kissed her softly, reluctant to let go.  "Don't forget to lock
up."

BACK AT THE MORGUE, NALEN PUT ON A SURGICAL MASK AND

stood beside Archie as he opened the dead girl's rib cage with pruning
shears from Dale's Discount Hardware.  The medical examiner wore a
standard-issue surgical gown, green surgical mask, shoe covers, and a
pair of latex gloves and spoke into a microphone attached to a tape
recorder tucked underneath the steel table.  The dead girl lay naked on
cold steel, her pear-shaped body the color and texture of cream cheese.
She seemed small for fourteen; her breasts had just begun to develop,
and the fuzz of darkish pubic hair sprouting from her genitals was just
about the saddest thing he'd ever seen.

Archie worked for two hours, reducing Melissa D'Agostino to a series of
statistics.  "Fourteen-year-old white female, manually strangulated.
Dissection of the throat reveals extensive hemorrhage into the
musculature and bilateral fractures of the thyroid

and crico id cartilage.  Four foot eight, ninety-six pounds.
Fairskinned, dark-haired.  Eyes, green.  Eyelids oblique in the manner
of most Mongoloids.  Stumpy, pudgy hands and feet.  Ears small and
rounded with a badly developed lobule ..."

On and on it went.  When Archie took swabs from the girl's vagina and
anus, Nalen felt a sharp sympathetic pinch in his groin like a stuck
zipper.  An X-ray film of the victim's skull was attached to a light
box on the wall, the cranium cracked like an egg.

"Cause of death was occlusion of the blood vessels supplying blood to
the brain," Archie told Nalen.  "Most people mistakenly think it's the
lack of air that kills you, but it's really due to the lack of blood
going to the brain."  He spoke into the mike.  "There's bruising on the
middle fingernail of her left hand.  X rays indicate an old injury to
the right arm, a fracture that's long since healed."

"So she didn't fight back?"

"I don't think she saw it coming.  He hit her on the back of the
skull... perhaps with a large rock.  Possibly a tire iron."  He pried
the jaws apart and, using tongs, pulled out the extra-long tongue. "She
has a high-saddle palate and irregular, malformed teeth.  Probably
sucked on her tongue, a habit that encourages fissuring and swelling of
the papillae.  See here?"

Nalen glanced at the tongue, then looked away.

"Those bite marks are severe."

"So it's your opinion she was strangled to death?"

"You see the fingernail marks on both sides of the neck?  Two hands
were used and the victim was strangled from the front.  Erythematous
marks, here and here, are posterior to the sternocleidomastoid muscles.
But then he shifted his thumbs around to the front, see here?  The two
thumbs were used to apply pressure to the larynx and trachea, which
results in erythematous markings on the anterior aspect of the neck."

"Would the perp have scratch marks on him?"

"Depends."  Archie ruminated.  "Remember that strangulation

case a few years back with the two fellows outside the Peaked Hills
Bar and Grille?  Even though the victim struggled, the assailant didn't
have a single scratch on him."

"If he does have injuries," Nalen said, "they'd most likely be on the
backs of the hands and arms."

"Maybe the face."

"What about rape?"

"As far as I can tell, no.  We'll get the lab results in a week or so
and we'll know more then."

"Okay," Nalen said, whipping off his surgical mask and tossing it in
the trash.  "Call me if there's anything else."

"I'll keep you posted, Chief."

Nalen found Billy over at Gillian Dumont's and drove the boy back to
the station, where they sat together in his office.  There were
citations on the wall, photographs of Nalen with the mayor, his
master's degree in criminal justice, and a montage of crime scene
photos from unsolved cases.  His desk was piled high with interview
forms, evidence vouchers and unfiled autopsy reports.

"Billy," Nalen began, "what do you know about this?"  He handed Billy
the cat bell and the boy blanched.

"I dunno."  He handed it back.

"You've never seen it before?"

"Looks like a cat bell or something."

"I know what it is, Billy."  Nalen stared at him over steepled fingers.
"I want you to tell me the truth."

Billy was a tall drink of water, a string bean who'd shot up three
inches in the past year alone.  Faye couldn't keep up with his
adolescent appetite, always driving to the store for more food and
doubling the milkman's order.  Nalen could feel his son's agitation in
the way he scratched his elbows and legs.  His slender nose was
slightly crooked (he'd broken it falling out of an apple

tree at age seven) and he'd bitten his nails to the quick.  Now he
kept tugging anxiously on his red sweatshirt, the one with Aerosmith
stenciled on the front.

"You know something," Nalen said firmly, thinking he could scare the
truth out of him, "so you'd better come out with it."

"Maybe it belongs to one of those cats?"  Billy said innocently
enough.

"The cats you boys killed?"

"I don't know ... probably ... maybe."  He shrugged, emptying his face
of all emotion.  Nalen hated that face.  It went all the way back to
Billy's childhood, back to his infancy, practically, to when Nalen used
to drink.  Before Faye had given him her ultimatum.

"I thought you said they were strays, those cats?"  Nalen asked.

"They were."

"So how could a stray have a cat bell?"

"I dunno."

"You don't know?"  Nalen leaned back, leather chair squeaking.  "Was
one of those cats you killed wearing a collar?"

"One of 'em might Ve been."

"Answer the question, Billy.  Yes or no."

"I don't remember."

"So this bell--"

"I said I don't remember!"  Billy wiped under his eyes and tapped his
fingers nervously on the arms of his chair.  "Jeez, Dad, what're you
dragging all this stuff up again for?"

"Why do you think I'm bringing it up?"

"I don't know."  His pupils contracted.  "I'm not a mind reader."

"Billy ..."  Nalen rubbed his eyes.  "The girl who disappeared
yesterday ... she's dead."

Billy grew very still and wouldn't meet his father's gaze.

"If you know something," Nalen said, "if you goddamn know anything,
Billy, you'd better tell me right now.  Right here.  In this room.
Between the two of us."

Billy sat with his head bowed, eyes downcast, and didn't speak for a
long time.

"Billy," Nalen said, tension burrowing into his windpipe, and Billy
jumped.  "Do you know anything about Melissa D'Agostino?"

His forehead wrinkled in a frown.  "Just that ... you know ... what
somebody told me afterward ... that it was her cat."

Hairs pricked the scruff of Nalen's neck.  "So this cat bell belonged
to Melissa D'Agostino's cat?"

"I told you a million times, it wasn't me.  It was Ozzie and Neal.
They're the ones who shot those cats."

"And you know for a fact that one of the cats belonged to Melissa
D'Agostino?"

"It's just something I heard."

"All right."  He ran his fingers through his hair and noticed he was
trembling.  "Let me ask you this.  Were any of those cats wearing a
collar?"

"I don't remember."

"Think, Billy."

The boy shrugged.  "Yeah, maybe."

"But when Detective Boudreau and I got to the scene, there weren't any
collars on any of the cats."

Billy crossed his arms and stared sullenly at the floor.

"So I can assume that, between the time you boys shot those cats and
the time Detective Boudreau and I got to the scene, somebody stole that
cat collar.  Am I right?"

Billy didn't answer.  All Nalen could see was the tip of his nose and
the crown of his head with its soft brown hair, and for an instant, he
had an urge to pat his son's head, to stir that soft hair and tell him
everything was going to be okay.  Only it wasn't going to be okay.  Far
from it.

"Billy, did one of the boys take the cat collar?  Did you take the cat
collar?"

"No," he said defensively.  "I just wanted to get the hell out of
there."

"So Ozzie and Neal ... they took turns shooting the cats, and Boomer
Boomer was letting the cats out of the sack one by one ... and you were
sort of corralling the cats so that Ozzie and Neal could get a good
shot.  Is that right?"

He winced.  "That's about right."

"And afterward, when all the cats were dead, somebody took the cat
collar as a sort of souvenir?"

"No," he said, voice cracking.  "We were pretty fucked up, Dad.  I know
it's a disgusting thing to do, shooting innocent creatures and all--"

"Billy, let's nail this down."

He looked at his father with pudding-colored eyes.  "I wouldn't hurt
anyone, Dad."

Nalen exhaled in frustration.

"D'you believe me?"

"Yes."

"You believe I wouldn't hurt anyone?  I mean, just because I did
something stupid like, over six months ago ... 'cause I mean, you don't
hate me or anything, do you?"

"No, son, I don't hate you."

"But you think less of me."

"I don't think less of you."  Nalen shifted in his chair and the
leather squeaked, advertising his discomfort.  He'd always been
uncomfortable around Billy.  Always.  All Billy had to do was look at
him sideways, and Nalen would inwardly cringe as if he were on trial.

Abuse, Faye had called it.  But Nalen was merely imitating his own dad,
a Boston cop, a hard-drinking, hardworking hard-liner who loved his
family even as he beat them.  Early in his marriage, Nalen had followed
in the old man's footsteps, getting drunk with the boys after work at
the Blue Wall, beer and shots and boilermakers, and he'd almost lost
Faye and Billy due to his own stupidity.  Almost lost his family.  She
had threatened to leave him, but then he'd done the impossible, quit
cold turkey, no

twelve-step program for Nalen Storrow, thank you very much.  And yet..
 and yet maybe he had lost them, after all?

"You keep looking at me funny," Billy was saying now, and Nalen glanced
away.

"I guess I'm trying to figure you out."

"So maybe I did something really stupid just to be part of something ..
that doesn't mean I'd hurt anyone, does it?"

"You tell me."

"I mean ... jeesh.  She was retarded and everything."

Nalen could hear the beating of his own heart.  Leaning forward, he
held Billy's eye.  "Roll up your sleeves."

Billy's voice rose half an octave.  "You think I killed her?"

"Tell me, son," he said, "tell me you don't know anything about Melissa
D'Agostino's death.  Tell me that right now."

Indignant and scared, Billy rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt and
displayed his bare arms.  They were the arms of a scrawny teenager,
abrasion-free.

"Okay."  Nalen sat back, inwardly relieved.

"Jesus, is she really dead?"

"She was killed yesterday."

"Wow."  He briefly met Nalen's gaze.  "What happened?"

"That's all you need to know for now."

"Jeez, Dad."  His eyes welled with tears and he slumped in his seat.
"I'd never hurt anyone ..."

"I know you wouldn't," Nalen said, but he knew, he just knew Billy was
holding something back.

That night, Ozzie Rudd's father brought Ozzie into the station for
questioning, and they didn't get much out of him, either.  They also
questioned Boomer Blazo and Neal Fliss.  Nobody knew anything about any
cat bell, and nobody had seen Melissa D'Agostino since the day she
disappeared; not since lunch that

day at school, not since they'd done their usual messing around with
the kids at the Geek Table.  All the retards ate lunch together at one
big table, and Ozzie and Boomer and Neal liked to tease them a little
bit.  Just a little, and that was the last anybody'd seen of Melissa
D'Agostino.

Around 10:00 P.M."  Hughie Boudreau, drenched with sweat and
exhaustion, pulled Nalen aside and said in an urgent whisper, "Chief,
we gotta talk."

"What is it, Hughie?"

"Earlier at the morgue ... ?"  He balled his fingers into a fist as if
he were trying to summon the courage to put into words what had been
bothering him all day long.

"I'm listening."

"I was walking around the gurney, you know?  And the strangest thing
happened."  He lowered his voice.  "I could've sworn she was watching
me."

Nalen sighed, muscles bunching.  "It's a common experience, Hughie.
Don't worry about it."  He patted Hughie's arm, but Hughie wouldn't let
the matter drop.

"She followed me with her eyes, it seems like, no matter where I was
standing in the room."

"That's a common illusion, Hughie.  Don't let it Spock you."

"You're the only one I can confide in," Hughie said, pallid and
frail-looking.  "I don't know what came over me, but the next thing I
knew ... I was sticking my tongue out at her."

"You were what?"

"I had to push her away, you know?"  His face was crimson.  '"Stop
looking at me' kind of thing.  I realize now she wasn't looking at me.
I know that, Chief.  Dead people don't look at you.  I know what's real
and what's not."

"Are you sure you can handle all the ramifications of this case,
Hughie?"  Nalen asked as gently as he could.

"Sure, Chief.  I mean, it's not like I'm crazy or anything."

"No, you're not crazy, Hughie."

"Please don't take me off the case, Chief.  I'm really ashamed of
myself."

Nalen was concerned.  Hughie hadn't joined the search party the
previous afternoon because he'd driven off by himself after a bad fight
with his wife.  He'd gone all the way to the New York state line, his
fury slowly draining at the wheel, and hadn't reported to work until
around eight o'clock that evening.  He'd been gone all afternoon, and
this fact hadn't rung any bells with Nalen until now.

"Look," Nalen said, "we're all under enormous strain.  Let's just
forget about it, okay?"

"Okay."

"Go home, Hughie."

"I'll sneak downstairs and take a nap."

"Go home.  You're exhausted."

"I'm fine."

"You're gonna make a mistake.  You're not alert."

"All right."  Hughie hung his head.

"And remember, my door's always open."

Nalen watched him shuffle off, thinking you could implode so subtly,
nobody would even notice.

AROUND THREE IN THE MORNING, NALEN PARKED HIS DODGE

Challenger in the driveway and crossed the front yard under a full moon
that lit the toolshed and lawn chairs and made deep night seem like the
dusty moments before dawn.  All the lights in the house were oft and
the door was locked.  He fumbled for his keys, let himself in.

Upstairs everybody was asleep.  He crossed the moonlit hall

into Rachel's room, leaned over her bed and inhaled her sweet scent.
Her lips parted with a bubble.

"Daddy?"  She stirred in the sheets.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"Is the retarded girl in heaven now?"

He sat on the edge of her bed, careful not to squash her feet.  On her
bedside table was a box of shells from their most recent trip to the
seashore, a butterfly barrette, a Mickey Mouse key chain.  "Yes," he
said, "I think she is."

"Daddy?"

"What, Pickle?"

"Tell me again how you get into heaven?"

He sighed, feeling the birdlike throb of her breath against his arm. 
"A long time ago, the Greeks believed that after you died, your soul
went to heaven.  And the gods put your heart on a big scale-your heart
on one side of the scale, and a feather on the other side."

"What's the feather for?"

She already knew, but he told her anyway.  "It's the symbol for truth.
If your heart is full of lies and meanness and cruelty, it'll be much
heavier than the feather and you'll get thrown back down to earth
because you're not ready yet.  But if your heart is as light as the
feather ... if it's empty of lies, and full of goodness and truth, then
the gods will open the gates and you can waltz right in."

She wrinkled her nose.  "Was the retarded girl's heart as light as a
feather?"

"I think so, yes."

"How about mine, Daddy?"

Nalen kissed her cheek.  "Don't worry, sweetheart.  Yours is light as a
huckleberry."

Nalen stripped in the dark, crawled between the pretzel-smelling sheets
and drew Faye close.  They lay for a while like that before she spoke,
her voice scratchy with sleep.  "Let's not fight."

"No, I don't want to fight anymore."

She was warm and tensile in his arms, moonlight from the window washing
over the strange planes of her face.  "Nalen?"

"Hi."

"I had this dream you drove off a cliff and died."

The room was so quiet, the clock sounded like a bass drum.  "It's all
right," he said, "We're gonna be fine."

"Are we?"  Her exhausted eyes were on him.  "Really?"

"Yeah."

"So what happened tonight?"

"Nothing much."

"Any suspects?"

"Not yet."

"Oh God, I feel sick."  She rolled away from him and he lightly ran his
hand along her bumpy spine, muscles bunching beneath her musk-smelling
skin.  "I almost called the precinct," she admitted.

"Sorry.  I forgot.  We were swamped."

"I hate you."

Very gently, he stroked the nape of her neck.  "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do.  I hate you."

"Faye ..."  he said, drawing out her name until it sounded like a
prayer.

"You never listen."

"I'm listening now."

"No."  She twisted around to face him, her worry and frustration
palpable.  "You keep shutting me out.  You shut us all out, Nalen."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do.  You don't realize it, but you do.  There are days ...
whole days where you'll say maybe two words.  I don't understand
you."

He knew what she was talking about.  She was talking about

his black moods.  Whenever a black mood hit, he'd go for a walk in the
woods or else down to the basement where he could be alone.  Down in
the basement, he'd sit in the semidark and think about the past.  His
mind whirred like a movie projector as he relived long-ago times with
his brothers and mother and father.  Mostly his father.  Good of' Pop,
with his adrenaline-loaded sweat and his stinky boozy breath, cleaning
his service revolver at the kitchen table.  "You ready?"  he'd ask.
Nalen wouldn't blink as Sheldon Storrow slid a single bullet into the
chamber, spun it and held the gun to his son's temple.

"You ready?"

Nalen would squirm like a pinned insect as Pop waited an eternal,
gut-churning beat, Nalen's eyes swelling shut, his brain collapsing in
fear ... and then click.  That particular flavor of hell.  He'd piss
his pants and get a lungful of cheap-bee rand-good jukebox breath, and
Pop would lean back laughing.  "What'd I tell ya, son?  You were born
with a horseshoe up your ass."

Now Nalen took a deep breath.  "I'm sorry, Faye," he said, coming up
for air.  "I don't mean to shut you out."

Her face crimped, and she stroked his cheek with her curled index
finger.  "I hate him for what he did to you."

"Pop?  He had a rough life."

"Achh.  See that?"  She glowered.  "Always leaping to his defense. This
man who beat his wife and kids.  And we're still suffering the
aftereffects, me and the children.  I'm glad the bastard's dead."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do."

Something inside the house creaked, and he bolted upright, reaching for
his service revolver and listening for the sound of footsteps or the
creak of a door--but there was only silence.  It was okay.  They were
safe.  For now.

She was lying there, watching him, disgust stamped on her lace.  "You
always expect the worst."

"No, I don't."

"It's like we're all biding our time until the sky comes crashing down
around our heads."

He tried to laugh it off, but secretly he knew she was right.  He was a
pessimist's pessimist.  He tucked his revolver back in the drawer of
the bedside table and settled down beside her.  Her breath smelled
sweet-and-sour and her eyes glinted with Faye's own patented brand of
fury.  "I don't always live my life that way."

Her voice was small.  "You need counseling."

"We're not having this discussion."

"Why can't you just acknowledge something's seriously wrong, Nalen?"
Her rage flared.  "We do not have the perfect marriage, you are not the
perfect father, our children are suffering ..."

"What time did Billy get home last night?"  he asked, stopping her in
mid-sentence.  She looked at him with wary eyes.

"About six-thirty.  Why?"

"Six-thirty?"

She sharpened her focus.  "Why?"

"Did he go out later on?"

"He drove over to Gillian's around eight.  Why?"

"When did he get back from Gillian's?"

"Where are you going with this, Nalen?"

"Nowhere.  Just curious."

She stared at him.  "He went out at eight o'clock and came back at
ten-thirty, just like I asked him to."

Nalen chewed on his lower lip.

"What's so important?"

"I didn't say it was."

"Is Billy in trouble?"  He wouldn't answer, and she grabbed his ears
and twisted.  "Tell me."

"Ow."  His face grew hot.  His ears stung, and he pried her hands off
him.  "It's probably nothing."

"Probably?"

His blood was thrumming through his veins and he was reminded of
long-ago days early in their marriage when their lovemaking had been
full of passion, passion verging on violence-not truly, not really--but
something close to wrestling and a heated exchange of words, a torrent
of emotions, the pivotal one being jealousy.  Crazy jealousy.  He
remembered once inside their little apartment, the neighbors had called
the cops and they'd had to explain that, no, Officer--sheepish and half
naked--no, they'd just been dancing.  And giggled about it later.  And
jokes down at the precinct.

And once Faye had been so furious, so raging lunatic jealous, she'd
locked herself in the bathroom and threatened to slit her wrists.  He'd
been talking to another woman where they were supposed to meet for
dinner, a little Italian place off Tremont Street, and she'd entered
the restaurant looking like a million bucks, a real knockout; but when
she saw him with the woman (who'd come up to him because he was in
uniform, they were all over the place, those cop groupies), Faye spun
around on her heels and stormed out, and he'd chased her down the
sidewalk and all the way home, she crying bitterly, her betrayed face
and she'd locked herself in the bathroom and he'd had to kick the door
in, and she'd stood there with a razor blade poised above her wrist ...
and he'd cried with her.  The two of them holding each other on the
cold tiled floor, him pledging his eternal love.  And only later, much
later, had she confessed that she'd only been pretending to slit her
wrists, that she had in fact sustained that pose during the time it'd
taken him to kick the door down ... Now Nalen was kissing her, his
strong arms tentacled around her as she struggled against his weight.

"I'm still angry," she said as he rocked them off balance.

"I'm sorry, Faye.  Don't hate me, Faye."

And finally her muscles relaxed, giving in, and he knew she would never
stop resenting him, never stop feeling trapped, and that this--his
burning hunger and her bitter resistance--was the sum total of their
lives together.

FIVE PAST MIDNIGHT THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, NALEN

rubbed his face hard.  "Okay, people," he said, exhaustion slurring his
speech, "what've we got?"

They were seated around the conference table--Nalen and McKissack,
Detective Sergeant Guy Fletcher, dispatcher Phillip Reingold, and
Detectives Hughie Boudreau and Irving Nussbaum.  A squat black bookcase
crammed with mug shot binders leaned crookedly against the wall to
their left, and a mini-fridge used for bag lunches hummed industriously
to their right.  The empty terrarium on top of the refrigerator had
once housed a live tarantula until somebody'd sprayed it with a lethal
dose of Windex; now there was nothing inside but a rubber octopus
floating on a sea of rubber bands everybody took turns shooting into
it.  The carpet was a dingy, coffee-stained maroon.

"Anybody else want a cup?"  Hughie helped himself to coffee from the
machine, stirred in three heaping tablespoons of powdered nondairy
creamer and sat back down.

"Okay."  Nalen's stomach cramped at the thought of all that powdered
creamer.  "What've we got, people?  What, what, what?"

"No abduction site," McKissack began.  "No weapon.  No eyewitnesses. No
physical evidence."  He rocked back smugly in his chair and chewed on a
toothpick, since Nalen didn't allow smoking inside the station.
McKissack claimed he needed to keep his mouth moving no matter
what--pencil, chewing gum, finger.  Claimed he had an oral fixation.
"Oh, and did I mention ... no suspects?"

"Well, gee whiz ... thanks for nothing, Lieutenant," Nalen a a

said, refusing to let his best detective's hard-bitten cynicism get
the better of him.  "Now let's see what we do have."  He flipped open
the case file.  "We picked up some fibers on the victim's clothes. 
Dark green, synthetic.  Ten percent wool, sixty percent rayon, thirty
percent nylon."

"Wow, that eliminates one percent of the population," McKis sack said
with snide glee.

Nalen bristled to life.  "What d'you want, McKissack?  You want my
fucking job?  Here, take my fucking hat."

McKissack threw up his hands.  "I don't want your job, Chief.  They
aren't paying you enough."

Nalen couldn't help smiling.  That broke the tension.

"The sooner we wrap things up," he said, "the sooner we can all go
home."

"She disappeared sometime shortly after school let out on Tuesday,"
Hughie Boudreau began.  Stress had painted violet circles underneath
his eyes.  "The medical examiner's best guess for time of death is
somewhere between five-thirty and six-thirty P.M. No later than
six-thirty.  That leaves four hours, give or take, still unaccounted
for."

"There's our window," Nalen said.  "Two-thirty to six-thirty P.M."

"It's like she disappeared off the face of the earth," Guy Fletcher
said.  At six-foot-four, Fletcher was 220 pounds of ripped muscle and
Algonquin heritage inside an old biker jacket.  "Nobody saw
anything."

"These retarded kids are apparently highly ritualized in their
behavior," Irving Nussbaum interrupted.  Nussbaum sometimes joked he
was the only Jew in Maine.  Squat and balding, he'd gravitated here
from New York City after having burnt out on big city violence, just
like Nalen.  "Mom and Pop say Melissa was committed to her routine.
Every morning when she brushed her teeth, she always touched the
bathroom faucet twice before turning it on.  She squeezed the
toothpaste out carefully onto her toothbrush, then rolled up the bottom
just like her daddy taught

her to.  In a similar vein, she had a specific route home she rarely
deviated from."

"What I wanna know is," McKissack said, "what's a kid like that doing
in high school?"

"It's called main streaming Nalen said.  "Go on, Irving."

"Trinka Parsons says every weekday at about quarter to three, Melissa
walks past her house."

"Every day at two-forty P.M.," Hughie corrected him, "the Parsons' dog
runs up to Melissa, and Melissa plays with her for a minute or two,
then waves bye-bye to Trinka.  Then she's on her way."

"She always exits the northern-facing doors at school, then heads south
on Bellamy, right onto Addams, left on Crowing Heights, left on
Spencer."  Nussbaum scratched his chin.  "Not once did she deviate from
this route."

"Trinka Parsons thought Melissa was out sick on Tuesday," Hughie said,
"because the dog kept wagging its tail and gazing longingly up the
street, but Melissa never showed."

"The Parsons live on Crowing Heights, so that narrows it down to
somewhere between Bellamy and Addams."

"What about the partial?"  McKissack asked, propping his feet on the
table.  Nalen didn't mind people propping their feet on the conference
table after midnight; it was the territorial way McKissack did it that
bothered him.  As if he owned the place.

"It's pretty nondescript."  Nalen pinched the bridge of his nose,
trying to squeeze more information out of his brain.  "No tread, size
nine or nine and a half..."

"Not a terribly big guy.  That fits with the fact that the body was
dragged rather than carried down to the pond," McKissack said.

"Nobody at school saw anything unusual."  Hughie leafed through a stack
of interview forms.  "It's perplexing."

"It's like she was invisible," Fletcher said again, and Nalen detected
the angry residue in his voice.  "Nobody noticed her when she was
there.  Nobody noticed her when she was gone."

"What about the hotline?"

"We're getting plenty of calls," Phillip Reingold, the dispatcher,
said.  "Mostly asking if we've found any suspects yet.  Folks are
pretty scared."

"That all?"

"Plenty of leads.  Most of'em dead ends."

"Every lead's a dead end," McKissack growled.  "I hate this."  "Any
anonymous tips?"  Nalen asked.

Phillip flipped through his logbook.  "One caller says he saw a girl
matching the victim's description walking through the Commerce City
mall at around six o'clock Tuesday night..."

Nalen shook his head.  "Doesn't fit the time frame."

"Another caller, this one female, spotted a girl matching the victim's
description riding in the front seat of a green car heading south on
Route 88 toward the exit at Foggy Bottom around

4:30 P.M."

"Green car?  Could you be more specific?"

"A green sedan, maybe.  She couldn't describe the driver except to say
he was probably male.  She noticed the girl because of her Down's
syndrome."

McKissack shot a pencil into the terrarium, which bothered Nalen.  The
terrarium was meant for rubber bands only.  That was the irritating
thing about McKissack, he made up his own rules.

Nalen leaned forward.  "Archie found the remains of a vanilla ice cream
cone in her stomach.  Now obviously she didn't get that walking home
from school."

Hughie closed his eyes.  "Bludgeoned and strangled," he whispered like
some perverse prayer.  "No blood or skin in the nail scrapings.  No
semen."

Nalen leaned back and sighed.  His eye caught a memo tacked to the wall
above the coffee machine: DUE TO COST CONSTRAINTS,

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THIS TUNNEL HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY

DISCONNECTED.

The town had recently laid off three patrol officers, leaving only two
detectives under the supervision of a detective

sergeant, ten patrol officers under the command of a sergeant, two
secretaries, the dispatcher, Lieutenant McKissack and himself.  The
conference room was on the second floor.  Down the hall was the squad
room and the locker room.  Downstairs were the jail cells and the
dispatcher's station, and upstairs was Nalen's office, the detectives'
suite and the storage rooms.  The building was 150 years old, and
sometimes you could hear the stairs creak when there was nobody else in
the building.

Guy Fletcher wiped the hair out of his eyes, his frustration palpable.
"We're gonna find this animal.  One day we're gonna knock on his door,
and this fucking animal's gonna get the death penalty."

Nalen tapped his fingers on the blowup photograph before him.  Melissa
smiled broadly into the camera, eyes wide and inquisitive.  She was the
essence of innocence.  Her left hand was raised as if to wave hello,
and Nalen spotted the bracelet--red and yellow yarn woven in a simple
diamond pattern tied securely around her left wrist.  The missing
friendship bracelet.

Melissa D'Agostino had stuck close by her teachers in Special Ed.  She
liked birthday parties, caramel apples, and drawing pictures at school.
Nalen had a sample of her artwork right in front of him--a purple
monster with pinwheeling eyes and thick black brush stroke eyebrows
hovering hungrily over three smaller figures--father, mother, little
girl.

You always expect the worst.

"How much overtime do we have approval for?"  McKissack asked, his
edginess contagious.  The whole room was vibrating now with his
impatience.  The men were clearly ready to go home.

"Keep track of your hours."  Nalen gathered his papers.  "I don't care
how long it takes, I don't care if it takes us to the end of the next
century, we're not eating this one."

"I don't know about you guys."  McKissack landed in his chair with a
thud.  "But I could use a drink."

NALEN, MCKISSACK, PHILLIP REIN GOLD AND HUG HIE BOUdreau were seated
at a booth inside a bar called Big Tee's.  McKissack signaled the
waitress for another pitcher.  "More beer for the horses!"  Nalen was
drinking nonalcoholic O'Doul's beer.  The fact that he no longer drank,
didn't smoke and rarely swore set him apart, and he didn't like being
set apart, but there you were.

McKissack was checking out a fake driver's license he'd seized from an
underage, pimple-faced kid.  The quality was poor--the edges didn't
match and the glue showed.  Ripping it up, McKissack said, "Vamoose,"
and the kid hightailed it out of there, trailing cops' laughter in his
wake.  "Stupid kid tries to pass in a police bar, of all places."

Nalen could taste the length of the day on his tongue.  His jawbone
ached, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with
his wife.  Her hands would be pressed together on her pillow like two
pale leaves.

"It breaks you up," Hughie was saying, and Nalen could almost count the
slender hairs that composed his scraggly mustache.

"I know, Hughie," Nalen nodded.

"It just breaks you up, that's all."

"I know."

"You get annoyed."

"Okay, Hughie."

"Chief," he said, eyes narrowing in the manner of a drunk's when he
thinks he's about to say something profound, "sometimes I'm out there
at four in the morning, y'know?  And the

whole town's asleep, and I can't help thinking to myself, these people
don't realize ... they don't realize there's bad guys running around,
doing things at four in the morning.  Drugs, prostitution, domestic
violence ... this town doesn't want to admit it has any problems.  It
doesn't want to admit that it has any weaknesses at all."

"Hughie."  Nalen stifled a yawn.  "I'm beat."

"Me, too, Chief.  I'm beat, too.  I'm beyond exhaustion.  I'm
be-yausted."

McKissack's eyes danced with amusement.

"I'm consumed," Hughie said.  "Is that a word?"

"Yeah, so is asshole."

"Shut up, McKissack."

"Gentlemen, please."

They decided to order some food to sop up the alcohol.  Nalen hadn't
had a drop since 1970, but before then he used to haunt the bars after
pounding the beat.  All those brick sidewalks, all that snow and slush,
all those hippie drug dealers and dead hookers and runaways.  And then
one night, he got drunk and threw his six year-old son against the
living room wall, and that was that.  No more alcohol.  It took him
three months to convince Faye he meant what he said and that he could
do it without AA or any of those self-help groups.  Looking into
Billy's face was reminder enough.  The hurt and betrayal emanating from
his son's eyes was like a blinding light you couldn't stare at for too
long.

Now Nalen hunched over a plate of greasy fries and whacked the bottom
of the ketchup bottle until the red stuff plopped out like hot fudge.
Vera walked over to their table.  Vera was a friend of McKissack's.

"Bet I can guess how old you are," she told Nalen, sizing him up.  Her
hair was like a soft knot of yarn, and she hid her freckles under too
much makeup.  She put her cigarette out in the ashtray on the table,
carnival pink lipstick staining the filter.  "Thirty nine," she
guessed.

"Forty-three," he said, grinning.

"Ooh.  Close."

Vera grabbed McKissack's wrist and tried to yank him to his feet.  A
slow song was playing, but McKissack wouldn't budge.  He sat like a
boulder while Vera pleaded, "Just one little dance?"

"We're discussing police matters."

"Oh sure, Officer Shithead."  She planted a lingering kiss on
McKissack's lips.  When she released him, he reeled backward and
laughed.  Vera lit another cigarette.

"What's Sheila going to say?"  Hughie admonished them.

"I ain't married yet," McKissack said.

"Yeah, but you're engaged, aren't you?"

"Okay, c'mere."  McKissack grabbed Vera around the waist and swung her
onto his lap.  She seemed comfortable there, her face flushing
slightly.

"I've been having the weirdest dreams lately," she told them between
puffs, "like I don't exist anymore.  Not in this dimension anyway.  I'm
crossing a room, I take a step and start sinking into the floor."  She
took a sip of Nalen's O'Doul's, made a sour face and set it down with
amazing gentleness.  She had a pretty laugh.

McKissack kissed her mouth.  "Oof, you're heavy."

She stood.  "Go ahead, spoil the romance."

McKissack stretched his arms over the back of the booth, muscles
hyperactive under his swarthy skin.  "Don't talk to me about romance,"
he said.

"It's all we've got left, honey."

"Not if you use a condom."

"Christ, you're crude."  She laughed.  "You can all talk about me now,"
she said, walking away.

Nalen yawned, trying to pop his ears.  It surprised him how some people
didn't care about the murder anymore.  Already yesterday's news.  The
haze in the bar was like a forgotten dream.  He took out his wallet, a
pitiful reminder of the kind of money he didn't make.

"I dunno."  Hughie shook his head.  "I've always been of the opinion
that there's a little bit of good in everybody."

"Then let me remind you," McKissack said gruffly, "you haven't met
everybody yet."

"So what d'you think happens when you die?"  Hughie asked no one in
particular.

"You're shit-faced."  McKissack laughed.

"I believe you go to heaven if you're good.  I honestly do."

"Yeah, right," McKissack said.  "You and Santa and the Easter bunny.
What's heaven, anyway?  Angels floating on cottony clouds?  Clouds
can't hold anything up, they're just vapor.  And if you could stick a
million souls on the head of a pin, who'd need clouds anyway?  And what
I really want to know is, if all life is sacred, then do mosquitoes end
up in heaven, too?  Or just cats and dogs and things we like?"

Hughie laughed drunkenly.  "I don't have the faintest fucking idea." 
He laughed until he nearly choked, and Nalen had to pat him on the
back, then his shoulders slumped in a defeated sort of way and he said,
"We're gonna nail this guy.  Right, Chief?"

Counting out his money, Nalen pretended not to hear.

Hughie turned to McKissack.  "We're gonna find him, right,
McKissack?"

"Don't worry, Hughie," McKissack said with a wink.  "The chief here
could look up a bull's asshole and give you the price of butter."

"That's what I thought."  Hughie nodded confidently.

"I guarantee you we will nail this guy," Nalen said, and in the silence
that followed, you could hear an evidence bag drop.

"Look, look, look."  Hughie passed out, his nose squashed flat against
the tabletop, gold flecks buried in the pink Formica.

"I'll take him home," Nalen said.

Vera hurried over.  "Uh-oh, he's dead."  She giggled.  "Quick, check
his pulse."

"Hughie?"

"Come on, partner."  Nalen helped him to his feet, and he and
McKissack supported him between them.  People were smiling.  Waving
good night.  "See that, Chief?"  Hughie said.  "You're a lot heavier
than you look, Boudreau."  "You see it?"  "See what."

"Her eyes?  Did you see her eyes, Chief?"  "Shut up, Hughie."  "You saw
her eyes, too, didn't you?"  "You're skunked."  "You saw her eyes,
too."

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, NALEN FELT A CAT WALKING

across the foot of the bed, only they didn't own a cat.  He bolted
awake and yanked his pistol from its holster, heart hammering.

Melissa D'Agostino was seated at the foot of the bed, mattress bobbing
as she restlessly shifted her weight.  She looked just like her
pictures--dark hair, green eyes, that endearing pie face.  She sat
perched on the end of his bed as if somebody had told her to wait
there.  She didn't seem to want anything from him.

Nalen realized he was dreaming.  He tried to wake himself up, heart
slamming around in his rib cage.  He couldn't move his arms.  "Wake
up," he told himself, then felt two dead fingers on his forehead.

His eyes popped open.  The room was checkered with shadows, vague forms
appearing just beyond his range of vision.  His arms and legs felt
weighted with bricks.  He struggled to sit up.  Through slitted eyes,
he saw a dark figure flit out into the

hallway.  Fully awake now, he reached for his .38 and leapt out of
bed.

The floor was cool.  Nalen headed down the hallway in a combat stance,
head snapping at the slightest sound.  Hands shaking.

Thwunk.

He spun around.

"Dad?"  Billy came out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes.  He reminded
Nalen so much of the sleepy kid who'd once crawled into bed with them
because he thought there was a wolf in his closet.  "Dad, what's
wrong?"

Nalen stared blankly, then slowly lowered his pistol.  The boy's
expression did not change; he seemed unafraid, still half asleep.  When
he yawned, Nalen could see the velvety deep part of his throat.

"Nothing," Nalen said without smiling.  "Go back to sleep."

nalen's stomach turned sourly as he belched up the taste of the chili
dog he'd had for supper.  All his men were out in the field, so he was
stuck doing phone duty.  Several evidence bags were lined up on the
desk before him--the dozen or so shards of green glass; the matchbook
from Dale's Discount Hardware, no fingerprints; the length of red
thread, perhaps from the girl's missing friendship bracelet; and the
small piece of paper torn in the shape of Italy, some gummy substance
on one side from where it had wedged itself into Melissa's sneaker
tread.

Now the phone rang and he picked up.  "Police department, how can I
help you?"

"Hello?"  came the hesitant, high-pitched voice of a teenage girl.  "I
have some information?"

"Go ahead, I'm listening."

"About the girl who was murdered?"

"Yes?"  He leaned forward to scribble the time and date in his logbook.
"Go on," he said as gently as he could so as not to alarm her.

"I'm not gonna turn anybody in or anything ..."

"That's fine."  Nalen listened with every fiber of his being.  "Go
ahead."

"Am I being recorded?"

"No, ma'am."

"I don't wanna give you my name ..."

"You can remain anonymous if you'd like.  Just say what's on your
mind."

"Okay."  She hesitated.  "This guy ... he's a good person underneath,
but sometimes he does stupid things ..."

"I'm listening."

"He picked her up ..."

"Melissa D'Agostino?"

"Yeah, he picked her up after school and we ... he drove her over to
Commerce City ..."

"He who?"

"Excuse me?"

"Who picked her up and drove her to Commerce City?"

"This guy I know."

"What's his name?"

"All he did was buy her an ice cream cone.  That's all.  He wouldn't
kill anybody.  A few other guys came along for the ride ..."

"Could you give me some names?"

"We ... they were just goofing on her, that's all.  Just goofing. They
bought her an ice cream cone.  You know how people are.  They didn't do
anything bad to her, I swear to God."

"What's the name of this boy who drove her to Commerce City?"

There was a long pause.

"If you know something, miss, I sure as heck wish you'd share it with
me.  You'd be doing the right thing."

Her voice was barely audible now.  "Ozzie Rudd."

Goose bumps rose on his body like a sudden sprinkling of rain.  "Ozzie
Rudd?"

"I think," she said, "this was a mistake."

"Wait--"

The line went dead.

NALEN SPED TOWARD ROOSEVELT HIGH, WHERE GILLIAN

Dumont's mother said that Billy and Gillian had gone.  It was nine
o'clock, the sky was overcast and the school seemed deserted.  He
circled the parking lot, then got out and crossed the athletic field
toward the bleachers.  Resting his palm against a diseased maple tree,
he scanned the back of the school building.  A couple of second-floor
windows were decorated with construction-paper flowers, and he wondered
if that was Special Ed or the art department.  The athletic field was
well lit, bleachers casting spidery shadows.

Nalen's ears pricked as he heard distant melodic laughter.  He cocked
his head.  A girl was laughing.  Breaking into a run, he charged around
the side of the building, beaming his flashlight.  As he rounded the
corner, a girl screamed.

Nalen bolted after the two figures.  Two kids were running up the block
ahead of him.  "Police, freeze!"  He was nearly

out of breath when he hooked the boy by the back of his T-shirt and
flung him to the ground, then jumped on top of him.

Billy stared up at his father, terrified.

The girl stopped running and stood about ten yards away.  Her face was
small and pale, her eyes stoned-looking.  "Don't hurt him!"  She kept
brushing her long hair off her face.

"What'd you run for?"  Nalen screamed in Billy's face, yanking him to
his feet.

"I'm sorry, Dad."  Billy cowered.

"Why the hell did you run away?"  he demanded to know.  Billy's eyes
were red-rimmed.

"Dad, we didn't know it was you."

Nalen grabbed him by the T-shirt and shook him hard.  "Don't you ever
run from the police again, you hear me?  You know better than that,
Billy!"

"Ouch, you're hurting me!"

Nalen released the boy, who stumbled backward.

Gillian stood shivering in the damp night air.  "We were smoking.
Cigarettes."  She looked at Billy.  "That's why we ran."

"I don't think so."  Patting Billy down, Nalen found a joint and a Bic
lighter in his pants pockets.  "What the hell is this?"

"Pot," Billy answered matter-of factly

"That's mine."  Gillian stepped forward.  She was playing with a
necklace made of painted wooden beads.  Her hair was almost white, the
kind of blond that wasn't ashamed to show off its roots.  She bit her
lips sensually, as if she'd seen too many perfume ads on TV.  "I asked
Billy to hold it for me.  If you're gonna arrest someone arrest me."

Nalen looked at her, then at his son.  Tears welled in Billy's eyes and
his shoulders sagged beneath his too-big T-shirt.  Nalen pocketed the
joint and grabbed Billy's arm, practically tearing it out of its socket
as he pulled him away from his overprotective girlfriend.

"All right now," Nalen hissed, "I know you know more than you're
letting on."

"Huh?"

"About Melissa D'Agostino.  Ozzie Rudd picked her up after school last
Tuesday and drove her over to Commerce City, didn't he?  Tell me the
truth, Billy.  Were you involved?"

"Noway, Dad..."

"Billy."  He resisted a terrible urge to hit him.  "Cut the crap.
Either you tell me the truth right now, or I'm arresting you for
possession.  Simple as that."

Billy stared at him with wounded eyes.

"Billy?"  Gillian cried, and Nalen turned to her.

"Stay back, young lady."

She did as she was told.

"Dad ..."

"Tell me."

"Dad ... I don't--"

"Tell me!"

Billy's mouth contorted and blinding tears spilled from his eyes as he
confessed, "All right, all right... I was there ..."

Nalen felt the words like an electric shock and almost lost his
balance, horror cinching up his gut.  He stared hopelessly at his
tormented son.  "What d'you mean, you were there?"

"You wanted the truth, right?  So I'm telling you the truth!"  Billy
cried.  "Ozzie picked her up on Bellamy Road and a bunch of us drove to
Commerce City together.  It was no big deal.  We got some ice cream and
cruised around for a while, that's all.  We were just goofing on her,
Dad."

Just goofing on her.  Nalen could barely fathom the cruelty contained
within those four little words.  Nothing on God's green earth was less
merciful than a child.  "Who else was involved?"

"This junior named Michelle.  She rode in the Grey Ghost with

me, and Neal and Boomer took Boomer's dad's car, and Ozzie and Dolly
took Melissa in the Green Hornet.  Nothing happened."

"Is that why you kept it from me?  Because nothing happened?"

"I knew you wouldn't believe me.  I can tell you still think I
decapitated those cats."

"I never said as much, did I?"

"We were just having a little fun.  I kept telling them not to.  I told
them we should let her go, and finally we drove back and Ozzie let her
out."

"Let her out where?"

"You know ... Black Hill Road."

"Let her out on Black Hill Road?"

"Yeah, and then we took off.  So we're innocent."

"You let her out all alone on some deserted street?"  Nalen slapped his
son across the face, and Billy screamed.

"Billy!"  Gillian ran to him.

"I didn't kill her!"  Billy shrieked, and Nalen hated him just then.
Tasting his own sour breath, he loosened his tie.  He could see stars
swimming in his field of vision ... red stars.  The boy's face was pale
and blank, Billy's patented emotionless expression, and Nalen hated him
for being a constant reminder of his former self... of his lack of
control.  Physical, flesh-and-blood evidence of his buried, abusive
past.

"I didn't!"  Billy protested from somewhere far away.  A nasty
desperation clawed at Nalen's insides, and he spun around and vomited
in the grass.  He vomited until he got the dry heaves.  The beatings
would often come after the vomiting, beatings accompanied by the smell
of bile and alcohol.  Nalen almost blacked out, and then a pair of cool
hands were propping him up against a tree.  He caught himself on the
damp bark.  Gillian was tapping his face, whispering, "Yoo hoo, Chief
Storrow?"

He groaned.

"Hey.  Hello.  You okay?"  She put her hands on his face.

"Stop."  He shoved her away and she stumbled backward, then righted
herself.  She regarded him with skeptical eyes.  He glanced around for
his son.  "Where's Billy?"

She stared at him.  "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Gillian," he said, straining for the most normal tone of voice he
could muster, "you'll only get yourselves into worse trouble.  Come
down to the station and we'll straighten things out."

"You never believed him," she said with an adolescent's obstinate
contempt, her eyes sparking with candor.  "He didn't hurt Melissa
D'Agostino.  He came over to my house.  He was with me from five-thirty
to six-thirty that night, so he couldn't have done anything, right? 
How could you even think such a thing?  Billy wouldn't hurt a living
soul!"

Nalen drew himself upright, then saw stars and collapsed back against
the tree.  He felt helpless.  Ridiculous.

"You're sweating all over the place," she called from across the road.
She was moving swiftly away, under cover of darkness.  "I hope you're
okay and everything!"  Then she was gone.

It took Nalen several aching minutes to drag his carcass back to his
car.  He sagged in his seat, breathing laboriously and wondering how he
was going to tell Faye.  His hands trembled as if he'd been squeezing
oranges.  This was awful.  He wanted to go home and cower under the
covers like a little boy, but there would be no cowering.  He knew what
had to be done.

Head pounding, he keyed the ignition, and a squirrel, caught in his
high beams, danced around a small circle of space.

NALEN STOOD IN THE KITCHEN AND LISTENED TO THE WIND

howling through the scrub pines.  Half past nine, nobody was home. 
Faye had taken Rachel to her first piano recital, yet another event in
his children's lives he had missed.  Another reason for Faye's anger to
fester.  Billy was off somewhere conspiring with Gillian.  His son, now
permanently lost to him.

Nalen's chest muscles constricted around his rib cage and an acid taste
burned the back of his throat.  The kitchen's overhead fluorescent bulb
cast sickly shadows down the green walls and across the dingy linoleum.
He'd just come in from outdoors where he'd inspected Billy's car--the
Grey Ghost, a '76 Chevy Impala--and found nothing.  Now, knowing what
had to be done, he headed up the stairs.

Billy's room smelled of soiled socks.  Nalen stood for a moment on the
threshold, gut seizing.  Surely it couldn't be true.  Billy was
innocent.  He hadn't hurt Melissa D'Agostino, he'd simply gone along
for the ride.  He'd been morally wrong, ethically wrong, but legally
innocent.  He hadn't decapitated those cats.  Billy wasn't capable of
such depravity.  Was he?

Nalen stepped cautiously into the room, booby-trapped with comic books
and eight-track tapes and a tangle of clothes.  If Billy was innocent,
then why had he repeatedly lied?  And why had Gillian insisted they'd
spent Tuesday evening together from 5:30 to 6:30?  Her little speech
sounded forced.  Almost coached.

Taking a deep breath, he began to methodically search the room for
clues.  A warrantless search.  Illegal.  His stomach clenched.  He
could barely admit to himself what it was he was looking for--Melissa's
friendship bracelet.  After stirring through

the detritus of this teenage wasteland, Nalen discovered in the far
reaches of the closet a pair of muddy sneakers, their treads worn down
to nonexistence, size nine and a half.  Jesus.  It took a moment for
this to register.  He examined the sneakers carefully, turning them
over in his hands.  Not that it proved anything.  What teenage boy
didn't have a pair of muddy sneakers in his closet?

Nalen set the sneakers aside and continued poking and prodding around
his son's bedroom.  Parental betrayal, professional betrayal.  He
couldn't find the bracelet anywhere--bureau drawers, bedside table,
bookshelves, foot locker.  His heart momentarily lightened.  The boy's
desk was a disaster area of textbooks, crumpled papers, empty milk
cartons, leaky pens and nubby pencils.  He flipped through an algebra
book, then noticed a yellow lined pad covered with doodles.  The top
page was torn, a small piece missing.  The missing piece was in the
shape of Italy.  The boot.

Nalen froze as if he'd caught a gang of bullets in his heart.  He
picked up the pad and studied it, as if by staring at it he might make
it go away.  He'd lost touch with Billy a long time ago.  Lost touch
with his concerns, his preoccupations.  Billy was like a little mystery
he kept stubbornly trying to find the keys to.  Occasionally he caught
the boy staring at him with a mixture of resentment and longing, and he
would try to think of something fatherly to say, something wise or
profound, but the words eluded him.  How did you explain to a
sixteen-year-old that it hurt to look into his eyes because he reminded
you of your own shameful past?

Nalen examined the notepad, its top page ripped across the midsection,
the small, torn-away portion located in the lower right-hand corner.
Had Melissa been inside Billy's car?  Had this notepad been on the
floor of the car?  Had Billy startled or scared her, compelling her to
break away and run into the field?  Had Billy pursued her there?

Now the house shook with wind and his breath quickened as he tore the
top page out of the yellow lined pad, balled it up and

took it downstairs with him.  Holding the paper over the kitchen sink,
he lit it on fire, then ran the cold water, watching ashes swirl down
the drain.  Everything hurt.  His brain felt broken.  He thought of his
father, pinned beneath the wreckage of his police cruiser after a
high-speed chase gone bad.  Had his father in his dying moments
realized he'd let his son down?  Did he admit to himself he'd caused
damage?  Did he think of death, in those last few precious moments, as
a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands'?

Nalen went outside and crossed the darkened backyard into the alfalfa
field, sweet and legume-smelling.  He scaled the rusty barbed wire
fence and sat on a low stone wall facing the swamp, where gentian and
wood sorrel grew on the spongy bog surface.  Every once in a while, he
brought Billy down here with him, and they'd count the stars in the
great big sky and try in vain to hold a conversation.  In the distance,
beneath a brilliant cheese-colored moon, he could make out the
windswept fir-clad ridges of the surrounding mountains, and closer and
all around these fields and jumbled boulders, the black dense woods.

What a brutal night, stars nailed to an indifferent sky.  He took the
cat bell out of his pocket and flung it as far as he could into the
swamp.  He thought he heard the rustling of the upland lady fern as the
cat bell landed, but it could've been his imagination.  The wind picked
up, a dull roar in his ears, and he drew his service revolver.  Perhaps
some other persevering do-gooder would find Billy guilty of murder, but
it wasn't going to be him.  His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, and
suddenly it occurred to him that he'd lived his entire life as if
someone were holding a gun to his head.

You ready?

He remembered many years ago putting his arms around his wife and
feeling her pregnancy, her waist thick with new life.  She eventually
gave him a son.  And now his son looked at him as if he were a
stranger.

 He shut his eyes.  His wife sank against his chest, her flesh much
weaker and softer than it gave the impression of being.  "I'm sorry,"
he told her, imagining her bruised and hurting all over.  He didn't
want to hurt anyone.  He'd never had an extramarital affair.  He'd
never wanted another woman.  His body was in perfect health.
Maddeningly alive.  Blood coursing through his veins, lungs expanding
and contracting, heart pounding ... thub-dub ... thub-dub ... You
ready?

He listened to the wind, the horrible lonely sound of it.  His hands
were steady.  He placed the cold barrel in his mouth, gazed for a
moment at the stars, the brightest ones representing the people he
loved most in this world--wife, daughter, son.  And when the stars
became smears of light, he pulled the trigger.

DETECTIVE RACHEL STORROW WAS ON HER WAY HOME WHEN

the call came in.  "Possible forty-five," the dispatcher's voice
blurted between hisses of static, and Rachel's hands gripped the wheel.
A forty-five meant a corpse.

She made a U-turn in the middle of Pumpkin Run Road, tires chirping as
she headed back across town.  She'd spent the better part of the day
knee-deep in garbage, looking for the gun a victim claimed her husband
had shot her with.  He confessed he'd thrown his Saturday Night Special
in the town dump, but they hadn't been able to locate it yet.

Rachel's clothes reeked, the fabric clammy with sweat.  A fetid aroma
of wet cardboard and rotten lettuce filled the car, the kind of smell
that lingered for days.  She'd been on her way home to take a hot bath,
but that would have to wait.

Cruising the familiar neighborhood, she glanced into windows of passing
houses and felt a twinge of nostalgia for their buttery light, their
illusion of safety; she caught a glimpse of a mother tugging a curtain
shut, a child changing channels on the TV, cozy scenes of domestic
bliss she'd left behind forever like old children's books.  People
didn't realize how vulnerable they were.  If they knew Flowering
Dogwood the way she knew it, they'd turn their homes into armed
fortresses.

Now she came up behind a tractor hauling a load of manure, doing
fifteen miles an hour, and flashed her high beams until the driver
pulled over to let her pass.  She waved at Neal Fliss, an old friend of
her brother's.  They hadn't spoken in years, not since Billy had gone
off to Amherst, and now Neal was a dairy farmer like his old
man--exactly what he'd once sworn he'd

never be--and married with three kids.  He was shirtless, smoking a
cigarette, baseball cap smashed flat on his head, and she couldn't
believe she'd once had a major crush on him.

Pumpkin Run Road traveled through dense woods of white pine and birch,
their tangled branches catching in her headlight beams.  The road
slowly descended into the rolling valley, a stunning view of the White
Mountains looming on the horizon.  As she approached Holderness Street,
the white-steepled First Congregational Church rose above the town
center, a lovely green fronted by elegant Federal and Colonial-style
houses.  This was the nicest part of downtown, the part that poverty,
progress and unemployment hadn't touched.

Rachel pulled into the parking lot, then crossed the blacktop toward
the church's back door.  The September moon was a sliver, clouds like
lichens growing over a granite-colored sky.  Rachel knocked on the
door, and the Reverend answered.  "Wow, that was fast."

"Hi, Reverend."

"C'mon in, Rachel."  Hughie Boudreau had once been a cop, way back when
her father was still alive, but at some point along the way he'd had a
spiritual awakening and had decided to join the ministry.  His Sunday
sermons were quite popular, according to what she heard.  At
forty-five, Hughie had a shock of polar bear-white hair, dainty
features and a restless gaze that had once upset her, but now she
rather liked him.  The Reverend Hughie Boudreau had presided over her
mother's funeral three years ago.

"We got a call about a dead body," Rachel said.

"One of my homeless folks.  Right this way."  He led her through his
private residence toward the rear of the church, and they passed his
wife, a petite brunette with a pert smile, now talking on the phone.
She waved at Rachel, who waved back.

"You remember that little girl who got murdered about eighteen years
ago?"  the Reverend asked as he opened the carved mahogany stairwell
door.  "The little girl with Down's syndrome?"

"Vaguely," Rachel said, recalling how she and her friends used to tease
Melissa D'Agostino.  If you got too close, you could smell her, people
said.  She smelled dirty.  She sucked her thumb and looked like a baby
monster.  And once, in the girls' room at Fischer Elementary School,
Melissa had asked Rachel in a plaintive voice, "Would you be my
friend?"  In response, Rachel had run away.

"Well," Hughie continued, "the gentleman downstairs is her father."

The basement of the First Congregational Church had been converted into
a homeless mission of sorts, partitioned off in an attempt to provide
privacy for the dozen or so men, women, and children who'd taken up
residence and were now sleeping soundly on their cots.  They tiptoed
past this snoring flock, detoured through a spotless kitchen into a
small private room where an elderly man lay curled in a fetal position
on a narrow bed, clean white sheets tucked securely under his chin as
if he were somebody's child.

"He had his own room?"  Rachel asked.

"I considered Marty to be a permanent resident.  He died in his sleep,
looks like to me."

The room was spartan, the furniture mostly secondhand.  Books littered
the rickety bedside table.  On the dresser was a photograph of a man,
woman and child--Melissa as a toddler.  Her mother held her with
supreme tenderness and delicacy, as if she were made of hand blown
glass, and everyone was smiling.

Rev.  Boudreau picked up the picture from the dresser.  "After his
daughter was murdered, his wife, Frances, just fell apart and had to be
committed.  In one fell swoop, Marty lost everything ... his family,
his job, his home."

"And that's when you took him in?"

"Heavens, no.  He rode the rails for several years.  I don't know what
happened to him during that time.  We never discussed it."

Rachel checked for a pulse.  The old man's skin was cold and livor
mortis was evident, indicating he'd been dead for at least a couple of
hours.  After a brief inspection, she said, "And the murder of his
daughter ... that case was never solved?"

"I have my suspicions."  He looked at her oddly.  "You don't remember
any of this, do you?"

She shook her head, an old sadness reasserting itself.  "My father
committed suicide right around that time."

"Oh yes," he said tenderly.  "I remember."

When Rachel was young, there were scary things she wasn't supposed to
talk about.  Secrets.  Bad things.  Like Billy killing those cats. 
Like her father's dark moods and her mother's anger.  Like the retarded
girl.  Rachel and her friends used to take turns acting out the murder.
Rachel often played the victim, and her best friend, Anne Marie, would
wrap her hands around Rachel's throat and squeeze, and once Rachel
almost blacked out.  There was a murderer loose in town, but then her
lather shot himself, and none of her friends ever mentioned Melissa
D'Agostino again.

After Rachel's father committed suicide, a hole opened up inside of
her.  She couldn't stop thinking about the last few seconds of his
life.  She hoped he wasn't in any pain when the gun went off.  She
hoped he blinked out like a light.  As the years passed, the hole
inside her filled up with tears and guilt, and then one day she stopped
thinking about it altogether.

Her mother had been inconsolable.  Her mother's sorrow had stretched
across the landscape like a blanket of snow, smothering all color,
suffocating the world.

"You said you had your suspicions, Reverend?"

He glanced down at Marty D'Agostino's body and sighed.  "Ozzie Rudd.
Perhaps a few others."

"Are you serious?"

"I wouldn't kid about a thing like that."

"But no suspect was ever arrested, isn't that right?"

"Correct."  He shrugged.  "The evidence was circumstantial, at best. 
No confessions.  No eyewitnesses.  You have to realize, these kids were
all from influential families.  The D.A. wouldn't touch it."

"What makes you so sure it was Ozzie?"

"I'm not sure.  It's just a hunch.  Ozzie Rudd admitted to us that he
and some friends picked Melissa up after school on the day of the
murder.  And that they later dropped her off at Black Hill Road."

Her stomach knotted.  "What friends?"

He gave a pained expression.  "It's all in the case file."

"You're not suggesting I reopen the case, are you, Reverend?"

"I'm not suggesting anything."

She didn't know much about Billy and the cats.  Her parents had
protected her from the truth, and she'd buried the memory like a
shameful thought.  She didn't feel sorry for herself for having lost
her father so young.  Instead she locked the mystery away in her heart
and kept it there, snug.  Her private fury.  Daddy was gone.  He had
given so much, and yet he'd taken away even more.

Rachel shook her head, refusing to accept it.  "Ozzie Rudd wouldn't
hurt a flea."

His smile was kind.  "Your father was a good man, Rachel.  Melissa
D'Agostino's death troubled him a great deal.  You know, he didn't
drink, didn't smoke ... didn't have the kind of vices most people use
to numb their pain with."

She blinked back the tears that had inexplicably sprung to her eyes.
"Do you know why my father killed himself, Reverend?"

"It's the grip of Satan," he whispered, his slender fingers encircling
her wrist.  "He's got a grip on this world like you wouldn't
believe."

With a shiver, she reclaimed her hand.

RACHEL GOT TO THE STATION AROUND MIDNIGHT.  THE OVERhead fluorescent
light in the storage room kept flickering on and off as she rummaged
through stacks of dusty cardboard boxes until she found what she was
looking for.  She pulled out Melissa D'Agostino's case file, its worn
seams held together by silver duct tape, a round orange sticker on the
front indicating that the case remained unsolved.  She felt the kind of
elation and sense of discovery she'd rarely experienced in her four
short years on the force and didn't stop reading until three hours
later, when she went home exhausted.

At eight o'clock the following morning, Rachel walked into the chief's
office and shut the door behind her.  Police Chief Jim McKissack, at
fifty, was a brash combative man with a voice as scratchy as beard
burn.  He was leaning back in his chair, talking on the phone.  When he
saw her, he took his feet off his desk and shot forward.  "Yeah," he
said into the receiver, "okay ... call me back this afternoon."  He
hung up.

She dropped the case file on his desk.  "I can't believe you never told
me about this."

He glanced at the file.  "I didn't think it was relevant."

"Not relevant?"  Her face flushed.  "Not relevant that my brother came
this close to being a murder suspect?"

McKissack shrugged.  "Put a police officer in a dark room with a
sixteen-year-old boy and you could probably get him to say he was on
the grassy knoll in 1963."

"So you don't think Billy had anything to do with it?"

"I didn't say that."  He gestured for her to sit, but she kept pacing
back and forth in front of his desk.  The office was warm.

Stuffy.  She studied his impassive face and wondered if he was
deliberately trying to provoke her.  His eyes were the solid color of
dusk, without any specks or flaws in the iris.

"So what are you saying, McKissack?"

"That he was guilty of being an impressionable kid who hung out with
the wrong crowd.  Siddown, you're making me seasick."

She slumped in the wooden captain's chair, trying to solve in an
instant what had remained a mystery for almost eighteen years.  "The
cats were this big deal in our house.  I remember my father being so
outraged, and Billy just moping around and basically feeling rotten. 
My friends and I would scare each other to death with decapitated-cat
stories, but after a while, nobody mentioned it anymore, and sometimes
I thought I must've dreamt it."

"Oh it's true, all right."  McKissack lit a cigarette and gazed at her
over the curl of smoke.  His hard-muscled body was full of compressed,
unreleased energy.  She didn't know how to bridge the gap between them.
They'd ended their affair three months ago.  McKissack was married, and
she knew his wife, Sheila.  She liked Sheila, and she'd met his kids,
ages ten, twelve, and fourteen.  Good kids.  A wonderful family. 
Still, her desire for him was as smooth and light as water.

"I've always had a sense there was some connection between my father's
suicide and the dead cats, but I couldn't be sure.  I had this vague
feeling it had something to do with the retarded girl, too, but I
didn't know how, exactly."  She stood up and leaned against his desk.
"You don't honestly think the two cases are related, do your"

He considered her question, eyes narrowing.  "I think there's a
connection because it was the same kids involved, yeah.  And we found a
cat bell in Melissa D'Agostino's hand ..."

"That disappeared, I know.  You don't think--?"

"I'll tell you what I think if you'll sit down a minute."  His tall
forehead and alert eyes contrasted sharply with the rigidity

of his jaw and those deep parenthetical lines around his lips, lips
she had once kissed and which, if she admitted it to herself, she still
wanted to kiss.  "I think one of the boys who was there that night went
back and decapitated those cats.  I don't think it was your brother,
though.  I think Ozzie Rudd killed Melissa D'Agostino."

"That's ridiculous."  She tried to picture the soft-spoken truck
driver--her brother's childhood friend, the football coach's son, now a
devoted father himself--killing someone ... anyone ... but couldn't.
She'd known Ozzie since they were kids and he'd always been kind to
her, giving her an occasional Milky Way bar or a bottle of toilet
water.

"I disagree."  McKissack sat forward.  "I think Ozzie Rudd shot those
cats, then went back later on and decapitated them for kicks.  I think
he dropped Melissa D'Agostino off at Black Hill Road, then returned
later on to strangle her.  I think he's one sick fuck."

"So why wasn't he arrested?"

"He had an alibi, if the girl is to be believed.  "An old rage flared
in his eyes, then dissolved into resigned bitterness.  "We couldn't
make a strong enough case to satisfy the D.A."

"Ozzie's no murderer."

He shrugged.  "You asked."

Her stomach constricted as she held his eye.  "I'd like to reopen the
case."

"What for?"

"We owe it to her parents."

He crossed his arms, and the body language book she once read would've
said he was shutting her out, being noninclusive.  A lowered chin meant
insecurity, folded arms meant distrust.  "We don't have the manpower.
We don't have the funds."

"Please," she begged.  She'd never asked him for a favor before.  He
rubbed his eyes, smoke rib boning from his nose, and she wondered if he
missed her as much as she missed him.  She could

fee!  the heat emitting from his body.  He couldn't help himself, he
radiated vigor.

"Rachel.  I'd strongly advise against this.  You never know what you
might uncover."

"Like what?  The truth?"

Wearing a slightly defeated look, he tamped out his cigarette.  "Do it
on your own time."

"Thanks," she said, grateful.  "I promise it won't interfere with my
regular duties."

He leaned back in his chair.  His desk was old wood.  Oak.  "I got my
picture in the paper right after the murder.  Somebody cut out the
article, but I had to throw it away.  I didn't want to be reminded."
His lips, pressed against one another, grew pale.  "Doesn't matter how
many homicides you handle, you never get used to the death of a
child."

She picked up the file.  "All the more reason to find out what
happened."

He gave her a wry smile.  "You're more like your father than you
know."

EVERY MORNING AT 8:30, BILLY STORROW WAITED FOR CLAIRE

Castillo to join him in the lobby of Pelletier Hall, where together
they greeted their students.  Claire taught the lowest-functioning
class of juniors and seniors at Winfield School for the Blind and
Special Needs, and Billy was her teacher's aide.  Their students ranged
in age from sixteen to eighteen and most lived on campus in cottages
named after characters from Beatrix Potter books.  The double doors of
Pelletier Hall--a grab bag of nineteenth century architecture--opened
into an ornate lobby with two

banks of grillwork elevators and a central staircase.  The lobby
glittered with glazed terra-cotta tile beneath a domed stained glass
skylight, and Corinthian pillars supported the fourteen foot ceilings.
Billy spotted Claire among the throng of students pouring into the
lobby and waved.

"Hi, you," she said, slightly out of breath from walking up the front
steps.  Her cheeks were flushed, and her long red hair was shiny and
brushed off her face, and he felt light-headed just standing next to
her.

"Hey," he said as casually as he could.

"I can't believe it's Monday already."

"Do anything fun over the weekend?"

"Naw, just sat around in my underwear, mostly."

He was backed against the stairs, carved mahogany balustrade supporting
his spine.  Oh fuck, he wanted to say.  Jesus.  She was the most
beautiful woman he'd ever known, with hair the faded red of an over
laundered shirt.  She had to have the longest legs in the world, which
today's calf-length brown skirt partially hid, and she never seemed to
care about the runs in her panty hose.

"You?"she asked.

"Huh?"

"What'd you do this weekend, work on your novel?"

"Oh.  Yeah," he lied.

"I'd love to read it sometime."

"Let me think about it," he said.  He hadn't written a thing, not one
blessed word.

"I understand," she said with a sweet, understanding smile, and he felt
like the worst kind of fraud.  "Artists are sensitive."

Now one of their students came barreling across the lobby toward them,
swinging his cane, and Billy narrowly prevented him from crashing into
them.  "Whoa, Gus, where's the fire?"

"I dunno."  Gus had lived at Winfield since he'd lost his sight in an
automobile accident at the age of five.  All the bones in his face had
been painstakingly reconstructed, leaving him with the look

of someone who'd collided with a brick wall, disbelief stitched into
every expression.  His blond hair was cut so short you could see the
pink, exposed skin of his scalp.

"You almost whacked into us," Billy said.

"I did?"

"You're like a lethal weapon with that thing."

Gus had a snuffy little laugh.

"It isn't funny," Claire snapped, ever the disciplinarian.

"I know."

"Then why are you laughing?"  But before Gus could respond, she hunched
her shoulders and gave a few hacking coughs.  Claire had asthma, and
twice she'd wheezed so violently in Billy's presence he was afraid she
might choke to death.  She reached into her leather bag and pulled out
her inhaler.  "You've gotta be more careful, Gus," she said between
coughs, spraying the medicine directly into her mouth.  It took a few
moments for the attack to subside, then she continued as if nothing had
happened.  "There are other people in the world besides you, you know,"
she said, eyes shiny bright with tears.

"I know."  Gus crossed his arms defensively.

Her features softened.  "Pretty sick of my lectures, huh?"

"No."  Gus had a charming smile, two of his front teeth missing.  He
was supposed to wear a bridge but hated the thing and was constantly
losing it.  Once Billy found two front teeth sticking out of the soil
of a rubber plant in the cafeteria.

Now Luke came sauntering toward them, a towering teenager over six and
a half feet tall.  He wore an extremely nerdy outfit chosen with great
care and carried a boom box.  On certain days, he would only respond if
you called him Elvis.  He loved rockabilly music and was constantly
snapping his fingers to the incessant beat inside his head.  He'd been
born three months premature and had lost all vision in both eyes after
being removed from the incubator.

Billy touched Luke's arm to let him know they were there.  "Hey,
Elvis."

"I'm not the King today."

"Oh.  Hi, Luke."

Taller than his teacher by several inches, Luke reached down to pat
Billy playfully on the head, "How's the weather down there, Teach?"

"Ha ha ... funny guy."  Billy slid Luke's hand down over his face so
Luke could feel him grinning.  "How was your weekend, buddy?"

Luke's smile snuck up on one side.  "I got a Supremes tape."

"Ooh.  Ow.  I love the Supremes!"  Claire swiveled her hips and snapped
her fingers, her voice endearingly off-key.  "Love child ... never
meant to be ..."

"Is that you, Ms.  Castillo?"  Luke asked.

"Yeah, it's me.  And here comes Gabie and Tony and Eric."

"Where's Brigette?"

"Here I am!"  She tugged on Billy's jacket sleeve.

"Oops.  Sorry, honey.  I didn't see you."  Brigette, a petite albino
teenager, was low-sighted but could see well enough to get around
without a cane.  The students at Winfield had varying degrees of vision
loss; many were partially sighted, meaning they could see shapes, or
lights and shadows, or narrow bands of images.  Enrollment had dropped
in recent years due to main streaming and medical advances.  Meningitis
could be cured with antibiotics now and fewer babies were being born
blind from their mother's rubella.  The future of Winfield rested in
the hands of crack babies and premature births, and only the most
complicated cases were sent here--behavioral problems, head injuries,
deaf-blind, severely impaired.  Billy loved every single one of them.

"You guys ready?  Let's go."

They were heading up the stairs when Billy spotted his sister entering
the lobby.  At twenty-seven, Rachel was strikingly pretty

despite the conservative gray pantsuits she always wore.  Her leather
holster showed beneath her jacket, her Smith & Wesson38-caliber
revolver entirely inappropriate in the school's sundrenched lobby.

"Hey," Billy called out, and she met him at the bottom of the stairs.
She had their mother's tall milky forehead and imperious chin, which
was offset by her sweet smile.  Her blond hair was pulled into a
ponytail so tight her eyes seemed slanted, and he still had a hard time
thinking of her as a cop.

If Billy thought about it, he had to admit he was jealous.  She'd
followed in their father's footsteps, whereas he wasn't even a full
fledged teacher, just a teacher's aide.  It was a constant source of
embarrassment for him.  Not that he'd ever wanted to be a cop.  Billy
had higher aspirations.  After graduating from college, where he'd
majored in English, Billy moved around a lot-from Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to Seattle, from Buffalo to New Mexico.  Over the years,
he kept trying to settle down and write that novel, but to date he
hadn't written a thing.  Instead, he'd ended up waiting tables and
working in bookstores, searching all across America for good material.
Three years ago, right before their mother died of breast cancer, he
finally returned home, feeling like a failure.  Lately, he'd been
considering writing a book about the blind.

"Listen, Billy, we need to talk," Rachel said.

"Class is just starting.  What's up?"

"Nothing's up," she said, but her voice was pinched.  "We need to talk,
is all."

"Lunch?"

"Sounds good."

"Noon at the picnic tables out back?"

"Sure.  See you then."

"Hey.  Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she said a little too brightly, and he knew she was lying.
"Everything's fine."

BY MIDMORMNG, THE.  SUN WAS HEATING THE BACKS OK THE

students' heads.  Gus and Luke were dozing, and Eric was brail ling
secrets into Brigette's tiny hand.  Billy knew they'd lost them
somewhere between 1775 and 1783, but Claire kept charging gamely ahead,
refusing to accept that her class would never truly grasp their
country's complicated history.

"Okay, now, the American colonists were protesting what?"  Claire
prompted.  The desks formed a horseshoe, and she paced back and forth
in front of them, clutching the delicate gold crucifix at her throat.
She was a lapsed Catholic who for some reason clung to the trappings of
the Church.  "What were they protesting?  Anyone?  Eric?"

"Huh?"  Eric sat abruptly forward.  He had an unruly red mane, a
freckled face, large feet and an even bigger heart.  He was the
brightest kid in this class of especially slow learners, and Claire
couldn't help constantly turning to him for answers.  She and Billy had
a running dispute about it.  How would the others learn if Eric kept
bailing them out?

"What were the American colonists protesting?"  Claire asked again,
cheeks flushed from the excitement of teaching.

"Um ... the British?"

"That's right, the) were protesting British domination, and that was
what started the Revolutionary War.  Okay?"

She looked around at their blank, upturned faces.  Billy caught her eye
and smiled encouragingly, despite the fact that he knew it was
hopeless.  Sixty percent of the students at Winfield were handicapped
beyond their blindness; many suffered some degree of delayed
development, a polite term for mental retardation.

Here at Winfield, the brochure explained, each child was measured
against himself, not some outside norm.  The best many of these
students could hope for after graduation was a room in a state-funded
community residence and a menial job, although there were notable
success stories: a professor of history at the University of Maine, a
state senator, a printer of large-type books, the owner of a dry
cleaning establishment, an innkeeper.  Blindness doesn't mean
limitation.

"In 1775," Claire continued, fingering the gold cross at her throat,
"we fought to gain our independence from what country?  Gus?  Am I
boring you, Gus?"

So far their relationship hadn't progressed the way Billy had hoped it
would.  At first, he hadn't liked Claire very much.  She struck him as
arrogant, a bit of a snob.  She was a strict disciplinarian in the
classroom and a cipher outside of it.  She listened to his problems and
gave him advice, but shied away from revealing too much about herself.
Whenever he probed too deeply into her past, she clammed up, lips
pressed shut like the licked flap of an envelope.  All Billy wanted to
do was witness her loss of control.

"Anyone?  Brigette?"

"Yes?"  Brigette sat fingering her pencil and gazing at the brilliant
slash of sunlight slanting across the blackboard.  She had milky white
skin, cottony white hair and flickering pink eyes that seemed to take
everything in--although that wasn't quite true.  Brigette had a
doughnut-shaped field of vision, which meant that objects swirled
before her like planets disappearing into a black hole.  Unlike Gus, to
whom light and shape were but distant memories, Brigette could
differentiate between shades of gray and vibrant shapes.  She carried a
ring of keys that rattled noisily, so you always knew when Brigette was
coming.  The keys didn't open anything she owned.

"Brigette?"  Claire said.  "What are you thinking?"

"This weekend I'm going swimming," she said in her high, childlike
voice.

"That's fine," Claire said, "but we were talking about the American
Revolution.  Do you know what the American Revolution is, Brigette?"

Brigette stared at the blackboard, then finally admitted, "I don't
know."

Claire glanced helplessly over at Billy and threw up her hands.  "Maybe
now's a good time," she said, "to practice our handwriting?"

"I think that's a great idea."  Billy sounded more gung ho than he'd
intended, and Claire frowned at him.  She was always frowning at him.
She found fault with Billy's leniency, his tendency to cut the students
too much slack.  "If we don't push them," she said, "we'll never find
out what they're truly capable of."

"Do souls need eyes in order to see?"  Brigette suddenly asked, and
Billy and Claire stared at her.

The other children fell silent.

"Excuse me, honey," Claire said, "but where did that come from?"

"My grandma died this weekend."

"Oh my God."  Claire knelt down beside her and gave her a hug.  "I'm so
sorry, sweetie."

"Do they?"  Brigette asked, hugging Claire back.

"Do souls need eyes in order to see?"  Claire glanced at Billy, her
beautiful almond-shaped eyes filling with tears.  "No, you don't need
eyes in heaven."

"So when I go to heaven, will I be able to see like everybody else?"

"Yes," Claire said.

"No kidding?"  Luke perked up.  "Me, too?"

"Yes," Claire answered, and a fresh surge of desire rattled through
Billy, throat thickening with a strange blend of sorrow and yearning.
She wore stockings even on the hottest days.  She wore sleeveless
blouses, sweat collecting in half-moons under

each armhole.  Whenever she kicked off her shoes, the faint smell of
baby powder wafted toward him.  She had narrow feet with bright red
nails showing through the cinnamon-colored nylon.

"Why did Grandma have to die?"  Brigette asked.

"We don't know why people die."  Claire held Brigette's pale, delicate
hand.  "Not really.  It makes life more precious, though, for those of
us who survive.  Your grandma's spirit will live on.  You'll never
forget her, will you?"

"No," came Brigette's soft reply.

"Is there anything special you remember about her?"

She thought for a moment, then said, "She liked cherry cough drops."

"See?"  Claire smiled.  "From now on, whenever you have a cherry cough
drop, you'll remember your grandma."

Luke rubbed the bridge of his nose as if it irritated him to be there.
His boom box was on the floor by his feet.  "Am I going to die?"  he
asked.

Claire glanced over at Billy, who tried to think of something wise to
say.  He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

"Am I?"

"We're all going to die eventually, Luke," Claire said.  "But hopefully
we can all die like Brigette's grandmother ... of old age."

"She died in a car accident," Brigette announced to the room, and the
children shifted uneasily in their chairs.

"That does it," Luke said, his large, bony hands caressing his Braille
book.  "I'm never getting into a car again."

"Luke," Billy said, "most cars don't have accidents."

"That one did."

"Yes, it did.  But most cars don't."

"How d'you know?"

"Because.  They just don't."

Claire grimaced.  '

"I don't care, I'm not riding in a car ever again," Luke said with
finality.

"Look ... guys ..."  Claire said.  "It's like a leaf falling from a
tree.  Just because one leaf falls today doesn't mean they all have to
fall today, does it?  Some leaves drop off early, but then others hang
on until winter."

The children seemed puzzled by this analogy.  They were probably the
most innocent teenagers who'd ever walked the face of the earth, or at
least America.  They didn't smoke pot, get drunk, take drugs, or have
sex (as far as Billy knew).  They didn't drive cars or go on dates
unchaperoned.  They were rare adolescents, their innocence intact.

"Forget it," Gus said.  "I'll walk."  His face beneath its blond fringe
of hair looked squooshed-in, like a sat-on rubber doll's.

"Gus," Billy gently chided.

"What?"  He blinked.  He was wearing bright red Reeboks and a

T-shirt with the Simpson family stumbling across the front.  "You can
die in a car crash."

"Yeah, and a safe could drop on your head," Billy said, but the irony
was lost on them.

Gus seemed alarmed.  "It could?"  ;

Brigette stood up, walked over to Billy and reached for a hug,

and Billy gladly obliged, something else Claire disapproved of.

we treat her like a little girl, she'll never grow up.  She'll never
take on adult responsibilities.  We should treat her like a young lady.
But

Billy secretly loved Brigette's hugs, which she generously offered to
anyone.  Her girlish heart was pure.

"Brigette," Claire said, "is there anything else you'd like to tell
us?"

"Grandma's dead," she said, calmly removing the ruby ring her father
had given her for her sixteenth birthday, then sliding it back on her
tiny finger again.

HIS SISTER WAS WAITING FOR HIM AT ONE OF THE PICNIC

tables grouped on a long, undulating green behind Pelletier Hall.  The
picnic area overlooked the ivy-covered, eighteen-acre campus with its
rambling footpaths and towering oak trees.  Built in 1862, the Main
Building soared above the green with its stately white facade and bell
tower.  Further south, slate-roofed brick cottages were arranged around
quadrangles with playgrounds in the middle.  Migrating birds flecked
the sky, the leaves were beginning to turn, and a sense of timelessness
permeated the campus.

Rachel was golden-haired like their mother, whereas Billy was dark like
their father, yet they resembled each other more than they did either
parent.  Sometimes when he looked at her he saw himself, her face his
mirror image.  It was disturbing.  She didn't seem to be as aware of
their similarities as he was.  She didn't seem to fathom the depth of
his feelings for her.  For Billy, the family was deeply rooted inside
of him.  It was who he was.  He could still hear his father's voice in
his head, belittling him.

"Hey, Sis."

"Hi, Billy."  Her look made him nervous.  "Thanks for meeting me."

"No problem."

She had bought a cranberry juice from the machine in the rec room and
was playing with the bendy straw.  The smell of nasturtiums and freshly
mown grass wafted toward them.  Daisy chains of kids filled the nearby
playgrounds with their shuffling gaits, their anonymity behind dark
glasses, their telescope canes.  They groped for one another, shouted,
laughed, collided in a tangle of

waving arms and roving eyes, while the college students hired to look
after them patiently untangled and redirected, consoled with exhausted
competence.

Rachel got right to the point.  "We're reopening the Melissa D'Agostino
case."

His gut churned, his brain a jangle of raw nerves.  Something about his
posture didn't feel right; his shoulders slumped, and he tried to
straighten up, but a coil was unfurling deep inside him.  "Okay," he
said cautiously.

"I just wanted you to know."

"Okay," he said, at a loss.

"Billy," she said, "I've read the case file.  I know all about your
involvement.  I'd like to ask you some questions."

He rubbed his eyes, trying not to look as upset as he actually was.  "I
answered everybody's questions eighteen years ago," he said softly.
"It's all in the report."

"I'm sorry."  She smiled encouragingly at him.  "I know you didn't have
anything to do with Melissa D'Agostino's death.  I just thought maybe I
could jar your memory ... squeeze out a few more details?"

A sudden swirl of cold air blew past them, and Billy folded his arms.
Blackbirds fluttered up whenever the children got too close.  His toes
were cold.  He tilted his face toward the sun, wanting to watch the
clouds fly by.  She didn't remember how bad it could get sometimes,
with their mother crying and their father storming out of the house.
She didn't remember how little their father trusted him.  The fights.
She didn't understand the craziness.  She was too young, and her youth
had protected her from all hurts, big and small.

"I remember," he said, "a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Like discovering Dad's body."

She looked at him oddly and he got that misunderstood feeling again.
After he'd moved back home three years ago, after he'd

finally admitted defeat and come crawling back to this godforsaken
town, he'd lived briefly with Rachel and their mother and immediately
resented their relationship, hated the secrets that flowed between
them.  There were watercolors on the walls, and girlish things and warm
touches, and he felt excluded from the insider ness of the house.  The
exclusivity of its domesticity, the sense that it was somebody else's
place, not his, that he was a mere visitor.  And the other stuff, the
old secrets, the bad things he didn't want to think about.  After their
mother died, he rented a place of his own across town, far from all the
painful memories.

"You wouldn't talk to me about anything after Dad died," Rachel said,
an old hurt bruising the delicate skin around her ocean-colored eyes.

"Well, I'm talking to you now."

"You never cried.  I remember you'd sit for hours without moving. You'd
stare at the TV ..."

"I know."

"Daddy was gone.  He just disappeared from my life, and it felt like
suddenly you were gone, too."

"I know," he said softly.  "It was an effort to think."

"I remember crying a lot.  But you.  Not one tear."

"Whenever I started to feel something," he said, "I'd just focus on
whatever I was doing at the time.  Like homework or sports."

Her eyes held him with their intensity.  "I lost you both."

He exhaled sharply.  "After Dad died, I had nothing but contempt for
other people.  I'm not proud of the fact that I distanced myself from
you.  I guess I was punishing myself.  Sometimes in the dead of winter,
I'd walk around without a coat just to prove how tough I was.  I was
contemptuous because it sealed away the hurt.  You can understand that,
right?"

She gave a reluctant nod.

"I remember that night ... Dad's car was in the driveway, but he wasn't
inside the house."

She winced as if she didn't want him going in that direction, but it
was too late.

"You were watching TV.  Mom called the station, but they said he'd left
hours ago.  I'll never forget the look on her face ... as if she had a
premonition or something.  She said we had to find him."

"I don't remember any of this."

"She wanted to protect you.  You were nine years old, for crying out
loud.  We went outside, and I sort of wandered down to the back field
down by the swamp, remember?  Dad and I would go down there sometimes
and look at the stars.  He'd try to talk to me.  I don't know why he
bothered."  Billy swallowed hard.  "And there he was."

Her gaze was like a tug, urging him to continue.

"I could see, like ... everything.  The blood and ..."

"Okay."  She looked away, but he wouldn't stop.

"The back of his head was blown off, and there was blood dripping from
his ears, and I couldn't catch my breath.  I kept thinking, holy shit"
He rubbed his face, but the itchiness stayed on his skin.  "I had
nightmares for years.  I still have nightmares."

"Billy, that's enough."  Her eyes welled with tears.  Even though she
was seven years younger, she seemed older.  Wiser.  Billy had always
been a late bloomer, that was his problem.  He was ten years behind
everybody else.  Billy wasn't even a man's name.  It was a boy's
name.

"Sorry," he said, "but you asked."

"Not about that!"  Her anger was palpable.  She wiped her nose with her
sleeve, and he knew that she loved him very much, but that over the
years he'd lost some of his luster in her eyes.  He remembered a time
when he'd been her favorite person in the whole wide world, but now she
could see the cracks in the armor.

"The worst of it was, I didn't feel anything ... here."  He smacked his
chest.  "At the funeral, it was like I was standing fifty feet away.  I
didn't know these people.  Who were they?  Some guy

would come up and put his arm around me and I didn't know who the hell
he was.  In church, during the service, Mom grabbed my hand.  She was
sobbing and I could feel her shoulder sort of jerking against mine, and
it... repulsed me.  All that emotion.  I remember looking down at her
hand as if it were an object.  And there was nobody to turn to.  I felt
so alone."

"I'm sorry, Billy," she said, her face finally opening up to him, her
heart embracing him with pity.

"I remember exactly where he died.  I could go down there and point it
out to you.  His blood was like paint on the grass.  For the longest
time, I'd go down there and stand in that exact spot and expect to find
something ... an answer, maybe."  His own words buzzed in his ears.
"You know how I've been nagging you to sell the house?"  he said, and
she smiled the way only his little sister could.  "I'm glad you didn't
listen to me.  I mean, I really think you should sell it, it's a
fucking museum.  But part of me doesn't want to lose touch with the
past, you know?  Isn't that dumb?"

"No."  She made a move to comfort him, but he wasn't crying.

"Remember the look he'd get in his eyes?"

"Like nobody was home."

"He'd go down to the basement and you couldn't disturb him."

"Not for hours."

She was shivering now, drawing her coat around her.  Billy was so proud
of her.  She didn't have to do anything, he'd still be outrageously
proud of her.  He'd taken care of her, growing up.  He'd been her best
bud and they'd played silly games, hiding in the woods, pretending to
be Indians.  Her face was beautiful in the noontime sun, strong and
fiercely determined.

"Dad used to say "Shoot straight."  " She shuddered.  "Isn't that
weird?"

"Prophetic and weird."

" "Shoot straight."  "

"You know what the obituary said?  "He died unexpectedly."

She closed her eyes for a moment.  "It pisses me off."

"What?"

"Why'd he have to kill himself like that?"

He stroked her cheek.  "It wasn't us, Pickle."

"What was it, then?"

"I don't know, but I don't think it was us."

THE DREAM WAS ALWAYS THE SAME.  HIS FATHER WAS UP ON

the roof, walking as easily as you'd cross a floor.  Nalen Storrow
walked to the edge of the roof, looked down at Billy with his ice-blue
eyes, gold badge glinting in the sun, and said, "A conscience doesn't
come with a dimmer switch, son."  Then he began to glow as if lit from
within.  Eyes smoldering, he leapt into the sky and disappeared.  And
in his hand, Billy found his father's revolver.  His heart pounded as
he pointed the gun at his own head and pulled the trigger, and his
bones dissolved and his brains came rushing out the back of his skull
as he crashed to the ground.

Billy woke up drenched in sweat.  The bed was damp, the sheets
stifling.  He kicked them off, sat up, rubbed his eyes.  His hands were
trembling.  "Stupid fuck," he said.  "Stupid shit ... stupid fuck .."

He switched on the light.  Three in the morning.  He got up and started
re shelving some of the books stacked haphazardly around the room.  He
stacked them alphabetically by author.  He'd made the floor-to-ceiling
scrub pine bookshelves himself.

A distant memory came to him.  He must've been three or four years old
when he found a moldy old baseball in the backyard and brought it
inside to show his father.  Nalen Storrow snatched

the baseball away and chopped it in half with a hatchet.  Only Billy
couldn't be sure if it'd actually happened that way or if perhaps he
had dreamt it.  He wasn't sure of anything anymore.

Now the familiar nagging thoughts, bad thoughts, corrosive, tried to
pry their way into his brain, and he did what he always did whenever
that happened.  He picked up a book among the stacks of books that
littered the house and skimmed its pages.  He didn't usually buy
self-help books, but this one was about the children of alcoholics.  He
paused to read a random paragraph: Some children grow up to become
"super-coping adults," extremely diplomatic and capable ofivorking very
hard for little reward; people who set out to save others.

That was Rachel, he thought.  Whereas Billy fit the category of those
who had low self-worth and difficulty maintaining intimate
relationships.  That was him, no self-esteem.  Just a big emptiness
inside he kept trying to fill up with a human being.

Billy didn't know who he was; he didn't fit into the world.  He browsed
and re shelved until dawn cracked the horizon; this was the way he
dealt with his nightmares.

rachel's conversation' with billy had left hlr feeling raw, angry and
confused.  For the first time, she understood what McKissack was
talking about and she hated him for being right.  She was too close to
the case, and the hard weight of this knowledge sat inside her like a
stone.  She'd recognized pain in the sharp, cracked color of her
brother's eyes and that had stopped her from questioning him further.
Still, she wasn't ready to give up just yet.

Looking downrange at the target, she attempted to create in her mind a
potentially life-threatening situation.  She told herself she had no
backup.  It was just her and the perp and her life was in danger.  What
should she do?  Her heart pumped rhythmically as she tried to imagine
the perp's face but couldn't.  He was a cipher.  A face in shadow.

She'd been a patrol officer for three years now, a detective third
grade just over a year, and yet she'd never shot at a suspect, never
killed anyone.  On Boy Range back at the police academy, she'd learned
to shoot at the body-shaped targets stapled to stanchions across the
range.  The bullets were caught in sand piles behind the stanchions
embedded in concrete.  In her headset and goggles, she stood with the
other recruits in the ready position, gun drawn, arm extended.  "On the
whistle, fire two rounds."  Unload and reload with the speed loader.
Fire off four rounds in fifteen seconds.

And always at the back of her mind was the question: What did it feel
like to get shot?  What did it feel like to turn your gun on yourself?
To take your own life?  Head ripped apart at the pressure of your own
finger?

No, don't think about that now.  Stay focused.

She imagined the perp several yards away, pointing a gun in her face.
She needed to remain calm.  She bent her knees, turned to the left and
dumped her speed loader, slammed in a new one.  Trigger control.  Take
it easy.  She fired off six rounds.

Rachel liked her gun, liked the feel of it in her hand, the weight of
it.  Her gun was an extension of her sense of safety.  She carried
eighteen rounds of ammunition at all times: six rounds in the revolver,
six in each of the two speed loaders she kept inside her purse.

Now she aligned the rear and front sights, then allowed her vision to
refocus on the front sight and the distant target, choosing the Weaver
stance, placing her feet in a professional boxer-type

position and keeping a forty-five-degree angle to the target.  More
shots.  The acrid smell of gunpowder.  Two rounds supported, four
seconds.  Combat-unload and reload with the speed loader.  Align the
target in your rear and front sights.  Squeeze the trigger.

She'd always wanted to be a cop, ever since she could remember.  She'd
loved her father's uniform, his gold shield, his shiny black shoes.  He
kept his gun loaded in the bedside table and she was forbidden to go
near it, but sometimes she snuck into her parents' room and played with
the ammunition he kept in his sock drawer.

Now she took a step back and arched her neck.  Squinted at the target.
Good grouping, probably in the high nineties.  Not bad.

"Why the Weaver?"  It was McKissack, coming up behind her on Charley
Range.  She'd know that voice anywhere.  It crept up her spine and
curled her toes.

"There's less of me exposed to my adversary.  Greater mobility while on
the run."

"Disadvantages?"

"Difficult to perform while under stress."

He squinted at the target.  "Good grouping, Storrow."

"Thanks, Jim."

He flashed her a look that made her jump inside her own skin.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and his features softened.  "I don't know
what to call you anymore.  Not even when we're alone.  Should I call
you Chief?"

"Frankly, I don't know what I want," he admitted.

She reholstered her weapon.

"In a gunfight," he said, "you have no way of knowing when you're about
to be fired on.  So you take cover wherever you can find it.  You have
to respond quickly.  There's not much time to establish sight
alignment, and you usually end up returning fire instinctively, by
pointing and shooting."

She gave him a puzzled look.

"Some things you can never prepare yourself for, Rachel," he said and
walked away.

since ozzie rudd's daughter attended the school for the Blind, Rachel
had made an appointment to meet him inside the Main Building on Friday
afternoon around three o'clock when classes let out.  You weren't
supposed to drive your vehicle over twenty miles per hour inside the
campus gates.  Rachel parked he hind the Main Building and entered the
front lobby, where she greeted the receptionist, a large woman with
navy blue nail polish and vamp irish eye shadow whose nametag said

Cassandra.

"I'm supposed to meet Ozzie Rudd here."

"Oh yeah."  Cassandra removed a can of Static Guard from her purse and
sprayed her clothes with it, a plume of toxic chemicals misting the
air.  "Cut through the library.  Take any door on your right and
proceed all the way down the hall to the very end.  Room 138."

"Thanks," Rachel said with a dry cough.

In the library, a crystal chandelier illuminated what many of the
children could not see--glass cases full of stuffed animals and shelves
crammed with Braille books.  The library's interior brick walls had
been polished smooth from decades of handling by sightless children.
The Venetian blinds were dented at about the same height--that of a
child's groping hand.  The white walls were also smudged, a dirty gray
trail leading from one end of the room to the other.

Rachel passed a small group of children gathered in front of one of
the glass cases, where a boy with deep-set eyes was counting the fangs
on a Bengal tiger, its jaws opened wide enough to swallow him whole.
Taking the nearest door on her right, she walked down a long corridor
to Room 138 and knocked on the door.  The teacher, a perky hrunette in
a blue cardigan, swung around and smiled at her through the glass. 
"Can I help you?"

"I'm Detective Storrow.  I was supposed to meet Ozzie Rudd here at
three."  She glanced apologetically at her watch.  "I'm a little
early."

"C'mon in.  My name's Peggy Morrissey."

About a dozen eight-to-ten-year-olds turned toward her as the door
thwunked shut behind her, their eyes alternately milky or roving or
piercingly focused.  Some of the children had visible deformities,
whereas others were perfectly normal-looking.  A boy in a wheelchair,
his arms twisted like pretzels, directed his motorized chair by
manipulating a lever attached to his chin.  Moving slowly toward her,
he parked a few feet away to gaze at her through his Coke-bottle
lenses.  She assumed he could make out the general shape of her, that
from his point of view, she'd entered the classroom and stirred up the
shadows.

"This is Bradley," Peggy Morrissey said.  "Bradley, say hello to
Detective Storrow.  She's a police officer."

"Hello," the boy said.

"Hello, Bradley."

Peggy walked away, leaving them alone together.  Bradley had the
cockeyed look of a Picasso portrait, eyes slightly crossed, face
stretched out where it shouldn't be, cheekbones two triangles under the
artist's brush.  A sweep of black hair drifted across his eyes, and a
tangerine button on his sweatshirt announced "I have permission to
roam."  He jerked his head and the wheelchair shot forward half a foot.
"You a cop?"

"I'm a detective, yes."

"Do you have a gun?"

"I have my se vice weapon."

"What's a service weapon?"

"It's a gun."

He had an exuberant laugh, one that came deep from his belly, air
pushing through his nose with foghorn force.  His fingers were twisted
rigidly together, like Play-Doh that's been left out overnight.

"I like your laugh," she told him.

"You do?"  He seemed delighted.

In a far corner, the other children were cleaning up after an art
project.  Water ran in the sink as they took turns washing their hands
and groping for the paper towel dispenser.

"What're you doin'?"  Bradley asked her.

"I'm supposed to be meeting someone."

"Who?"

"A man."

He looked confused.  "What man?"

"His name is Ozzie Rudd."

"Colette's father?"

"Yes," she said.

He stared at the floor for a moment, then burst into song.

"Oh I had the time of my life ... and I owe it all to you-only
you....."" There was no self-consciousness in his singing.

No artifice.  His face filled like a sail with joy.

Now another student tapped her way toward them, a little girl of about
eight.  She walked hunched over, arms clutching invisible bundles, head
bowed, eyes squeezed shut.  In one hand, she carried a cane caned out
of a branch, its pointed tip dulled from months of skittering across
the school's tiled floors.  She put her hand on Bradley's head and
probed his face with soft fingers, and Bradley laughed.

"Hi, Colette."

She gave a delighted squeal, her overall strap sliding off one

shoulder, Roger Rabbit peeking out from the turquoise T-shirt.  "Hi,
Bradley poop."

"You're a poop."

They both giggled helplessly.

The door opened behind them and in walked Ozzie Rudd.  Rachel hadn't
seen him in quite a while, and his appearance shocked her.  There were
circles under his faded blue eyes and his forehead was taller than she
remembered.  She could tell he was holding in his gut.  He wore a plaid
flannel shirt and straight leg jeans but still had the
honey-and-whiskey voice that appealed so to women.

"Hi, Raeh."

"Hi, Ozzie."

"You meet Colette?"  He lifted his daughter into his arms and,
squealing with delight, Colette traced his weathered face with eager
hands and kissed the tip of his nose.  He laughed as he bounced her in
his arms.  "Oof, you're getting big."

"Hi, Daddy!"

"Have a good week?"

"Yup!"

"Where's your homework?"

"We didn't get any!"

"No homework, huh?"

"Nope."  Her eyes were marbled and deep-socketed, the irises like runny
gray eggs, and she swung her head to and fro as if responding to some
inner rhythm.

"What's this then?"  he teased, opening his daughter's backpack and
pulling out a heavy Braille book.  Her hand groped for it, her delicate
fingers ruffling its pages.

"Oops!"  She giggled.  "Homework!"

"Well, whaddya know?"  He smiled, then turned toward her teacher.  "See
you later, Ms.  Morrissey."

"Have a great weekend, you two."

Rachel followed them out the door, back through the library and into
the parking lot where Ozzie's eighteen-wheeler was parked.

"She knows when I pull up to the building," he said, "because my truck
rattles the windowpanes and shakes the walls, and she can feel it
through the bones of her feet and her bottom, if she's sitting down.
Can't you, honey?"

"Yup."

"She knows when Daddy's here."  He set his daughter down and guided her
toward the eighteen-wheeler, where he placed her hands on the auxiliary
tank.

"Hello, truck!"  she said, slapping it heartily.

"Truck says hello back."  He smiled proudly as she headed clockwise
around it, touching the semitrailer's mud flaps, the sliding tandem
wheels, the marker light.  She reached underneath the bed to pat the
auxiliary tank and support leg crank, then paused a long while above
the kingpin to caress the embossed name, Long Ranger, with her
fingertips.  Giggling, she tugged at the front of her overalls.

"What's so funny, pumpkin?"

"I'm not a pumpkin, Daddy!"  Her breath came out in puffs: ah-ah-ah!
"I'm not round and cold like a pumpkin!"

"No, but you smell like wheat paste."  He gathered her in his arms
again and hugged her tight until she squealed, then lifted her into the
cab.  He turned to Rachel.  "Ever been to the Drop Off?"

She frowned.  "We need to talk in private, Ozzie."

"Don't worry," he said.  "Where we're going, Colette has lots of
friends."

ozzie couldn't imagine what it was like to be blind, although he'd
tried.  He once squeezed his eyes shut and wandered around the house,
where suddenly points and hardnesses leapt out at him, where the chalky
feel of paint on the walls shocked him, where creases in the surface of
his old wooden desk became ruts, ditches.  The refrigerator was a tall,
cold monster, the can opener a jutting weapon, newspapers spread across
the floor slippery traps.  He barely lasted five minutes, and even then
he kept cheating, opening his eyes in surprise and alarm.  It was so
freaky, like drinking hot coffee with a mouth full of Novocain.

Ozzie transported farm equipment from one state to the next, sometimes
moonlighting as a mover, but every Friday afternoon he picked up
Colette and took her to the park, then out to dinner.  Back home, she'd
hunker down on the couch and giggle at the things he handed her--peach,
stick of chewing gum, a fuzzy new toy.  They'd spend the evening
together and the whole rest of the weekend, then he'd drop her off at
his ex-wife's house on Sunday night before heading out on another run.
He'd miss her the entire week until they could be together again.

Ozzie was so proud of his daughter, he could burst.  She knew the truck
forward and backward, knew the fuel tank and battery boxes, the
compressed-air tanks and every single lug on each of the hubcaps.  She
circled her hands over the headlights, played the grille like a harp,
smacked the hood, plied the windshield wipers; and once he got a ladder
and showed her the tractor hood with its cab lights and air horn, its
vertical exhaust.  Slowly, very slowly, he was teaching her to check
the oil and water, to fill the

tanks with fuel.  Anxious to learn, she'd ask him, "What's this for,
Daddy?  Daddy, what's this?"  In her coveralls and shitkickers, she
seemed like a natural.

When Colette was a little girl, Ozzie would come home exhausted from a
long haul and she'd probe his face and hair and throat, sniff his neck
and clothes as if she were trying to memorize him all over again.  He'd
hand her a doughnut or a sticky bear claw wrapped in wax paper, and
she'd hunker down on the floor to devour it, his chocolate-faced girl.
With her animal nose, just a bud of a thing on her face, she'd attack
the knees of his jeans during supper, his caked sneakers, sweaty socks,
the pens in his pockets, his worn leather wallet, handkerchief, silver
coins.  Her darting tongue knew the taste of aluminum, dust, rubber,
balsa wood.  And those ears, two pink flaps.  And the milky unknowing
ness of her eyes.

She would dart beneath the table and zigzag between the straight back
chairs, worrying around the house with her constant touch-touch.  She'd
clack the furniture with her wooden cane, its tip as sensitive as a
tongue.  She smelled things long before anyone else could, like the
fire that took the Garsons' house, or the dead mouse in the cellar, or
what her father'd had for lunch that day.

When he tucked her in at night, he would bury his nose in her neck and
snuft and huffle.  She had that little-girl odor, her smelly toes and
belly button lint, earwax coming out in yellow clumps on the Q-Tip,
jagged white-blond hair full of sand and sweat and whatever else she'd
gotten into that day--her mother's perfume, her mother's soap, bananas
from her fingers.  Mae used to cut her bangs and they would come out
crooked because Colette refused to sit still.  She'd grit her teeth and
shake her head, not wanting a haircut, determined to have her own
way.

"Daddy's girl," he'd whisper.

There were nights, long ago, when the three of them would sit

out on the porch, long summer nights with the mosquitoes out, and the
fireflies glowing green.  The growing darkness would absorb them into
it, along with trees, grass, awnings, rakes, mailbox, porch.  The night
would dissolve Mae's face, and she'd become part of the cricket noise,
the whirling of gnats.  Without any moon, they'd all three be blind.

And Colette, sitting between their feet, would get up and move with
grace as if the day were still broad with light; she'd pace between her
parents on her little footpads, playing some sort of private, foolish
game.  Pad-pad-pad, she touched her mother's knee, then her father's,
back and forth, while a crow cawed somewhere in the hidden landscape,
and Holsteins grazed in the alfalfa fields, and far off, swimmers
splashed and shouted in the public part of the lake.

Mae with her full lips and a lisp so soft, you'd suspect you'd imagined
it, and those too-large eyes, that gentle accepting smile, and that big
bottom, short legs, and the amazing way it all fit together.  Her hair
was short, with French bangs cut like a suburban dust ruffle over
bedroom eyes.

During long-ago summer nights, they lay naked in bed, their clothes
scattered across the floor, their little girl sound asleep upstairs,
wrapped in her blindness.  Colette dreamed about whatever she'd touched
that day, whatever she smelled or tasted, maybe even what she imagined
she saw--shapes so strange, no scientist could figure them out.

Lovely Mae, wrapped in her sweat and smelling of the iced tea she made
with mint from her garden, store-bought lemons, Lipton tea bags, and
water from their well.  On her hands, his skin smell; on her breath,
zucchini and cucumbers; on her face, specks of dirt from her busy day;
and that exhausted, trapped odor between her legs would come at him
like a knife thrown by an expert.  He'd hold her as if he were falling
out of a boat.

The well-house pump would click on and hum its dutiful churn.
Tomorrow, he would push his little girl on her tire swing.  Teasing,
he'd snatch something away, like the accordion straw she sucked her
soda through, or her little red cane, or a favorite toy--and she would
squeal until he handed it back.  Then she'd scurry behind a chair, or
else beneath the piano, or in the dark space between the kitchen
cabinet and refrigerator where he thought no little girl could fit.

There was a picture of Colette on her birthday pony.  He kept it in his
wallet.  Four years old, she straddled the dappled mare, kicking her
heels against its sides, but that horse wouldn't move, would not budge.
Colette's hands were drawn crablike toward her chest and her head was
lowered, and you wouldn't know it, but she was smiling.

In another picture, she sat at the kitchen table before half a dozen
cupcakes Mae had baked, a birthday candle stuck in each.  Her eyes,
illuminated by the candles' flames, did not see a thing.  In the
picture, she blew a crooked birthday wish, and Ozzie, behind her,
appeared anxious for every single candle to go out.

Now Ozzie, Colette and Detective Rachel Storrow were seated at a square
table that trembled whenever Colette patted its gold-speckled surface.
The Drop Off was a real greasy spoon, knife and fork.  Ozzie bent down
to slide a wad of napkins under one of the shortened legs, his shirt un
tucking from its waistband.  As he sat up, red-faced, Suzi with an i
swiveled over to their table and wet a sharpened pencil with her
tongue.  A well-preserved sixty-year-old and lifelong waitress, Suzi
loved Colette like her own granddaughter.

"Well, hello there, Cocoa Puffs," Suzi said, her gaze sliding coyly
between Ozzie and Rachel.  "How's my favorite customer?"

Colette made a musical, high-pitched sound and reached for Suzi's hand.
"Got any ice cream, Suzi?"

"Well, honey.  We just may have a few Dove Bars kicking

around in the freezer."  Suzi winked at Ozzie.  "Mind if I kidnap your
daughter?"

"Yay!"  Colette slid out of the booth.

Suzi wiggled her hips with exaggerated impatience.  "And what can I get
you folks?"

"Two coffees."

She smiled as she sashayed away from them.  "C'mon, Colette, let's go
bug Earl."

The diner smelled of bacon fat and confectioners' sugar, a weariness
wafting in from the street.  Ozzie's shoes pinched and his bones ached
from his long week on the road.  He'd been a truck driver for fifteen
years but still wasn't used to hurling himself toward unknown
destinations marked on gas station maps.  The hot, gritty highway took
him places he'd never been before, numbing his brain with the constant
state of passing through.  He took little white pills to keep him awake
during long night shifts through towns called Sleepy Hollow and
Tallulah.  There was beer to comfort him, and roadside diners, and
waitresses with beauty-queen smiles and sagging bottoms.  There were
hash browns and the CB and Smokey to watch out for.  The delirium of
too much road, the merging of broken white lines, the bored faces of
nighttime travelers in their low-slung cars.  From his cab, Ozzie would
catch an occasional glimpse of dirty business going on inside a passing
convertible; the gleeful head of a dog outside a car window, its floppy
ears akimbo; the faces of too many children smeared across the back of
a station wagon window like insect splatters.

"Well," Rachel began clumsily, hesitantly.  She'd always had a generous
face and wry humorous eyes that were right now rather dull and serious.
She hardly wore any makeup--just a little plum-colored lipstick, maybe
some blush.  She might be a cop, but she was as pretty as a peach.
"Your daughter is adorable."

"She's something else."

Another waitress brought their coffees.  Ozzie could see Colette and
Suzi through the half-open kitchen door.  Colette was touching Earl the
chef's face--that big bear of a man became putty in her sticky hands.

"I'll get right to the point," Rachel said.  "I'm reopening the Melissa
D'Agostino case."

"Oh."  Ozzie stared down at his coffee, which he liked with lots of
cream and sugar.  He thought for some strange reason that maybe she
wanted to see him because she'd had a dream about him recently.
Sometimes he had dreams about people he hadn't seen in ages, and that
made him want to talk to them again.

"I need to ask you a few questions, Ozzie."

"Shoot."  He caught himself and winced.  "Oh gosh, I'm sorry."

"No, don't apologize ..."

"I'm always sticking my foot in it."

"Forget it."  She smiled kindly.  Sweetly.  He'd always had a little
crush on Billy's sister, and it shocked him when she'd gone off to the
police academy, shocked him even more when she returned nine months
later a full-fledged cop.  Now here they were, and he wondered where
her suspicions lay.

"Ask any question you want," he said, trying to be cooperative.

"I've been reading the case file," she began, "and it really bothers me
that this cat bell was found in the victim's fist.  You know what I
mean?  Suspicion points to that earlier incident, the incident with the
cats."

"Yeah."  He nodded sheepishly.  "The cats."

"You boys ... you killed those cats.  You confessed to that.  But it
was never resolved who decapitated the animals after they were dead."

"No."  He shook his head.  "That was never resolved."

"You don't know who did it, do your"

He blew on his coffee, then took a careful sip.  They had a tendency to
overheat the coffee here, and sometimes it tasted burnt.  "No," he
said.  "I'd swear on a stack of Bibles.

"I know," she said.  "I believe you.  But I'm trying to figure out if
there's some bit of information ... some tiny detail you may have
forgotten to tell the police at the time."

"No," he said.  "I confessed to shooting those cats, but I don't know
who went back and decapitated them."

"Wait..."  She was staring at him.  "Went back?"

"What?"

"You said, '... went back and decapitated them."  How do you know
somebody went back?"

"Are you trying to trick me?"  he asked angrily.  He didn't have to
talk to her.

"No.  I'm just saying--"

"Because this is something that was resolved years ago.  I mean, we got
our misdemeanors, we confessed.  We paid for what we did.  I went
through a whole bushel of bullshit over that one.  My dad beat the crap
outta me.  I don't know why I said 'went back' just now.  It's a figure
of speech.  The cops ... your dad tried to paint me into a corner with
that one, but I swear to Christ, Rachel, I told him the truth.  I told
the whole fucking truth and nothing but, pardon my French."

"That's all right," she said.  "I speak French fluently.

He had to smile.  "Look," he said, "I was a jerk back then.  All
screwed up.  Dad was one tough bastard.  That's what we used to call
him.  One Tough Bastard.  He had a hide as thick as cement.  You could
never get through to him, didn't matter what you said or did.  I guess
I just wanted to piss him off, you know?  Remind him I was there."

She nodded.  She hadn't taken one sip of her coffee yet.

"I was always getting into trouble.  Shooting those cats ... I have to
tell you, that was satisfying.  This may sound sick, but I honestly
thought every living organism on the planet was against me.  Have you
ever felt that way?  Like the whole wide world hates your guts?"

"I can imagine."

"You know, I was young and stupid.  But I'd swear on a stack of Bibles
I never decapitated any cats.  And I had nothing to do with Melissa
D'Agostino's murder.  They couldn't pin that on me.  I cooperated
totally--gave them a blood sample, whatever ..."  He drained his cup of
coffee and signaled the waitress, and she produced a fresh pot.

"Thanks, I'm set," Rachel said, and the waitress walked away.

"You know, I don't think I ever told your dad this ... but I liked
Melissa.  I instigated the whole trip, but the point wasn't to make fun
of anybody.  I mean, yes, I admit it ... I'm ashamed to admit it ... I
thought she was a hoot.  I got a big kick out of her.  Billy's the one
who chickened out, after we'd driven to Commerce City and all ... after
the ice creams ... he started saying we're gonna get in trouble.  He
put the fear of God in the rest of us, and so we panicked.  We dropped
her off.  Just dropped her off ..."  His voice faded, and he thought
about the stupidity of that act and how, if anybody ever attempted to
do something as cruel and heartless to Colette, he'd hunt them down and
shoot them dead.  He often wondered why Marty D'Agostino had never come
after him.  Never confronted him.  "Listen," he said, voice thick with
phlegm, "I do feel somewhat responsible.  I mean, we just dumped her in
the middle of nowhere."

Rachel nodded, then said, "You had an alibi, this girl ... Dolly?"

"She's gone."

"Goner"

"Passed away five years ago.  Breast cancer."

Rachel grew solemn.  "My mom, too."

"I know.  I heard."  He didn't think he ought to, but he reached out
and patted her hand, and Rachel smiled; it was the same smile she'd
always given him as a kid--an imp's smile.  He remembered once she
skinned her knee, and he put magic fairy dust on it to take the sting
out, and she smiled through her tears and told him how she was going to
keep the scab.  She was saving

her scabs and locks of her hair and fingernail clippings in a paper
envelope, for when she was old, she said.  That had just about slayed
him.

"There were witnesses who saw us together that night," Ozzie said.  "Me
and Dolly at the Dairy Joy.  It must be in the case file."

"Yeah, it's there."

"Rachel," he said softly, "I was an asshole.  I had a lot of pent up
rage.  I still struggle with it.  But I'm no killer."

"I know," she said, but he wasn't convinced she believed him.

RACHEL STOOD IN THE KITCHEN REALIZING BILLY WAS RIGHT,

the house was a museum.  Nothing had changed since their mother's death
three years ago.  The teakettle waited patiently on the back burner;
dusty candles book ended the table's centerpiece of silk flowers; the
living room chairs still held the shapes of their bodies; the
salmon-colored couch emitted a faint whiff of Storrow sweat.  Through
the kitchen window, she could see a fat blue jay chasing the other
birds away from the feeder legitimate birds, her mother had called
them.

Emotionally drained, Rachel removed her gun and holster, then sat at
the table, recalling the day her father had brought it home in pieces
from Sears Roebuck, and her mother's delight as her hand caressed the
"distressed" wood, a new invention at the time--they beat the wood with
chains to give it that pocked effect.  Her father's sweat and straining
muscles as he put the table together, the effort showing on his
weathered face, his pleasure at its completion, the mischievous way
he'd cupped her mother's bottom in his broad hands.

There were still miniature half-moons embedded in the

linoleum from where Billy used to tilt his chair back.  Rachel half
expected to hear her mother's voice, the whistling sound she made
through her nose during the last few years of her life.  The clink of a
spoon against china.  Do you think someone comes for you at the moment
of death?  Comes to take you to a new world?  Do you think death is an
adventure, like Sir James Barrie says?  "An awfully big adventure"?

How still the house was.  Even the staircase spoke to her of her
parents' long-ago presence, the squeak of the sixth tread as her father
snuck home late at night, the murmur of the banister where he ran his
hand, trying not to make a sound.  She remembered eating sun-ripened
tomatoes from her mother's garden, running over beetles with her
bicycle, playing with her brother's electric train set in the hot dusty
attic, stalking bullfrogs in the swamp--big fat frogs like bleating
human hearts.  Now all she could hear was the song of the red-winged
blackbird.

Upstairs in the bathroom, Rachel gazed out the window.  The grass was
dying, leaves turning saffron in the tawny light of Indian summer.  The
yard descended sharply into open farmland, giving way to fields and
pastures, then rising steeply into woods beneath a sky of steely
clouds.  Beyond the fields and humped green hills, in the great
distance, were the White Mountains.  Majestic.  Magisterial. Conspiring
in their silence.

Rachel washed her hands with a sliver of oatmeal soap.  Her mother had
died in the hospital, away from the house, away from her things,
surrounded by strangers in uniforms.  A swift, merciful passing, the
Reverend had called it.  Little did he know.

She opened the medicine chest, still crammed with her mother's things:
milk of magnesia, Pepto-Bismol, Preparation H, a tall can of
ozone-depleting hair spray, a tube of lipstick--that same fireball red
she'd used all her life despite its passing in and out of fashion; no
powder or rouge or eye shadow for her, just that double slash of red.
Rachel recalled how much her mother hated perfumes or anything scented,
how other people's colognes

made her sneeze.  She was allergic to wool and wouldn't wear jewelry.
Buying presents for Faye Storrow had always been a difficult
proposition.  She recalled stumbling after their father as he hurtled
through drugstore after department store in search of some perfect,
nonexistent gift.  Birthdays, Christmases ... her father running up and
down the aisles, asking, "What about this?  Rachel?  Billy?  C'mon,
kids, help me out!"

Now Rachel noticed a strand of gray hair stuck to the paint on the wall
behind the towel rack and wondered if it could possibly be her
mother's.  God, this house really was a museum.  A shrine.  With a
little shiver, she turned on the faucet and washed the hair down the
drain.

Now a car pulled up out front, and she went downstairs to see who it
was.  Jim McKissack stood on the doorstep.  "Can I come in?"

She opened the door, apprehension curling at the corners of her mind.
He entered with flawless movements.  His clothes, as always, looked
freshly pressed, but there was nothing starched or stiff about him.
McKissack's physicality was unavoidable, and her body began to hum with
the kind of synchronicity she always felt whenever he was near.  Inside
the station, they could keep up the pretense of professional
detachment, but outside it was hopeless.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," he said.

"Beer?"

"No, thanks."

"Well, I'm gonna have one.  Been a long day."

He hesitated in the doorway, probably wondering what the hell he was
doing there.  She studied his face, but McKissack was impossible to
read.  They'd mutually broken off their affair in order to spare
everyone else's feelings, but they'd forgotten about their own.  As for
Rachel, her desire for him lingered in her cerebellum right next to her
everlasting shame.

"How's the case going?"  he asked.

"You were right."

"About what?"

"About opening old wounds."

"You can always quit," he told her.  "No dishonor in it."

"I can't quit, Jim."

A fly buzzed lethargically around their heads, and he snatched it out
of the air.  She laughed with surprise as he opened his fist and wiped
dead fly remains off his hand.

"One of my many talents.  Impressed?"

"Shit, yeah," she said, laughing.

"I ever tell you?  I used to catch bees in a jelly jar.  I'd put the
jar on my bedside table and watch them die a slow, torturous death.  I
wanted to kill every single bee on the face of the planet.  I thought
they were evil incarnate.  Guess because one of 'em stung me once."

Rachel smiled.  "You're still trying to rid the planet of evil, aren't
you?"

He gazed at her without speaking, as if she knew his heart.

"McKissack..."

"I think maybe I should go ..."

When she touched him, he moaned as if he hadn't been touched in a very
long time.  He kissed her with his warm salty lips, and she could feel
his cock harden through their clothes.  When he smoothed one hand down
between her thighs, her insides cramped.  The nape of her neck tickled,
and she imagined all the hairs on her head, every single strand,
standing on end.  The shock of his touch both petrified and fascinated
her.  When he touched her there, it was almost as if he could read her
mind.

"Please," she whispered, losing blood in her head.  She was going to
faint.  The kitchen grew dim, and she swayed a little on her feet.

"I couldn't concentrate today," he admitted.  "I couldn't stop thinking
about you."  It startled her, how handsome his face was, all flushed
and agitated.

"Maybe we should talk?"  She moved away from him in a narrow escape.
Pulse quickening, she opened the refrigerator door, the smell of sour
milk wafting toward her.  She needed a beer.  She reached for the
six-pack behind the chicken carcass, dry meat clinging to a
construction of grayish bones.

"Rachel," he said, but she played deaf.

The beer's coolness passed through the bottle into her fingertips; she
took a lingering drink.  "I don't want to hurt anyone, McKissack."

He stood in the pantry doorway, hands dug deep in his pockets.  His
eyes were as gray as the fur of a Korat--a smooth, mist soaked gray.
"I'll have a beer."

"Here."  She handed him one, their bottles clinking together.

"Thanks."  He took a swig.

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she said, "We both know
what kind of mistake this is."

He took another swig, Adam's apple jutting like the whitened knuckle of
a flexed finger.  Falling silent, he gazed at her body.

"Screw you," she said.

In one swift motion, he set his beer on the countertop and reached for
her.  Folding her in his arms, he kissed her.  "Take this off," he
said, tugging at her T-shirt.  His hands slipped under her black
T-shirt and fondled her breasts.

"McKissack..."

He sank to his knees and pressed his face against her stomach.  "Oh,
God."  He sounded stricken.  "My cock feels so heavy."

She rested her hand lightly on top of his head, his emotional turmoil
at once pleasing and disturbing, her own inner confusion exhausting
her.  And even though she knew it was wrong to want him, she gave in to
it, let her muscles and tendons and nerves relax into wanting him.

Cupping her ass in his hands, he pressed his nose to the crotch of her
jeans.  Inhaling deeply, he said, "Jesus, I remember when you were just
a kid with braces.  I guess that makes me a

dirty old man.  I can't help it, Rachel, I want you.  All I could
think about today was fucking you."

Captivated by the pleasant cadence of his threat, she let him undress
her.  When she went to unbutton his shirt, he pushed her hands away,
saying, "Don't."  Her breasts brushed up against the warmth of his
clothes, and he emitted a heat she could feel in her bones.

"Wait," she said.  "Look at me ..."

She looked into his eyes, the pale stain of stucco.  He had just quit
smoking, and she could smell the staleness of his breath, its urgency.
Beads of sweat formed on the indentation of his upper lip, the fleshy
part of his mouth that she most loved.

"What?"  he whispered, desperate.  Before she could speak, he pushed
her up against the refrigerator, which hummed and clicked at her
backside.  Pressing his cold beer bottle between her breasts, he made
her gasp.  Her heart sang as the wind picked up, rushing through the
trees outside the house, wind whistling in the rafters.  Slowly, very
slowly, he drew the lip of the bottle between her breasts and down
toward her navel, bisecting her.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she sucked on his lower lip until
she could almost taste blood.  He smoothed his hand between her thighs.
She shivered and rubbed the wetness of her skin against him, and he
unzipped his pants, the fabric caressing her thighs.  He hoisted her up
and locked her firmly against the refrigerator, its contents clanging
and spilling over-ajar of mayonnaise, a bottle of ketchup.  Fanning her
fingers, she gripped his backside, and all the rubber magnets slid off
the refrigerator door.

His breath caught in ascending steps of frustration.  He kept his lips
poised inches from her mouth, making her work for each kiss.  They
knocked against the refrigerator, rattling its base and making the
floorboards squeak.

"Oh, God."

"Tell me this is what you want."

Her hair veiled her face.  A bag of peaches slid off the top of the
refrigerator and landed at their feet, peaches rolling across the
floor.

"Say it."

"I'm afraid."

"Don't be.  I'll stop whenever you say."  He held her still and gazed
into her eyes.  "Do you trust me?"

She clung to his neck as he carried her out of the pantry, stepping
tentatively over the peaches.  Tomorrow they'd be bruised, each one
with its own soft, dark, sour-tasting spot.

"i don't know what i'd do if i lost you, rachel," mckissack said.  They
were lying on the living room floor and he'd chivalrously draped his
camel's hair coat over their naked bodies.

She looked at him.  "You never had me, McKissack."

He couldn't help smiling, and she guessed he knew the truth, that she
was his, absolutely.  One hundred percent.

"You don't have to do this, you know," he said.  "It's not like you owe
it to him or anything."

"Owe it to who?"

"Your father."

She bit her lower lip, feeling the hot flush of anger ride up her neck
and cheeks.  "I'm not doing this for him."

He stroked her jawline with his thumb, his face oddly composed, as if
he had a fever and didn't know it.  "All I'm saying is ... it's not
like there's a reason he killed himself, and if there is a reason, it's
not like you're necessarily going to find out."

"Why are you so against this?"

"I don't want to see you hurt."

"Maybe all I'm after is the truth?"

"Truth," he snorted.  "I teach my kids to tell the truth.  Be honest.
Remember, George Washington never told a lie.  Around the age of eight,
they realize most people don't want the truth.  Most people want nice,
polite lies."

She looked at him.  "I think you should go now."

He held her eye.  "I don't want to."

"You can't stay.  Your wife's probably worried sick."

"I'm not in love with her, Rachel.  I'm in love with you."

She sat up and, reaching for her T-shirt, pulled it down over her head.
They'd just made love and already her insides were aching from the loss
of him.  "You know, Jim, whenever I resist the impulse to make love to
you ... whenever I bury this constant desire I have for you ... I know
I'm doing your kids a big favor.  I'm doing something good."

He watched her put on her socks.  "It's gotten to the point that
whenever I'm away from you, Rachel, I only want to be with you."

"All right, stop.  Just shut up."  The back of her throat burned.  "I'm
not going to tear their father away from them the way my father was
torn away from me, okay?"

She waited for him to leave, but he brushed the hair off her face, and
she felt an uncontrollable urge to weep.  Closing her eyes, she lowered
her head against his chest.

Soothingly, he stroked her backside.  "You're right," he whispered.

"I am?"

"Yes."

"So what're we going to do?"

"I don't know."  He rocked her for a while.  "My kids are what I wake
up for in the morning.  They're my whole life."

She wiped her wet face.  "My heart feels heavy."

"Like my cock?"

"No, bad heavy.  Like I've done something wrong.  Like I'm never going
to get into heaven."

"I thought you didn't believe in heaven?"

"I don't.  Not really.  My father used to say you could only get into
heaven if you told the truth.  So I guess I believe in the truth,"

He snorted.  "The truth's subjective."

She thought for a moment.  "If you pick up a ball, the truth is you
picked up the ball.  It didn't leap into your hands.  Nobody else
picked it up.  It didn't grow from your fingertips.  You picked it up,
and now you're responsible for the next action you take.  Either you
toss it to somebody else or crush the air out of it.  But whatever you
do next, that's the truth.  You can lie all you want, but if I saw you
pick up the ball, then I know the truth."

"Okay, fine," he said, wiping the tears from her eyes.  "Then this .." 
He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.  "... is the truth. And this
..."  He kissed her lips.  "... is the truth.  And this .."  He guided
her hand to his groin.  "Is the truth."

She knew she'd never be as whole as when she was with him.  His mouth
tasted sweet.  She pretended for an instant that he was free, no
obligations.  He had stirred up the calm center of her, and now nothing
else mattered.  Morality melted away.  Flesh dissolved.  The frosted
earth heaved.  She slid with him to the floor, while outside the
treetops churned in the cold ringing night.

THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, BILLY STOOD IN THE LOBBY OF PEL

letier Hall, waiting to say good-bye to his students.  It was three
o'clock, October already, the lobby chaotic with noise and color.  On
the countertop above the receptionist's desk was a ragged pile of stray
gloves and sweaters and jackets.  Spotting a piece of paper on the
floor, he stooped to retrieve it.  Somebody had written in bold block
letters AIR MAIL, GO FAST!  He added it to the pile.

Now he could see Gabie heading toward him.  At sixteen, she had the
best vision of any of his students but was cripplingly shy.  She had
Crouzon's syndrome, a congenital defect that affects the skull and
facial bones.  In Crouzon, parts of the skull's plates become fused,
restricting the brain's growth and deforming the mid face creating
vision and hearing problems.  Gabie had a beaklike nose, shallow eye
sockets, and a dished-in face.  Her forehead was flattened, and her
lower jaw jutted cartoonishly, her mouth never completely closing over
her overcrowded teeth.  Billy used to have trouble understanding her,
but now he could make out her guttural utterings with ease.

"So, Gabie, how was cooking class?"

"Good."  She took his hand and made him sit beside her on the lobby's
only sofa.  All the sofas at Winfield were oatmeal-colored.  They faced
the potted amaryllis, its bloodred blossoms opening like obscene
mouths.

"What did you make today?"  he asked.

"Pizza."

"Cheese or pepperoni?"

She giggled, a thick-tongued clucking.  She had a shy, furtive

manner and a boyish haircut, her voice emitting awkwardly from her
malformed mouth.  Even though she could see fairly well, her eyes never
made direct contact.

"How'd it go?"  he asked.

"Pretty good."

"Save me a piece?"

"Nope."

"No?"  He feigned disappointment.

Again, the giggle.

"Hey, that's a pretty sweater."  She was wearing a navy blue cardigan
with a Ninja Turtle pin holding it closed.  "It's really windy out,
though.  Are you sure you're warm enough?  Where's your jacket

"I dunno."

He was used to her monosyllabic responses.  She squeezed his hand
again.  "You don't know where your jacket is?"

"I don't need one."

"You don't?"

"Nope."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

"All right.  Up to you."

Claire was standing a short distance away, observing them.  Making
mental notes.  Her lips, pressed together, reminded him of a scar.
Billy freed himself from Gabie's grip, and she reached into her clunky
pocketbook and pulled out her gray woolen cap.  Her mother had knitted
her the cap last Christmas, and Gabie wore it year round, winter or
spring, rain or shine, come hell or high water.  Now she drew it down
over her forehead so that it completely covered her eyes, and Billy
suspected that, subconsciously at least, she was trying to disguise
herself.

"Aw, Gabie, not the hat again," he groaned.

"Why not?"

"You look like a convict."

ill

"No, I don't."  Giggle, giggle.

"You're too pretty to be wearing that thing.  We need to get you a new
hat or something."

"You said it was cold out."

"Touche."

That giggle again.

Billy heard Brigette's keys rattling before she came into view7-small,
slender, white as a ghost.  She scooted in between them on the sofa.
"Is your grandmother dead?"  she asked Billy in her childish voice.

"Yes, Brigette," he said.  "She died a few years ago."

"She did?"

"I really loved her.  She used to take her teeth out."

Gabie giggled.

Brigette's eyebrows lifted with wonder.  "She did?"

"Yeah, she had false teeth, and she'd put them in a glass of water at
night so she could sleep without swallowing them."

"That's weird."  Brigette clutched Billy's hand, her gaze drifting
sideways across his face, and he wondered what she saw, how he might
look to her.  "Wanna come visit me this weekend?"  she asked.  "We
could go swimming."

Claire frowned and tapped her pencil noisily against her clipboard.
Gabie shifted in her seat and pulled the gray wool cap down to her
nose.

"It's too cold to go swimming, Brigette," Billy said.

"Oh."  She wrinkled her nose with disappointment.

"Maybe next summer, huh?"

"Okay."

Claire's complexion darkened.  "Here's your cottage aide, Brigette.
Gabie, pull that hat back off your eyes.  Got everything, Brigette?"

Gabie reached for the walls with outstretched arms, pretending to be
blind.  During the wintertime, some of the blind students pulled their
hats down over their faces just like Gabie was

doing, and Billy would panic, fearing they might hurt themselves. Then
it would hit him.

"Gabie," Claire warned, and Gabie dropped the act.  "Bye, Brigette, see
you Monday."

"Bye!"  Brigette chirped, waving at them while her cottage aide, a
freckled pixie of a woman, escorted her down the front steps toward the
cottages.

Gabie's van pulled up out front, and Claire took her by the arm.
"Gabie, you're not blind, you're visually impaired."

Gabie grunted.

"Your van's here.  Pull that hat back up."

Gabie reluctantly rolled the cap back above her eyebrows.  She lived
with a foster family because her mother used to beat her, and several
of her front teeth were capped.

"Got your stuff?  See you Monday," Claire said.

"Bye."  Gabie moved gracefully out the front door.

"My man," Billy said, giving Luke a high five.

"Hey," Gus said on his way out, "what am I?  Chopped liver?"

Claire and Billy exchanged a smile, and Billy high-fived Gus, then Eric
and Gabie and Tony were caught up in the stream of children pouring out
the door, and suddenly the lobby was empty, dust settling in the golden
silence, and Billy and Claire were alone.

"I wish you'd stop encouraging that," Claire said.

"Encouraging what?"

"Brigette.  She thinks you're her boyfriend."

"No, she doesn't.  She knows the difference."

Billy braced himself for an argument, but Claire merely shrugged him
off and went to check her mail.  Billy followed her with his gaze.  The
mailboxes were back behind the stairs, between the woodworking shop and
the bulletin board.  Claire reached into her box and pulled out her
mail, along with the red envelope Billy had noticed earlier.  Every so
often, she received a mysterious red envelope addressed to Ms.  Claire
Castillo in

childish block letters with no return address.  Once he'd even held it
to the light hut couldn't make anything out through the thick,
high-grade paper.

She read it quickly, then slipped it in with the other papers and books
she clutched to her chest.  They'd never discussed the red envelopes.
Claire had never opened her love life up for dissection the way Billy
did.  He knew she'd once had a serious boyfriend and that they'd broken
up a few years ago.  He knew she hadn't dated in quite some time.  "The
last man who touched me," she once joked, "was looking for tumors."

Now Claire touched Billy's arm, warmth passing from her fingertips. 
"We need to talk."

"Okay."  His heart skipped a beat.

They sat at one of the wobbly cafeteria tables, Claire sipping herbal
tea, Billy chugging a Yoo-Hoo.  Claire's hand rested on a pile of
lesson plans.  She had delicate wrists and fragrant skin.

"You're encouraging something you shouldn't be encouraging," she
said.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Brigette has a crush on you.  Gabie does, too, but she can handle
it."

"Big deal.  I used to have crushes on some of my teachers."

"What's the matter with you r" Her eyes narrowed as if he were a dense
fog.  "She's sixteen years old ... almost a woman.  Mentally retarded
or not, she has feelings.

"Claire, I think you're overreacting."

"Overreacting?"  She looked about ready to strike him.  "These kids
don't need a buddy, Billy.  They need a teacher."

"You're really into this distance thing."

"That's an incredibly offensive thing to say."

"I'm sorry, I just don't happen to agree with you.

"Okay, so we disagree, fine.  I can handle that.  What I can't handle
is you sitting there, holding hands with her.  You two shouldn't be
holding hands, Billy.  The lines are growing fuzzy."

"Maybe for you.  Not for Brigette."

"How can you be so goddamn sure?"

"Because she's just a kid."

"Exactly my point, she's not a kid.  She's a young lady.  And don't you
ever tell me I'm overreacting again."

"I'm sorry.  I just don't see what the problem is.  Brigette and I have
our little chats."

"It's not what you say, it's your body language.  You held hands."

"I hold everybody's hand."  The truth was, he welcomed the children's
hugs and handshakes.  That didn't make him a pedophile--didn't make him
weird or anything--he simply appreciated their openness and innocence
and trust.  Most of the women he met, as soon as he told them what he
did for a living, completely lost interest.  He could feel their
withering contempt, but the blind kids thought Billy was cool.  Their
love, their unconditional love, was like an opening for him into the
human world.  These kids ... his kids ... made him feel alive.

"Look, Billy, this is a school.  An institute of learning.  We're
supposed to be preparing them for the real world.  It's great that you
show affection and everything, but I've seen what happens to these kids
after they graduate.  The real world eats them for breakfast.  It
doesn't embrace them, it recoils from them.  They've got to learn how
to deal with rejection."

"So you want me to be their drill sergeant, is that it?"

"You've missed my point completely."

"Shape up or ship out?"

"Discipline and unconditional love are two extremes.  We should fall
somewhere in between, don't you think?"

"Okay, fine.  You've thought about this a little longer than I have.
I'll try to set some limits."

"Fine."  She stood abruptly, papers spilling to the floor.  Billy bent
to retrieve the red envelope and she snatched it away.

"You're still pissed off," he said.

"No, I'm not."

"Your face is red."

"From bending over."

He wouldn't touch that one.

"Do these kids a favor, Billy.  Stop trying to be their pal."  She
strode away, the mess of papers clasped in her arms.  Midway across the
room, she turned and drew a deep breath, her features relaxing.
"Listen, I need a favor."

"Anything."

"Could you give me a lift home?  My car's in the shop."  She fingered
the crucifix, now caught in the fabric of her blouse.  "New brake
pads."

"Sure," he said, trying to sound casual while his heart gave a hopeful
beat.  "Sure, I can give you a lift."

She smiled.  "One other favor?"

"Name it."

"The costumes for the school play?  They're at my place.  Could you
take them home with you and bring them in on Monday?  I'm probably
going to ride my bike."

"Whatever."  He smiled back.

Claire's apartment was a mess.  It looked as if she'd emptied the
entire contents of every drawer, closet, and shelf onto the floor.  She
offered to brew some coffee, and they stood in the kitchenette,
talking.  He couldn't imagine sticking his hand in the sink, where
submerged silverware glistened dully in the cold, milky water.  There
was a bag of moldy English muffins on the countertop, several
filth-encrusted dishrags, a black banana, various scraps of cellophane
wrapping, and the broken backs of pink Styrofoam packaging.

"I admit it, I'm a pig," she said with a laugh, spinning a bulging
trash bag and tying the top with a twist tie.  She set it on the floor
and left it there, then led him into the living room, where she pushed
her dirty laundry off the sofa onto the floor and sat down.  He sat
beside her, wondering when the coffee mugs had last seen soap.  He
wondered what kind of person could be so sloppy and

IT

so strict at the same time.  What kind of person could love children
so much that she'd stuhbornly resist holding their hands?

"This coffee sucks.  I'm sorry."  Claire got up and opened the windows,
letting in a cool breeze that ruffled the dying spider plants.  "How
about some wine?"

"Really?"  he said.  "You sure it's okay?  I mean, is this professional
and everything?"

"Funny guy."  She poured them both a glass of Chablis, then sat down
beside him and kicked off her shoes.

He swallowed some of the tepid Chablis, then studied her
thoughtfully.

"What?"  she asked self-consciously, stroking her throat.

"What?"

"What're you looking at?"

"Just you."

"Now you're making me uncomfortable."

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."  The wine was sweet.

She shot up from the couch.  "Costumes are in the bedroom.  I'll get
them."

"Need any help?

"No, that's okay."

He heard her rummaging around in her bedroom and swallowed the rest of
his wine.  He got up and followed her in.  The bureau top was a junk
pile of toiletries, and rising from this mess was an earring tree,
loops of silver and gold dangling from its plastic branches.  On the
floor she'd left a heap of dirty clothes, underpants tangled with jeans
and blouses, a tossed salad of khaki and denim and cotton.  She was
rummaging through her closet, an artist's palette of color, and he
could see the hourglass shape of her backside through her clothes.

Claire glanced at him over her shoulder.  "They're in here, I swear to
God."  She laughed and dove back in.

His hands shook as he walked up behind her, and suddenly

she was handing him the children's costumes.  When his arms were full,
he asked, "What's in the red envelope?"

She swung around.  "Oh God," she said, face flushing, "you don't wanna
know."

"Yes, I do."  He sat on the edge of her bed, sheets stirred like foam
in a whirlpool.

Sitting beside him, she crossed her legs and started to cough.  She
coughed so hard, he was afraid she might choke.  She opened her leather
bag, took out her inhaler, stuck the nozzle in her mouth and sprayed
three times in rapid succession.

After a moment, the coughing fit passed.  She looked at him.  "They're
from my ex-boyfriend.  We met at a rock concert.  I'd just gotten out
of grad school and was feeling kind of rebellious.  He rode a
motorcycle and drank Kahlua straight from the bottle.  He had this
incredible energy, vast reserves of it, and the best pot around.  I
mean, he wasn't afraid of anything.

"But after we moved in together, things changed.  I realized something
was wrong ... I mean seriously, terribly wrong with him.  I kept
catching him in these lies.  At first I thought it was me, that I was
out of sync somehow.  Then one day he accused me of moving his stuff
around."

"His stuff?"

"Things on his bureau, I dunno.  I was moving his stuff around.  We
split up, and ever since, he's been sending me these creepy letters.
Sometimes I read them, sometimes I don't.  I probably shouldn't be
reading them at all."

Billy's heart began to pound, a steady throbbing beat.  He pictured a
biker with long greasy hair, staring at his hairbrush on the bureau top
Staring at his things.  Billy wanted to kiss her, and the first place
he'd kiss her would be the damp, pale skin at the base of her throat.
The place she kept stroking with her hand.

"What do the letters say?"

She gazed at the rug and shrugged.  "I don't want to repeat it.  I
don't want those words getting out in the open."

"I'll protect you," he said.  "I'll protect you from the red
envelopes."

She looked at him and laughed.  She threw her head back, and her hair
got caught in the zipper of a raincoat that was spread across the bed.
"Owl" she cried, still laughing, and he dropped the costumes and
reached over to rescue her.  He unstuck her hair from the zipper and
kissed her, but not at the base of her throat; he kissed her
sweet-smelling lips.  They tasted of medicine.

"Please don't act like I'm not here anymore," he said.

"I won't," she whispered, fervently kissing him back.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Act like you don't like me?"

"I'm sorry," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.  "I'm
self-conscious, is all.  I'm very aware of myself and how I'm acting, I
analyze everything.  I'm overly aware of everything and everybody ...
it drives me crazy sometimes.  I'm an idiot."

"No, no," he said, "I love you self-conscious.  I love the way you
touch your gold cross and ... how your lips curl back when you're mad
at me."

"I'm not mad at you.  I'm attracted to you.  Don't you realize how
nervous you make me?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you."

She was hanging from his neck, licking the sweat from his neck.  She
writhed out of her skirt, and he kissed her greedy mouth.  She tugged
on his jeans, his stubborn zipper.  She peeled out of her blouse and
her hair hissed with static.  He kissed her breasts through her skimpy
bra, pawing at the straps.  Gasping for air, he nipped at her lips and
chin, then sniffed at her skin like

an animal; suddenly he was all over her.  He could barely catch his
breath.  They were halfway in the closet now, rolling over shoes and
clothes and crumpled tissue paper.  He unhitched her bra and she
gasped, "Wait!"

"What?"  He looked at her breathlessly.

"I can't."  Her face crumpled as if she were going to cry, but suddenly
she was laughing.  "I'm sorry."

"What is it?"

"I'm such a jerk."

"No, you're not.  You're not a jerk,"

"Everything's just so traumatic for me."

"It's okay."  They collapsed side by side, and the room slowly filled
with their breathing.

"Everything's such a drama."  She shook her head and sighed.  "I just
think ... I think I need to take it nice and slow.  Is that okay?"

"Of course it's okay," he said, smoothing his thumb across her downy
cheek, trying to read her mind.  Was this a brushoff?  Maybe she didn't
like the way he kissed?  "Whatever you say," he said.

"Because ... you know, the last time was such a disaster."

"Sounds like it."  His chest hurt.

"I need to move slowly."

"Okay."  Was she lying?

"Take it sorta slow, y'know?"

"We'll take it slow."

"I like you."  She smiled, and her eyes glistened a little.  "I really
do."

"I'm glad," he said, wishing with all his might she meant it.

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE FLISS FARM LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING

out of a storybook.  Large white house surrounded by a picket fence,
tall silo beside a big red barn.  Acres of green pasture where brown
cows grazed.  On this Thursday morning, the second week in October, the
sky was filled with streamer like clouds, crisp autumn air popping
inside her lungs.  Rachel drew up the collar of her winter coat, just
recently plucked from the mothballs, and knocked on the door.  Neal
Fliss wasn't home.  "Go on down to the barn if I'm not in," he'd told
her over the phone, so she skirted the house and descended a sloping
backyard past half a dozen stray cats and entered the barn, where the
air was warm and sweet-smelling from the alfalfa and green hay on the
cows' snorty breath.

The cows were being milked, the machines making sucking sounds.
Swallows darted in and out.  She found Neal in a far corner over by the
calf pen.  When she got near enough, several calves poked their heads
through the slats of the wooden fence and suckled on her fingers.

"Hey there, pipsqueak," Neal said, never one for formality.  He had a
great tousled head of hair and an over bite that used to be cute but
that now made him look much dimmer than he was.  He wore a filthy
T-shirt and baggy jeans, and his hands were slick with something liquid
and dark--she didn't want to know what.  He wiped them on a rag and
hopped out of the pen, landing hard on his muddy work boots "We can
talk in my office," he said, leading the way.

Neal's office was located in another building just off the main barn,
connected by a chilly hallway.  The pasteurization equipment

hummed noisily, alternately cooking and cooling the milk, separating
skim from cream.  Neal closed the door behind them and the hum of
machinery grew muffled.  She took a seat in a cracked leather chair
while he sat behind his desk, moving stacks of paperwork aside so that
they could see one another.  The office smelled of linseed oil and
leather harnesses.

"So what's your liquid lifestyle?"  he asked, opening the door of the
mini-fridge, and she noticed his hands were callused.  "Chocolate milk?
Perrier?  Classic Coke?"

"No, thanks, I'm fine."

"Mind if I have a beer?"

"Go right ahead."

"You haven't changed."  He snorted laughter through his nose and
cracked a Samuel Adams.

"You haven't either, much."

"I'll take that as a compliment.  Cheers."  He guzzled his beer, then
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat back in a relaxed
fashion, except she knew he wasn't relaxed: his foot jiggled nervously
over his crossed leg.

"Thanks for granting this interview."

"Anything for you, doll," he said magnanimously.

She opened her notebook.  "The night you dropped Melissa D'Agostino off
on Black Hill Road ... where did you go afterward?"

"Let's see."  He squinted into some middle distance.  "Ozzie and Dolly
took off, and me and Boomer went over to Boomer's house to play
pool."

"For how long?"

"Couple hours, maybe."

"Boomer's parents were home?"

"Yup."  He looked at her over his beer.  "Isn't that in the report?
What're you reopening the case for?"

"Because it was never solved."

"Listen, Rachel ..."  He sat forward and picked up a snow

IT

globe from his desk, miniature Santa and sleigh and eight tiny
Guernseys inside.  He turned it over, making it snow.  "Ask your
brother where he went that night."

"I've already spoken to Billy."

"What'd he say?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you, INeal."

"Well.  Ask Billy where he went after we dropped Melissa off."

"He spent the evening with Gillian Dumont."

Neal squinted at her.  "Okeydoke."

Her mind raced like an anthill that's been stirred with a stick.  "What
d'you mean, jokey-doke'?  Are you implying he lied?"

"You're the one who's reopening the case," he said, turning to gaze out
a dust-speckled window.  "You know, I was born inside that house.  My
dad was born in that house.  Grandpa, too.  I didn't think I was ever
gonna be a farmer like my old man, and now ... look at me.  Farmer
Fliss.  Weird, huh?  Sometimes I feel like Gary Cooper on acid.  You
know what the crazy part is?  I love being a farmer.  Love it.  And it
scares the piss outta me.  Because I don't know what's gonna happen in
the future.  I think it's gonna get rough."

She remembered how he used to chase her when they were kids,
threatening to pee all over her Sunday school shoes, but he never did.
She took all his curses and insults like the little love missives they
were meant to be.

"You know," he said, "as a farmer, you have to keep getting bigger or
you won't survive.  Gotta offset the acreage.  The margin income.  I
honestly don't know how I'm gonna keep things going."

"Neal," she said, "do you have some information you'd like to share
with me regarding my brother?"

"You know," he said, looking straight at her, "I always thought that
maybe you and me would get together eventually, but we never did. 
Isn't that funny?  You felt it, too, didn't you, Rachel?"

"Yeah," she admitted, "once.  A long time ago."

"Look," he said, smoothing his hand across the wide, worried expanse
of his forehead, "I've got nothing to say that you don't already know
deep down inside."

"Could you be a little more obscure, please?"

"You've got the same smile you had twenty years ago, y'know that, sweet
pea He winked at her.  "Talk to Boomer."

"Boomerr" Her cell phone rang.  "Excuse me."  Static broke up most of
the words so that "... missing person ..."  was the only thing she
heard.

IT

THE CASTILLOS LIVED ON PUMPKIN RUN ROAD IN ONE OF THE

town's nicest neighborhoods, oversized houses like symbols of potency
set back from the streets, backyard swimming pools surrounded by tall
cedar fences.  The renovated Greek Revival stood on a half-acre
clearing and had the kind of sheen and upkeep that told you its
residents were well off enough to imagine they could buy peace of
mind.

Rachel knocked on the door and Dr.  Yale Castillo answered.  Yale was
the senior surgeon on call in the emergency room at Kerrins County
General Hospital.  They'd spoken fairly often in the ER, exchanging
information about a carjacking or a stabbing.  He was an old warrior
with an overly proud demeanor, his dyed black hair plastered
unflatteringly across his balding pate.  He wore gold wire-rim glasses
and his mouth was a practiced slit from years of keeping his patients'
harrowing needs at arm's length.

"It could be nothing," were his first words to her, "but my oldest
daughter appears to be missing."  His voice was raspy, but his eyes
betrayed not a hint of panic.  "Please, come in."

Rachel's scalp prickled, the gravity of the situation impressing her in
a new and visceral way.  Claire Castillo worked with Billy at Winfield
School for the Blind, and Billy had confessed he'd had a crush on her.
Rachel's and Claire's lives had crossed paths early on, but then Claire
was sent away to boarding school, a luxury Rachel's parents could ill
afford.

The family was gathered in the contemporary-style living room with its
gleaming beveled bronze mirrors, elm veneer in a light finish on the
doors and drawers, octagonal glass-topped end tables and Plexiglas-cube
lamps.  Yale's wife sat on a long

white sectional couch, her slender hands fidgeting in her lap.  She
had a slouchy, chestnut-colored hairdo and a stiff, prim posture.  She
stood nervously when Rachel entered the room.

"Are you with the police?"

"Jackie, this is Detective Storrow," Yale said.  "She's here to help
us."

She eyed Rachel skeptically.  "She's so young."

"I've had four years on the force, Mrs.  Castillo.  Three as a patrol
officer and one as a detective, and I can assure you that I'm not all
that young."

Jackie's face was frozen in a pained smile.  "We're worried about
Claire.  She didn't show up for work this morning."

"Claire is a creature of habit," Yale interrupted.  "She calls home
twice a week, rain or shine.  Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings,
without fail, we get our phone call from Claire."

"Without fail."  Jackie turned to her husband.

"But late last night, when we hadn't heard from her, Jackie phoned and
kept getting the machine.  You have to understand, this is not like
Claire.  So earlier this morning, I went over there to check on her
myself..."

"You have a key?"

"She gave us her spare."

"She rents an apartment on Fidelity Drive."  Jackie's face was flushed.
"Something's definitely wrong, Officer."

"Detective," Yale corrected his wife.  "We're a bit concerned. Claire's
twenty-nine years old, she's very responsible."

"Have you tried calling any of her friends?"

"Oh, yes.  Nobody's heard from her since yesterday afternoon."

"She works at Winfield with your brother," Yale added.

"Yes, I know.  I've met her.  Let's have a seat and I'll take down some
information."

A pale, pretty teenager was seated in a corner of the living room, her
mouth a dot of resentment.  Yale turned to her.

"Nicole?"  he said.  "Saw hello to Detective Storrow."

"Hi."  Nicole gave a dismissive wave.

Rachel took a seat opposite Yale and his wife, now pressed together
like two hands in prayer on the sectional couch.  "When a person goes
missing, we have to consider all the possibilities," she began, opening
her notebook.  "Did she run away?  Was she suicidal?  Did she owe
anybody money?"

"No, no.  Certainly not."  Jackie shook her head.

"No to suicide," Yale said.  "No to running away.  The girls know they
can always come to me if they need money."

"Okay," Rachel said, removing her coat in the stuffy heat of the house.
"I'll need a list of acquaintances and friends, bank accounts,
hobbies"

"When the girls were little," Jackie said softly, "I'd let Claire
baby-sit.  I knew she wouldn't open the door to strangers."

Nicole Castillo shifted on her leather wing chair and frowned.

"Any history of depression?"  Rachel asked.  "Was she on medication?"

"Just an inhaler for her asthma, when she needed it."

"Claire's a born optimist," Jackie said.  Poised and brittle, she was
having a hard time keeping it all together, and her hovering husband
and distanced daughter seemed very aware of this fact.  "I doubt she
had an enemy in the world."

"She did have a habit," Yale said, taking Jackie's hand and pressing it
firmly between his, "of frequenting a certain diner every Wednesday
night ... what's it called?"  He turned to his wife.  "The Homebaked
Halfbaked ... ?"

"The Hurryback Cafe."

"That's it.  Located downtown.

Rachel knew the place, a vegetarian restaurant on Main Street, and
jotted the name in her notebook.

"She called it her The time,"" Jackie said.  "She'd eat dinner, maybe
do some shopping.  Claire enjoys spending time by herself, whereas me
I'd go stark raving mad.  I like having lots of people around."

"Claire's very independent," Yale said proudly.

"Stubborn," Jackie agreed, "like her father."

"Pigheaded like her old man."  He nodded.

"I'll need a picture," Rachel said, and nervous smiles fought through
the fear on their faces.

Back in her '91 Isuzu Impulse, Rachel phoned Billy at school.  It took
a while for the receptionist to track him down.  "Billy?  she said, and
the line started breaking up.  "Billy, it's me.  You work with Claire
Castillo, don't you?"

"She hasn't shown up yet," he said.  "It's kind of chaotic here."

"Her parents think she's missing."

"What?"  He sounded genuinely alarmed.

"They think she's missing.  She's not in her apartment and she keeps in
pretty close touch."  "Jeez..."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"Yesterday after school.  We had a cup of coffee in the cafeteria, then
I had to go pick up Porter."

"Who?"

"You know ... my head-injured kid.  I'm his volunteer.  We hang out
together Wednesday nights."  :

"Billy," she said, "do you think something could've happened to her?"

"What?"

The line was breaking up.  "Do you have any idea what *

might've happened to her?"  I

"No," he said, and she sensed him getting defensive.  "I have no idea
where she is, Rachel.  I just hope she's okay.  We were gonna get
together tonight and do something.  Jesus ..."

"Billy?  You're breaking up ..."

"Call and let me know, okay?"

"What?"

"Call me and let--" The line went dead.

Flowering Dogwood straddled a bend in the Androscoggin River on the
edge of the White Mountains, nestled deep in the glaciated valley of
Maine's northern wilderness.  Eighty percent of the state was covered
with pine and hardwood and tamarack, the all-encroaching forest
interrupted by occasional marshy fens and rolling hills of fields and
pastures.  In the distance, the mountains with their white landslide
scars spiked the horizon.

Rachel pulled into an asphalt parking lot behind Claire's brick and
granite apartment building on Fidelity Drive.  Inside, the landlord met
her in the wide vestibule and they rode a creaking elevator up to the
fourth floor.  She had called him from her car and he had offered his
full cooperation.  Fred Lake's gray hair was scraggly and long, like a
wrestler's, and his myopic gaze made her uneasy.

"So Claire's missing?"  he asked pointedly.

"We're still investigating."

"She's got the best unit.  Top floor.  Nobody over you playing fucking
Mexican marimba music.  Great view.  Cross-ventilation."  He opened the
elevator doors.  "Her dad's a doctor.  Rich guy.  You can't tell me she
makes that kind of dough working with the gin ks

"The what?"

"You know.  Moles.  Bats."

Rachel's voice grew cold.  "Thanks, I'll take it from here."

"Lemme get the door."  She noticed his limp as he walked down the
hallway in front of her.  He fiddled with the keys, then unlocked the
door to Apartment 402.  "Here you go."

The first thing Rachel noticed when she entered the apartment was that
the lights were off and the windows were shut.  The place was a
colorful mess, the home of a woman too busy and involved with life to
bother with anything as trivial as housework.  The large, comfortable
furniture in the living room was buried beneath a snowfall of unfolded
laundry, last week's newspapers, abandoned books, forgotten plates
dotted with crumbs, glasses that left rings

on the varnished end tables.  The kitchenette was painted a sunny
yellow, nasturtiums basking on the windowsill above a sink full of
dirty dishes.  The dishwater was cold.  There was nothing in or on the
stove, no plate of food left out, no half-smoked cigarette left in an
ashtray that might indicate she'd been interrupted in the middle of
something here in the apartment.

"You know, she had this visitor lately," the landlord said, "some guy,
tall fellow, brown hair ... kind of pie-eyed."

"What?"

"Pie-eyed, you know ... he followed her around like a puppy dog."

"Thanks," Rachel said.  "I can handle it from here."

His face grew resentful.  He rattled his keys and brushed rudely past
her on his way out.

The bathroom was mildewed, half a dozen towels draped carelessly over
the shower curtain rod.  The bedroom walls were festooned with art
prints--van Gogh, Miro, Frida Kahlo.  Rachel rummaged through the
closet, lots of dresses and skirts, a pair of funny-looking khaki
trousers with short silver zippers over each pocket and vertically down
each cuff, a dry cleaning bag with a white blouse inside.  Shoes and
sneakers in a jumble at the bottom, scarves dangling from the shelf
above, a black fedora plunked over a terry cloth bathrobe hanging from
a large wire hook on the door.  Aside from the clutter Jackie Castillo
had already warned her about, nothing seemed amiss.

Still, Rachel was getting a bad feeling about this.

She moved to a rolltop desk made of some fine grain of wood and picked
up a black leather organizer from the navy ink blotter.  Names,
addresses and phone numbers filled its back pages.  She thumbed through
the calendar section, random initials written inside the little
squares: "GL ... s ... HE ... cd ..."  A shorthand diary?

Rachel flipped to last night--Wednesday, October 14th--and found
several letters etched inside the calendar square, one

predominant among them: "b."  She felt an extended shiver run down her
spine, "b" for Billy?

Billy had mentioned he and Claire were supposed to get together
tonight, Thursday night.  Inside Thursday's square, she found the
notation "B @ 7."  A chill came over Rachel.  It seemed obvious that
this "B" stood for Billy, but had Claire seen Billy yesterday, as well?
Or last night, Wednesday night, the night she disappeared?  Did the "b"
stand for Billy?  If so, why the lowercase?

She glanced at the desk's cluttered cubbyholes, eyes drawn to a thick
stack of red envelopes.  She slid out the packet of envelopes, some of
which were still sealed, and opened the letter on top.  "... I will
slit your throat ..."  She could feel the heat of her own body as she
flipped through page after page of threats and irrational accusations
written in shaky block letters.  "... I will strangle you in your sleep
you ruined my life ... don't deny it, you bitch, I know what you did
... you loosened the stitches on all my clothes while I was asleep I
KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE!  DO NOT DENY it!"  The letters were unsigned,
with no return address, and postmarked Bangor, Maine.

She jumped when her cell phone rang.

"We found something."  It was McKissack.  "I think you should come take
a look."

FLOWERING DOGWOOD WAS LAID OUT ON A GRID PATTERN.  IT

had one movie theater and over a dozen churches.  There were eight
bars, including the Peaked Hills and Eleazor's Gutter, and its two main
commercial streets, Delongpre and Main, intersected at the downtown
business district.  There were two parks and a shopping mall built in
the 1970s, and the town itself was surrounded on

all sides by forest, a vast wild growth.  Every street ended in woods,
except to the west where the interstate and dairy farms began; then you
got a checkerboard of pastureland and a fast way out of town.

Several police officers were down on their hands and knees, crawling
around on the asphalt of the public parking lot behind Sears on Main
Street.  McKissack greeted Rachel as she pulled up to the yellow police
tape.

"Claire Castillo's car," he said, pointing.

A shiny red Nissan Sentra was parked in the northwest corner of the lot
where the forest grew right up to the concrete.  Rachel glanced around.
The nearest streetlight was about fifty feet away.  There had been a
heavy ground fog last night, she recalled, the air pregnant with the
promise of rain.

"This feels funny to me," McKissack said, refusing to meet her gaze. 
He always did this to her after one of their encounters, became coldly
professional in order to mask his guilt.  He acted as if they barely
knew one another, and she deeply resented his hypocrisy.

"The, too," she said in her most detached, professional manner.  "The
apartment looks okay, outside of the usual mess her mother warned me
about."

"I'll send Nussbaum over to vacuum for hair and fibers and dust for
prints."

"So you're classifying the case a kidnapping?"

"What do you think, Storrow?"

"I think we can eliminate the possibility of a voluntary walkaway.  She
wasn't on any medication outside of an asthma inhaler, she didn't owe
anybody money, she wasn't depressed ..."

"I'm classifying it as a missing persons for now."  She accompanied him
to his car, where a flock of starlings shrieked into the air, and she
tried to connect somehow with their darting reptilian eyes, their tiny
bristling heads.

"This corner of the lot's awfully dark.  You think somebody could've
jumped her?"  she asked.

"We're scouring the area.  We'll get prints off the car, hopefully
before it rains."  He glanced at the overcast, celery-colored sky. "I'm
gonna launch a full-scale search-and-rescue."

"Good."

McKissack opened his trunk and took out an evidence collection kit
containing wire cutters, pliers, syringes, plastic bags, a flashlight
and measuring tape.  He also pulled out a latent fingerprint kit, then
flipped through his notepad, its pages smudged and chaotic with hastily
scribbled notes.  "She ate at the Hurryback Cafe last night.  We
interviewed the waitress.  Entered unaccompanied around seven P.M." ate
her meal alone, then left around eight P.M. The waitress noticed
nothing odd about her behavior.  So far, she's the last person to've
seen her alive."

Rachel arched an eyebrow.  "You found a body?"

"Sorry.  Slip of the tongue."  There was something appealing about his
unaccustomed dishevelment, something dangerous, as if his thoughts were
scattered in a dozen different directions, but she knew better than to
make that kind of assumption.  "The Castillos give you friends and
acquaintances?"

Rachel nodded.  "I found this in her apartment."  He still wouldn't
look at her fully, and she had to thrust the organizer into his hands.
"It's got initials marked all through it."

"Initials?"  He thumbed through the calendar section.  "Her own private
code?"

"Maybe."  She wasn't going to share her suspicions with McKissack
unless it became absolutely necessary.  Besides, her brother had an
alibi for Wednesday night.  He had been with his head-injured kid. 
"And these."  She showed him the stack of red envelopes sealed in an
evidence bag.  "I think she was being stalked.  None of them are
signed.  All Bangor postmarks."

"Let's get them down to the station," he said.  "I want these
photocopied, then sent to the lab for prints."

"I'm way ahead of you, McKissack."

He smiled self-consciously.  "Don't be such a smart-ass, Detective."

"Can't help it.  It's a lifetime membership."

He had slipped momentarily, exposing his human side and ruining his icy
pose, but now his face hardened, and his voice, even in its lowest
register, radiated cool detachment.  "I want interviews.  Friends,
relatives, acquaintances, coworkers.  Let's find out who the nut job
is."

"Jim," she said, and he looked away, color blossoming on his cheeks.
"We don't have to act like strangers again, do we?"

He wouldn't answer.

"We made a mistake, and now I'm getting crucified for it."

"What am I supposed to say to that?"  he snapped.

She held his eye, shook her head.  "Fuck you, Chief," she said and
strode away.

THERE WERE PEOPLE MILLING AROUND OUTSIDE THE HOUSE,

and Nicole Castillo didn't know how much longer she could stand it.  It
was raining but the sun was trying hard to penetrate the clouds.  She
and her boyfriend, Dinger, were cozily nestled in the pillowed alcove
of her father's study.  The door was closed, the lights were off, and
Dinger was holding her hand.

"I don't believe this," she said with an involuntary shiver.  "I just
talked to her the other day."

"I know."

"She called me yesterday."

"It's weird."

She could count even pore on his face.  A big blue vein stood out on
Dinger's neck, and he wouldn't look at her directly.  He

was taller than she by half a foot, with soft formless features, his
blond hair growing out straight but ending in little waves like the
ruffles on a potato chip.  His fingernails were dirty and his hands
were callused, and he kept glancing at her as if he expected something
to happen.

"Feels like I've been bad or something," she confessed.

"Why?"  he whispered.  They'd been whispering all afternoon.

"I dunno."  She slid another cigarette out of the pack tucked inside
her sweater pocket.  Her mother had promised them complete privacy, so
it felt safe to smoke.

"You should quit," Dinger said.

She looked at him.

"You're gonna get cancer."

She cracked the window an inch and lit up, then exhaled long and slow.
Her breath fogged the window, and Dinger drew a heart in the fog on the
glass.  "I don't want you getting sick," he said.

A shudder traveled through her body, making her teeth rattle together.
A tiny black bug crawled up the cold windowpane, and she crushed it
under her thumb.  "I just think maybe there's good and there's bad,"
she said, "and if you do bad, then at some point in your life, you get
bad.  It's karma."

He smirked.  "Please don't squeeze the karma."

"I'm serious."  She frowned.  "Don't you think it's true?  Like if I
snubbed somebody a couple of years back, then I'm paying for it now?"

"No."

"Well, I've done bad things."

"Like what?"

She thought for a moment.  "I used to cheat in Sunday school.  I ever
tell you?"

"Nuh-uh."

"I never cheated in regular school, but I always cheated in Sunday
school.  Isn't that weird?  Like I had to defy God or something."

He laughed.  "I thought you were gonna say something darker than
that."

She fingered the high school ring he'd given her, which she wore on a
long silver chain around her neck.  The amethyst ring she'd gotten for
her fifteenth birthday was on an identical long silver chain around his
neck.  "I'm mean to children," she whispered.

"That's not true."

She deflated.  "I know."

"See?  You haven't done anything bad.  You're good."  He smoothed her
long dark hair off her face.  "You're like an angel or something."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I've done bad things," she insisted.  "I just can't remember what they
are."  Sighing smoke, she gazed out the window.  "The police've been
asking my mom all these creepy questions, like did Claire own a gun, or
was she depressed, or do we have any rope in the house."

"Rope?  What for?"

Her back stiffened.  "Haven't you been listening?  They think she
killed herself!  They must be complete morons.  Claire would never kill
herself."  Her ears itched.  Everything was different now, everything
had changed.  She wasn't the same person she'd been last week, or even
earlier this morning.  A small crowd of people had gathered outside the
house--volunteers, her mother said.  She didn't want them there.  She
wished they'd all go to hell.

"I hate this."  She hid her face in her hands.  She was wearing her
purple cardigan and a Cornershop T-shirt, turquoise plastic sandals
over pink ankle socks, and her mother said she looked like a clown.

Dinger put his muscled arms around her.  "Don't cry, Nicole," he said,
but she couldn't help herself.

"I can't breathe."  Pushing him away, she opened the window

wider and tossed her cigarette out onto the grass.  A wet wind blew
in, and she both liked and hated how it felt on her skin.  Three
officers in yellow slickers were standing under an oak tree in the
backyard.  One was drinking coffee, shaking his head.  The volunteers
were gone.

"I used to believe that good people would be rewarded and bad people
would get punished, but my father says life isn't fair."

"Cold?"  Dinger tried to hold her.

"Don't touch me, okay?"

"Sorry."  He wiped his hands on his jeans, back and forth across his
knees.  He looked dumb to her all of a sudden.  Big eared and dumb dumb
dumb.

"I used to have this fear," she said, taking off her sweater and
leaning back against the faux-gazelle pillows, "that if I opened my
legs while I was asleep, then evil spirits would enter my body and take
over my soul."

He squinted.  "You're kidding, right?"

"So I always sleep with my legs shut, like this.  Never open, like
this."  She demonstrated, enjoying the effect it had on him.  He looked
really scared and excited at the same time.  He looked so silly, she
wanted to laugh.

"Don't get weird on me, Nicole."

She sat up abruptly.  "How come nobody tells me anything?"

"Because they don't know anything yet."

She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "What's going on out
there?"

Only nobody heard her.  It was raining too hard.

"I feel horrible," she shuddered, "like I can't breathe."  Her teeth
were chattering uncontrollably now.  "Do you have to go to work
today?"

"I'll call and say I can't make it."  He snatched the cigarettes out of
her sweater pocket and crumpled them in his fist.  "No more."

"It feels like I've lost something."  She couldn't see him

through the blur of tears.  Her nose was plugged, and her voice was
coming from somewhere faraway.  "What should we do?"

"Nothing."  He put his arms around her, and this time she let him.
"Nothing, Nicole.  Let's not do anything," he whispered in her ear.
"Let's wait."

BILLY WAS STARING AT HER.  "YOU THINK WHAT?"

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Billy.  I just have to ask ... since
you work with her ..."

"Jesus, this is like Dad all over again."

"Cut it out.  It's nothing like that."

His mouth was set against her.  He wore an ancient pair of jeans with
dime-sized holes in the knees, dirty black hightops and a rumpled
tailored shirt.  They were sitting in the lime green kitchen of his
rented house, and he'd poured them both a cup of coffee that neither of
them had touched.  The house was one of those gingerbread Victorians
that'd long since fallen into disrepair, just your basic Charles Addams
mansion--dark, tall, brooding, crowned with a high, flat-topped tower.
A previous tenant had painted the dark natural interior woodwork
phosphorescent colors in an attempt to brighten up the place, and the
results were spectacularly ugly.

"I've got a few standard questions."

His eyes grew veiled.  "Go ahead."

"Where were you around seven-thirty, eight o'clock last night?"

"I already told you, my head-injured kid.  Porter Powell.  I spend
every Wednesday afternoon and evening with him.  I took him to Taco
Bell, then we shot hoops out back, then I drove him to his dorm."

"At Winfield?"

"Yeah."

"And after that?"

"I drove home.  Why?"

"What time did you drop him off at the dorm?"

"Nine o'clock, I think."

"You think?"

"I don't remember."

She looked at him.  "Can anyone verify the exact time you dropped off
Porter Powell, Billy?"

"Yeah, his aide.  Russell something, I don't remember his last name. 
He was there in the lounge, waiting to take Porter up to his room.  I
signed in at the front desk.  The guard saw me."

"Billy," she said, carefully choosing her words, "you might want to
consider hiring yourself a lawyer."

"What d'you mean?"  His face deflated.  "You think I did something to
her?"

"I'm not suggesting--"

"You think I'd hurt a hair on her head?  I was in love with her,
Rachel!  I was in love with her for an entire fucking year!  She's my
friend, and now suddenly she's like ... in my arms, and I'm going crazy
thinking ... Christ, I could marry this woman.  I could actually marry
her!"

He got up from the table, accidentally knocking over his chair.  It
landed with a crash, making them both jump.  He up righted the chair
and sat again, red-faced.  "It's really insulting that you'd even
consider me a suspect."

"Did I say that?  Did I say that, Billy?"

"You implied it."

"I'm giving you good advice here.  Off the record.  As your sister who
loves you.  They always consider the boyfriend, the fiance, the
immediate family first.  You need to pin down your alibi."

"Alibi?  What is this, fucking NYPD Bluer

She sighed defeat.  "Billy, I didn't come here to fight."

"This is because of those fucking cats, isn't it?"  he said, his anger
raised to such a pitch that everything seemed to blaze.  "It doesn't
matter that I'm an entirely different person now, that I was royally
fucked up at the time ... that it's taken me years to straighten myself
out..."

"This isn't about the cats, Billy," she said, masking her own i
uncertainty.

"Listen," he said, "I'm going to tell you something I've never told
anyone before.  You don't know about this because you were too young.
I've tried to protect you from the truth, Rachel, but screw it..."

She stared at him, not sure what was coming.  Billy was prone to
exaggeration and sometimes joked around and said things he'd later take
back.

"Dad hurt me psychologically and physically from the time I was born
until I was six years old."

She sat in stunned silence.

"You know he used to drink, right?  Early on in Mom and Dad's marriage?
You know Grandpa was a drunk, right?  Remember how Dad used to say he
never wanted to follow in his old man's footsteps?  Well, that's what
he meant."

"Billy..."

"Why do you think there was so much tension between us?  Rachel, from
the time I was born, I was not allowed to have a safe feeling.  Can you
imagine what that's like?  It's different for you.  You came along
after he quit drinking, after he pulled his shit together..."

"Billy, that's all in the past.  Dad loved you ..."

"Past?  Past!"  He chucked the words at her like pieces of gravel, too
small to hurt but sharp enough to sting.  "I'm afraid to get close to
anyone.  Do you know what that's like?  I'm afraid of losing control.
I've lived my whole life in a prison I've been trying to either blow up
or burn down ..."

"Billy," she said, lime green walls undulating in her peripheral

vision.  "I don't know what to say.  I wasn't there.  I wish I
could've helped ... I'm trying to help you now."

He held her eye an indignant moment, then rubbed his exhausted face.
His coffee was getting cold.  "I've known Claire for three years," he
said, "and she was like this big mystery to me.  She's a strange
person, Rachel.  Real open, and yet real private.  Before last year, I
only knew her casually, the way you'd know somebody at staff meetings
and stuff.  Not very well.  But last year, we taught class together and
got pretty tight.  Christ."  He groaned and lowered his head.  He ran
his hands through his hair; he never reminded her of their father so
much as when he did that.  "We were just starting to get..."  He fell
silent.

"What, Billy?"

"We were just starting to get..."

Her knuckles whitened around her pen.  He paused for so long, she
thought maybe he'd fallen asleep.  "Just starting to get what,
Billy?"

"Close."

"How close?"

He didn't answer her directly.  "You know," he said, "I've always lived
my life as if I cared, as if I felt something ... but I didn't.  Not
really.  Not until I met Claire."

She stared at the top of his head, the swirling innocence of his brown
hair.  Their father's hair.

"And then something strange happened ..."

These words shattered her self-imposed calm like rubber bullets.

"Oh God."  He didn't speak for the longest time.  He started to
tremble.  Terrified that her own brother might be on the verge of
confessing, she put down her pen and rested a hand between his shoulder
blades.

"What is it, Billy?"  she whispered, feeling each sob like a silent
hiccup.  "You can tell me."

"Oh God."

"Tell me."

He sat up abruptly, as if he might hit her.  Eyes blazing, back
stiffening.  "If something's happened to her, it would be brutal.  It
would kill me, it really would."

"Billy," she said, carefully choosing her words.  "After you dropped
Porter off ... is there anyone who can verify your whereabouts?"

He shook his head.

"Billy..."

"I think I know who might've done something," he said, voice drained of
all emotion.  "An ex-boyfriend was writing her these threatening
letters."

"In red envelopes?"

"Yeah."  He looked up.  "She told me he was crazy.  She'd get a red
envelope about once or twice a month."

"What's his name?"

"I don't know, but she said he used to accuse her of all this crazy
stuff, and she finally got up the courage to leave him."

"When?"

"A couple years ago.  Rachel ..."  He looked at her angrily.
Accusingly.  "Not everything is my fucking fault."

"I know, Billy."  She reached for his hand and he let her hold it
momentarily.  "I know."

THAT AFTERNOON A FULL-SCALE SEARCH-AND-RESCUE WAS

launched in conjunction with the Maine State Police.  Helicopters
buzzed the county, while officers with K-9 dogs searched every inch of
the downtown area in a grid pattern.  The dogs picked up Claire's scent
at the diner where she was last seen but

lost it several yards out the door, diverted perhaps by the confusion
of foot traffic on Main Street and the pouring rain.  The rescue team
penetrated the dense forest north of town, pushing past sodden fir
boughs and sliding down ravines slippery with rain.  They searched the
swampland west of the Triangle, the cornfields, the parks, and came up
empty-handed.  Claire Castillo had simply disappeared.

She'd undoubtedly come to harm, Rachel thought.  This was a woman who'd
hardly missed a day of work, who was in constant contact with her
family.  "It's the kind of case I dread," McKissack told her that
afternoon over the phone, and she imagined his tense face couched in a
jagged halo of disarranged hair.

"I found out who wrote those letters," she said.

"Who?"

"An ex-boyfriend.  He lives outside of Bangor.  I got a phone number
from her parents.  He's agreed to an interview."

"Go, girl."

"I'm on my way."

It was a two-hour trip.  The setting sun flared across the horizon by
the time she arrived in Sayerprayers, Maine, a real knees and-elbows
town.  WELCOME TO SAYER PRAYERS a sign in one of the town's many bars
read, HUB OF THE UNIVERSE.

Rachel crawled along a rutted road, looking for Buck Fo lette's street.
Ramshackle houses spread like acne across the face of this shabby old
burg, muddy lawns strewn with trash--fast-food wrappers, doggie chew
toys, rusting tricycles.  She took a right onto the aptly named Devil's
Reach Road and drove past a six-pack of silent teenagers until she
reached the dead end.  As she got out, a cold pocket of air snaked
around her head.

Her heels clicked up the flagstone walkway.  The house was dark, the
rest of the street deserted.  The porch floorboards creaked and the
rusty screen door had fallen off its hinges.  Biting back her
trepidation, Rachel knocked.

A man in his mid-thirties answered.  He was good-looking with
red-rimmed eyes and kept sniffing, as if he'd done a few lines and
wasn't afraid to let it show.  He had an aristocratic nose, chiseled
cheekbones and long, wavy yellow hair he pushed back behind his ears.
His eyes were cunning and mean, and he resembled nothing so much as
your average Irat boy from hell.  She detested him on sight but
recalled her father's words: You catch more flies with honey than
vinegar.

"Officer Storrow?"  He extended a tanned hand, his breath reeking of
alcohol.

"You must be Mr.  Folette."

"I must be.  C'mon in."

The place was squalid, pizza boxes imprinted on the dirty toast-colored
shag, beer bottles strewn like rose petals at a wedding, stolen hotel
ashtrays bristling with butts.  The TV set was on, tuned to some
forgettable 1980s sitcom.

"You'll have to forgive the place, it stinks like the crack of God's
ass."  He flashed her a million-dollar smile.  "Beer?"

"No, thanks."

"Yeah, right.  Not while you're on duty."  He fell backward into a
pea-colored armchair, a cloud of dust puffing up around him.  A path
from the sofa to the kitchen had been worn threadbare in the shag rug,
and the only light was coming from the TV set.  She strained her eyes
for a place to sit.

"Just push those magazines off," he said, pointing at a sofa covered
with auto magazines, "Sorry about the mess."  He stared at her,
transfixed.  "So what's this little visit about, Ossifer?"

A million thoughts raced through Rachel's head.  She preferred to
conduct interviews on tape and had brought a mini recorder for that
purpose, despite the fact that most interviewees refused to allow
themselves to be recorded.  Predictably, Buck declined, and so she took
out her pen and a statement form.  She would listen, take notes and
shape a written statement for him to sign.

Since it was highly likely that Buck might become a suspect, Rachel
reminded herself to read him the non custodial rights warning, which
was like the Miranda warning only with a difference: the suspect did
not have the option of having a lawyer appointed for him and was
advised he could cut the interview short at any time.  Although he was
not under arrest, the non custodial warning would subsequently
establish that she had given him every opportunity to exercise his
constitutional rights.

After she'd handled these bits of business, Rachel got right to the
point.  "Claire Castillo has been missing since Wednesday evening."

"Oh yeah?  Missing, how?"

"Missing, as in gone."

"Gee whiz."  He seemed amused.  "That's too bad."

"Where were you Wednesday night, Mr.  Folette?"

He gave her a winning smile.  "I'm Buck to my friends."

The hairs rose on the back of Rachel's neck.  Was Buck the "b" in
Claire's Day-Timer?  "Where were you Wednesday night, Buck?"

"Right here."  He slapped the arm of his chair and another puff of dust
rose up.  "Planted in front of the tube like a tulip."

"Can anyone verify that?"

"My landlady.  Lives upstairs."

"Is she home now?"

He shrugged.

"Mind if I talk to her after our interview?"

"Long as you don't mind if I smoke."

"Go right ahead."

"You can trust a man with a vice, my papa used to say, but never trust
the Sober, the Smoke-Free, the Slender or the Sweet Smelling."  He got
up from his chair and knelt in front of the coffee table where he
proceeded to roll his own cigarette.  When he was done, he sat back on
his haunches and sparked up.  Picking bits of tobacco off his tongue,
he said, "Man, that girl was

nuts about me.  Her old man hated my guts, though.  One summer we were
living in Flowering Dogwood, and her father used to spy on us.  He'd
drive by the apartment all the time, so we moved back here."

"Do you still communicate with her?"

"No," he said, mouth growing hard.

"Phone calls?  Letters?  Email?"

"Nope."  He sat back smugly in his chair.

"Well, somebody's been sending her letters on red stationery, in red
envelopes."

"Not me."  Smoke bled from his cigarette.

"They're pretty abusive, these letters."

"I wasn't mean to her," he said defensively.  "I never slapped her
around or called her bitch or anything."

"That's not what I hear."

"Yeah, well, you know ... we could both get pretty liquored up."  He
grinned at the thought.  "Man, I was in love!  You only fall in love
for real once in your life.  From day one, that girl was all over me
like a cheap suit.  She'd get jealous if I even looked at another woman
sidewise."

"I heard you hit her a couple of times."

He stared at her oddly.  "No, ma'am."

"There's a police report..."

"Oh.  Wait.  The microchips in my brain are a little rusty."  He
laughed.  "Once.  Just that one time.  Cops wouldn't listen to me.  I
mean, if you want the truth, Claire used to beat the crap outta me.  I
had scratches all up and down my arms here ... on my neck and shit.."

"In one such incident, you gave her a black eye.  I have a copy of the
police report."  Rachel swallowed back the bile rising in her throat.
Her feelings for this man weren't important.  She needed to adjust
herself psychologically so that she and Buck were in harmony.  She
could be hard-nosed when she had to, but the sympathy approach rarely
failed.

"Yeah, well, maybe I did hit her once or twice," he hedged.  "She
could drive a man nuts with a capital N. Peace, love and parking lots."
He extinguished his cigarette, cracked another beer.  He seemed to want
the conversation to end there, but Rachel persisted.

"You said in your letters--"

His entire body tensed as he leaned forward.  "You read them?"

"Yes."

"Do you have them?"

"Not on me.  They're down at the lab being dusted for prints.  So you
admit you wrote them?"

He looked away, profile bathed in TV light, and set his facial muscles
into a glare.

"Look, we've all been in relationships," she said, "good and bad .."

"You can't just waltz into my house and completely impose yourself."
His icy gaze tickled the base of her spine.  This interview was on the
verge of becoming an interrogation, and Rachel silently gave herself
permission to try for a full confession.  She wanted a confession, even
if it meant he might go free later on.  If a suspect confessed and
supplied information about a crime, such as where the body was hidden,
and if his attorney had the confession ruled inadmissible later on,
then none of the evidence collected from the confession would count.
This was called "fruit of the poison tree."  McKissack liked to get his
confessions last, once most of the evidence was in, but in the case of
a kidnapping, there simply wasn't time.

"When was the last time you took a vacation?"

"Huh?"  He squinted at her through the flickering TV light.

"You know, just got away from it all?"

"Not in a while."  His eyes misted over.  "My folks have this place by
the seashore ..."  His eyebrows dropped.  "Okay, so I wore the same
clothes all summer long, so what?  I was wasted eight ways to Sunday,
too stoned to change my clothes, okay?

She made such a big deal out of it, and here she was, this incredible
slob ... you ever seen her place?"

"Yes, I have."

"You know, when it comes to other people's personal shortcomings,
Claire was an idiot savant on the subject."  He swallowed some beer and
looked at her.  "You married?"

"No."  Rachel strained forward during the silence that followed,
listening for any stray sound that might alert her to Claire's presence
in the apartment.  Soon she would ask his consent to search the
premises.  She'd brought along a consent form for that specific
purpose.

"No, I'm not," she admitted.  "I'm not married."

"Pretty cop like you?"  He smiled his indigent frat-boy smile.  "Never
been proposed to?"

"We're not talking about me."

"Why not?"

She could feel her face getting hot.  "Because."

"I got you."  He grinned.

"Mr.  Folette--"

"Call me Buck."

"Buck ... in these letters, you accuse her--"

"The bitch was after me."  His mouth had a bitter downturn.  He looked
at her and slammed his fist on the arm of the chair.

Reflexively, she thought about her gun.  It was awfully dark in here.
Buck probably had a weapon hidden somewhere inside the house.  Welcome
to Sayerprayers--guns in the homes, guns in the pickups, guns at the
7-Eleven ... "She wanted my soul.  She kept doing things ... plotting
against me .."

"Like what?"

"Okay, you wanna know?  She'd wake up in the middle of the night and
loosen the stitches on all my clothes."

"What?"

"You heard me."  He sat back, apparently satisfied.

"Why would she do a thing like that?"

"Exactly what I was wondering."  He frowned, long lines mapping his
face.  "That's why I broke up with her."

"I thought she broke up with you?"

"No, it's the other way around."

"Well, she got a restraining order."

"I know how it looks."  He became suddenly animated, like a child
watching fireworks for the first time.  "Ain't nobody ever told you,
you can't judge a book by its cover?  It's not my fault she's missing.
She asked for it.  She's crazy.  That woman lies like a rug.  She's a
ball buster with a capital B."  He was speaking with the narrative
speed of an excited two-year-old.  "What goes around, comes around.  My
luck'll turn.  My day will come.  You can count on it, sister.  One of
these days I'll be God, judge, president and the goddamn high school
guidance counselor.  But Claire, see ... Claire's luck flew south.  She
fucked with too many heads, and now she's gonna pay."

"Buck, are you on any medication?"

He stared at her sullenly, brow furrowing.

"Do you take medication?"

"What's that got to do with the price of Eggos?"

"Do you hear voices?"

He smiled and relit his half-smoked cigarette.

"Do you, Buck?"

"What, hear voices?"

"Yes."

"Well, I can hear your voice."

"Any other voices?"

"Sometimes."  He shrugged.  "Coming from the keyholes."

Leaning forward, Rachel chose her words carefully.  "I'd like your
consent to search the apartment.

"Huh?"  he said with a fleshy smirk.

"I brought this consent form with me.  It means you waive your right
to be free from search without a warrant.  Just sign here, that proves
the consent was voluntary."

He drew back.  "Why should I?"

"You've got nothing to hide, right?  This will show you were willing to
cooperate.  Trust me, it can only help in the long run."

"Cut it out," he said, hand sliding between the cushions, and before
she knew it, he was holding a .45-caliber handgun on her.  "Quit
screwing with my head."

Without thinking, Rachel drew her weapon and aimed it at Buck's chest.
The world closed in around her.  Stupid, stupid.  How could she have
let things get so out of hand?  "Don't move!"  she said, a tiny scream
worming its way through her brain.  "Drop your weapon.  Now!"

"No."

"I said drop it!"

"You first."

Her hands were shaking, a sheen of sweat breaking out on her forehead.
She'd been taught to fire center mass, which meant the chest, where the
vital organs were.  If she tried for the head, she might miss.  There
was less margin of error with the chest.  "Easy, now.  Put the gun
down."

"You first."  His aim was frighteningly steady.

Her heart was pounding and she couldn't breathe.  Her life was in
danger.  She needed to remain calm.  Carefully, she aligned the target
in her front and rear sights.  If she had to shoot to kill, she would.
If forced to.  If only her heart would quit leaping around inside her
throat so that she couldn't breathe.

"Ease your finger off the trigger.  You don't want to hurt anyone, and
neither do I. Place your weapon on the coffee table, Buck."  The gun
was centered directly in front of her eyes and both arms were locked.
Her feet were spread apart about

shoulder-width, knees bent slightly, and she could feel her weight on
the balls of her feet.

After an interminable beat, he finally eased his finger off the trigger
and placed the .45 down on the coffee table.

She picked up the gun and was surprised to find it empty.  "You're
under arrest," she said, pocketing it.  "You have the right to remain
silent..."

"What for?"  His pupils contracted.  "I put the gun down, didn't I?"

"Is this gun licensed?"

He shrugged.  A twisted lump of clothing lay on the rug at his feet,
and he gingerly stepped over it as if it were a dead body.

"Stay where you are," she warned, palm growing sweaty on the
checkerboard grip.  His proximity was making her uncomfortable.  Her
balance was poor; she had automatically chosen the Isosceles stance,
which put her at a distinct disadvantage.  Increased recovery time,
strain on the shoulder muscles.

"Put your hands on your head and turn around."

He eyed her with an odd fascination.  "What for?"

"You're under arrest."

"Aw, c'mon.  Can't you let it slide just this once?"

"Turn around and put your hands on your head!"  She reached for her
handcuffs.

He took his time tamping out his cigarette.  Blood pounded in her ears,
and her heart raced faster than her thoughts.  She didn't want to kill
another human being.  She didn't want to make a mistake.  Her finger
was growing slick on the trigger--she couldn't feel the trigger
anymore.  She fumbled for her handcuffs, but before she could prevent
it from happening, he darted around behind her and got her in a
headlock.  He hugged her throat with his powerful arm, cutting off her
airway.  She twisted in fear and scratched his arms, drawing blood, but
he held on fast.

She was losing consciousness.  Trembling with rage.

"Some people fuck with people and play with their heads for the sheer
pleasure of taking them apart," he said, grunting, and Rachel drew her
elbow forward and jabbed it backward into his ribs.

He cried out and released her.  Twisting around, she slammed her palm
into his nose, and Buck Hew back and crashed into the TV set.

Down on the floor, she got one of his wrists handcuffed, but he fought
her off, bucking like a bronco.  He screamed obscenities at her.  His
face was bleeding.  She dug her knee into his back and tried to twist
his other arm around behind him, but he bucked her off.  She went
flying into the wall and saw stars.  The world narrowed as he lunged
for her, but she rolled out of his way, accidentally hitting her knee
on the edge of the coffee table.

She heard a metallic snap as a sharp pain kicked up her leg.  "Ow,
shit."  She could barely breathe, she was so full of fury.  She wanted
to rip his flesh apart with her teeth.

He lunged again, and she cracked his windpipe with her fist.

Dropping like a stone, he clutched his neck, eyes spiteful.  Lying
splayed, spitting blood, he gave a grunt of surrender.

She finished handcuffing him, got up quickly from the floor and called
for backup.  "I need an ambulance," she said, her heart gradually
easing back into its normal pulse.

He stared up at her, slender fingers working his throat.  "Christ's
last word should've been "Assholes,"" he said.

"the public wants answers," mckissack said, unwrapping a Ring Ding, his
voice both soft and fierce.  "I'd like to be able to tell them that the
case is moving forward."

They were all seated around the conference table--Rachel and
McKissack, dispatcher Phillip Reingold, mm close to retirement,
Lieutenant Ted Tapper, and Detectives Ira Keppel and Steve Cavanaugh.
Two weeks had passed, and they were no closer to solving the case.
Fourteen days of searches, surveillance and the gathering of physical
evidence, and still they had no ransom demand, no eyewitnesses, no
suspects, not a clue as to Claire's whereabouts.

They had set up recording equipment for "trap and trace" at the
Castillos' house, where the anguished family anxiously awaited some
word, even a ransom demand.  Dr.  Yale Castillo publicly begged for the
return of his daughter.  "She needs her asthma medication," he said on
all the local news stations.  The family clung to hope.

"What about Buck Folette?"  McKissack now asked Rachel.

"Landlady confirms she spent Wednesday night and most of Thursday with
him in his apartment.  Two friends called him that night, three friends
visited on Thursday."

"When did they call him Wednesday night?"

"One at nine-twelve p.m."  the other at eleven-seventeen P.M. Both
conversations lasted over thirty minutes.  The phone company's security
division has supplied us with a list of all incoming and outgoing
numbers.  Looks like our friend Buck wasn't anywhere near Flowering
Dogwood on the night Claire disappeared."

"Are you kidding?  His prints are all over those letters," Ted Tapper
said.  Nearing forty, Lieutenant Tapper was swarthy and arrogant, his
perpetually stiff expression blunting the initial impact made by his
handsome features and muscular body.  In Rachel's opinion, Tapper was
aggressively unappealing.

"We don't need fingerprint analysis," Rachel said.  "He admits he wrote
them."

"Look, whoever wrote those letters definitely had something to do with
Claire's disappearance, I don't care what his skanky ass landlady
says."

"He got a record?"  McKissack asked.

"Antisocial tendencies surfaced early," Rachel said, thumbing through
her notes.  "He assaulted a cousin at age fourteen, but the family
hired a lawyer who got the charges dismissed after Buck's father lied
about his whereabouts.  I got this from the sister.  Throughout the
years, the family has continued to protect him."

"What if Buck's friends are covering for him now?"  Tapper asked. 
"What if those phone calls were actually for the landlady?"

McKissack arched an eyebrow at Rachel.

"It's possible," she said.  "He and Claire Castillo were in an abusive
relationship for two years, and during that time he was arrested twice
for domestic violence."

"And each time," Tapper said, "the family hires this big-time lawyer,
waving psychiatric reports."

"Just like they did last week," McKissack said with thinly veiled
disgust.  "He was booked for aggravated assault, assault with a
dangerous weapon, resisting arrest and possession of an unlicensed
firearm.  But because the gun wasn't loaded, his lawyer was able to get
the charges reduced."

"He's held for a mere five days before being released on his own
recognizance," Tapper sneered.

"Mom and Pop keep bailing him out," Steve Cavanaugh said.  Not fat but
certainly soft-looking, Steve was an inveterate doughnut-eater and
prodigious coffee-drinker who had a way with the ladies, perhaps
because of his dogged earnestness.  "I'm so earnest, I'm Ernest
Hemingway," he was fond of saying.  "So what's his psychological
problem du your?"

"His psychosis has been marked by delusions and hallucinations," Rachel
said.  "He started deteriorating at around age thirteen, when he
growled at people and threatened to stab his parents with a butcher
knife.  He was prescribed an antipsychotic to stabilize his
schizophrenia.  Since then he's been admitted to

area hospitals for treatment of psychosis and has suffered several
relapses."

"There you go," Tapper said.  "He's our man."

"Just because he's mentally ill, doesn't make him guilty," Rachel
said.

"He attacked you, didn't he?"  Tapper sneered.

"Yes."  It had taken her several hours to get the adrenaline down and
regain her composure.  Buck was bigger and stronger, and she had
survived a very dangerous situation.  For days afterward, she felt
grateful for every breath she took.  "Schizophrenics have been known to
attack when provoked."

"Go ahead, Rachel," Tapper said, "take the creep's side."

"I'm not taking anyone's side."

"Let's be civil, people."  McKissack's face was heavy from pulling
sixteen-hour shifts like the rest of them, yet he'd recently changed
into a crisp white shirt and tie.  "Is he on medication?"

"He's taking clozapine."

"Forget about it, the guy's insane," Phillip Reingold said.  "He's got
all kinds of psychiatrists testifying to that effect."

"I think it's bullshit," Tapper said with priggish confidence.  "He's a
drug addict with antisocial tendencies whose rich mommy and daddy keep
bailing him out.  And his junkie landlady's about as credible as that
Ring Ding you're eating."

"I want him under surveillance," McKissack decided.  "I know the local
sheriff, he'll cooperate.  Tapper?"

"I'm on it."

"I just have a feeling," Rachel said, "he's not our man."

"Such insight from a mere mortal," Tapper said, and Rachel ignored him,
although her heart beat just a little bit faster.

"I spoke with his landlady personally," she said, "and I believe her
story.  Also, after his arrest, after he was Mirandized, he waived his
rights and gave me permission to search the premises.  We found nothing
the least bit incriminating."

"What about the cabin?"  Ira Keppel asked.  Keppel was a two dollar
toupee in a polyester sports coat, a workaholic who liked to jump-start
his day with a fistful of No-Doz.  "I thought you said his family owned
a place by the ocean.  What if he's hiding the victim there?"

Tapper leaned forward, eyes intently locused.  "What if she's holed up
in the family cabin?  We should get a search warrant."

"We don't have probable cause," McKissack said.

"Fuck probable cause, get a consent search."

"We'll see if we can secure one from the family.  And let's put a car
on him," McKissack said.  "We're running out of time, people.  J. Q.
Public's getting pissed off.  They watch TV, they see no arrests.
They're afraid for their children, their wives, their sisters."

"I'm just saying," Rachel said, "we can't afford to focus everything on
a single suspect right now."

"I'm open to suggestions, Detective Storrow," McKissack said, and her
name on his lips sent a chill shuttling down her spine.  His voice was
so constricted, she wanted to find the choke control and ease up.  "We
need answers fast.  The Castillos are demanding immediate action, and
what do we do?  We sit around nursing our ulcers."

For the first time, she noticed his hair was shot through with gray. 
He looked old.  Drained.  He'd once warned her that hypertension,
ulcers and alcoholism came with the job.

"What's the status on the phone records?"  he asked.

"She made multiple calls from her office and cellular phone," Cavanaugh
said, pulling out the list they'd received from Bell's security
division.  "We've interviewed everybody she was in contact with that
week."

Rachel stiffened, grateful that Tapper had been the one to interview
Billy about the phone calls he'd made to Claire and about their budding
relationship.  They'd found Billys prints all over her apartment, along
with the landlord's, the plumber's, family members' and friends'.
Tapper had pretty much cleared Billy of

suspicion.  Porter Powell's residential aide had seen him entering the
dorm at 9:10 P.M. Billy had signed in at the guard station and chatted
with the guard.  Claire Castillo had disappeared sometime after 8:00
P.M."  and Tapper surmised that Billy couldn't possibly have gotten to
the downtown area until sometime after 9:20, almost an hour and a half
after Claire was last seen.  Tapper concluded that Billy had an
airtight alibi.

"She called over a dozen people from her office that day," Ca vana ugh
went on, "including her sister, Nicole."

"We interviewed them all," Keppel said.  "Nothing unusual."

"The week before she disappeared, she made over sixty local calls from
her office, cell phone and home," Keppel said.  "Mostly regarding
school activities.  She contacted several people about a charity dance
for the blind ..."

"Sears, her landlord, the plumber, the dry cleaners, the florist, her
family, some friends, parents of students.  She called her mother five
times, her sister ten times, her dad at the hospital twice, the plumber
three times, the landlord twice about the rent being late, the gas
company about a late payment--"

"She had financial problems?"

"Organizational problems," Rachel corrected.  "Sometimes she'd forget
to mail a check.  No financial distress whatsoever."

"Daddy's a doctor, he's loaded, she's his princess."  Tapper had a
smirk like congealed grease.

"What about the plumber?"  McKissack threw it out there.

'"Kenny G' Tarrington," Tapper said.  "Fixed her leaky toilet Wednesday
morning while she was at work.  The landlord let him in."

"He credible?

"Yeah, he's got a wife and kids, squeaky-clean record, offered to take
a poly.

"Who'd she call on Tuesday?"

"Tuesday, specifically?  Cavanaugh shuffled through the BSD list.  "Her
sister, Sears, her landlord--"

"Tell me about the landlord."

"Fred Lake," Keppel said.  "Older guy.  Kind of a recluse.  Divorced
for five years.  Wife moved out of state."

"He has keys to Claire's apartment," Rachel said.

"Is he cooperative?"  McKissack asked.

"So-so."  Cavanaugh shrugged.

"Got an alibi?"

"He went out for a six-pack and some spaghetti os around seven-thirty.
Liquor store and 7-Eleven clerks verified."

"Background check?"

"Check forgery, decades ago."

"Something smells fishy," McKissack said.

"I agree," Cavanaugh said.

"Talk to him again.  See what you think.  Maybe we'll put a tail on
him, too.  What about Monday?"

"Who'd she call Monday?"

"That's what I like about you, Cavanaugh.  You're mediocre and always
on, just like television."

Cavanaugh ignored the barb.  "Okay, so Monday she calls her mother, the
plumber, the dry cleaners ..."  Cavanaugh shuffled through a stack of
interview forms.  "Picked up her dry cleaning on Monday afternoon.  We
interviewed the store owner."

"Blind guy, Tapper said.

"Visually impaired," McKissack corrected him, pinning Tapper with a
look.  "I know Vaughn.  He does my dry cleaning."

"Pardon my political incorrectness."

Keppel made a snorting sound through his nose.

"She called her father at the hospital ..."

"What about the father?"  Keppel asked.  "Nobody's said anything about
the father."

"I've ruled him out as a suspect," McKissack said quietly, and Rachel
saw the strength hidden beneath the aloof exterior.  He turned to her,
his eyes unreadable.  "Anything else on the downtown area?"

"The crowd had thinned pretty much because of the rain," she said. 
"Of the twenty or so people who came forward who were in the downtown
area that night, nobody outside the diner saw Claire leave.  Nobody saw
her walking back to the parking lot.  Nobody heard a scream that night
or saw anything unusual."

A picture of the missing woman was tacked to the wall.  She had an
unspoiled beauty, keen eyes sparkling with her zest for life.  They had
a description of the outfit she was last seen in: black lined raincoat,
short black skirt, cinnamon-colored hose, short black leather boots,
pink silk blouse, thin black belt, diamond stud earrings, small gold
cross on a thin gold chain.  She wasn't particularly religious but she
never went anywhere without that necklace.

The police had in their possession X rays of Claire's chest and her
left wrist where she'd broken it skiing ten years ago.  Rachel feared
that those and Claire's dental X rays might be the only way they'd be
able to identify the body

"What about the hotline?"  McKissack turned to Phillip Rein gold.  "Any
new leads?"

"The usual, Chief.  Calls keep pouring in.  It's witchcraft, it's devil
worship.  Couple of psychics weighed in today with their weird theories
about UFOs and what have you.  Yadda, yadda, yadda."

McKissack nodded.  They'd already spent too much valuable time tracking
down hundreds of "leads" that turned out to be false--calls from
concerned residents, calls from kooks, calls from other police
departments with suggestions relating to Claire Castillo's whereabouts.
Strange men had been spotted all over town.  They'd interviewed all
known sex offenders, but the exercise had proved fruitless.  In the
papers, you always saw a caption under the picture of the killer,
Rachel thought, and it always said "Nice guy.  Real quiet."

"Everybody liked her," Rachel said.  "Friends, relatives.

coworkers.  She was a dedicated, hardworking teacher.  Her students
adored her ..."

"We're working on the codes in the Day-Timer," Keppel said.  "These
notations are odd, but who's to say?  This kind of thing's
idiosyncratic and I guess it worked for her.  So far, we've figured out
that the capital letters mostly represent friends and family, people's
initials.  "IV1&D' means Mom and Dad, "N' stands for Nicole, and so on.
Then there's lower case: 'cd' means charity dance; 's' is for shopping;
'h/c' for haircut, etcetera.  But sometimes you'll get an upper-case
"HE," meaning Hurryback Cafe, or a lower-case 'pm," meaning Peggy
Morrissey ... so she doesn't always stick to the rules."

"What about the day she disappeared?"

"Okay, she's got a lower-case 'pm @ I 2' written down here.  Peggy
Morrissey confirmed they had lunch together.  Then an upper-case "HE'
in the lower right-hand corner, meaning her usual Wednesday night
dinner at the Hurryback.  Then a 'pu C slash P' with a question
mark--meaning pick up costumes, we think..."

"Costumes?"

"For the school play.  "P' for play, "C' for costumes.  We found them
in the trunk of her car.  Then she's got this big, lowercase,
underlined 'b."  It's prominent on the page."

"Buck Folette, obviously," Tapper said.

"But it's lower case."

Tapper shrugged.  "She doesn't always follow her own rules.  You said
so yourself."

"It's problematic, because the next day, Thursday, she writes
upper-case "B @ 7," meaning she had a date with Billy Storrow that
night."

"What about Billy?"  McKissack asked, and Rachel's heart pounded as he
eyed her with aggressive suspicion.  "He and Claire were close?"

"They were good friends."

"How good?"

"Billy was with his head-injured kid until nine-ten P.M.," Tapper
reminded him.

"I'm not suggesting he's a suspect," McKissack said as his eyes
explored Rachel's face.  "I'm just wondering what their relationship
was."

"At the beginning stages," she said as evenly as she could.  "They'd
been friends for over a year, and it was just beginning to turn into
something more ... substantial."

"It would've taken him ten minutes to get from the school to the
downtown area," Tapper said.  "That would've made it nine twenty P.M.
She'd've been walking around for almost an hour and a half by then, and
yet nobody saw her after eight P.M. Not a soul.  Doesn't add up."

"I know," McKissack said, eyes hard on Rachel.  She could feel her body
moving as she breathed.  "I'm not saying he's a suspect."

"He's got a solid alibi," she said, sounding more defensive than she'd
intended.

"You said something about Nicole the other clay?"  McKissack switched
gears, sitting back and breaking off eye contact.

Rachel took a moment to compose herself, subtly wiping her palms on her
knees.  "Nicole's parents won't let her see her boyfriend anymore.
Nicole and Dinger ledesco have been going steady for nine months now. 
I talked to Jackie Castillo, and she and her husband don't like Dinger.
They think the two of them are sleeping together, and in light of
Claire's disappearance, they don't want Nicole involved with this young
man.  I hey realize they're being extremely protective, but they
believe it's for her own good."

"What about it?"  McKissack asked.  "D'you think this kid could've
kidnapped Claire?"

Rachel glanced around the table and could tell by all the blank looks
nobody else had thought of it, either.  "I talked to Dinger briefly,"
she said.  "Asked him about his relationship with the family."

"And?"

"Left it at that."

"Well, what d'you think?"  McKissack asked no one in particular.

"He's just a kid," Cavanaugh said.  "What is he, seventeen?"

"So nobody's thought of it?  Nobody's even considered the
possibility?"

The question hung in the air.

"He's sleeping with the younger daughter, hanging around the house a
lot.  Claire comes over once or twice a week ... always on weekends. He
meets her.  Develops a crush ... follows her ..."

"Dinger Tedesco?"  Keppel fumbled with the Day-Timer, rifling through
its pages.  "I don't see any "DTs' in here."

"So what's the kid's real name?"  McKissack asked.

"Huh?"

"I'm assuming Dinger's a nickname."

Rachel scanned her notebook.  "Brigham," she said.

"Brigham."  McKissack held Rachel's eye.

"It's possible," Rachel hedged.

"I want you to look into it further, Storrow."

Her cheeks burned; she felt unfairly targeted.

"Now everybody go home," he barked.  "Let's get some shut-eve."

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, NICOLE CAST ILLO MET DINGER

out behind the bleachers on the wet athletic field where they huddled
together against a rotting wooden beam.  She hadn't told him yet that
she'd changed her mind.  The air was misty with rain, the kind of rain
you couldn't see but could feel coagulating on your skin and your
clothes.

"You've gotta talk to them," Dinger insisted.  "You've gotta convince
them it's okay for us to see each other again."

"I can't convince my father of anything.  Once he makes up his mind,
that's it."

"Oh great."  He threw up his hands and looked like he wanted to hit
something.  "Shit fuck dammit all to hell!"

"Dinger," she said tensely, "you know, I've decided to go ahead and
have this baby."

"What?"  His eyes grew startled, hair clinging to his scalp in a
defeated sort of way.  He glanced at her belly as if he could see
through her raincoat.  "Are you sure?"  He sounded panicky, as if he'd
changed his mind, as if maybe he didn't really want this baby after
all.

"Fucking asshole."

"What'd I say?"

She stormed past him, her high heels punching dots in the soggy field,
and he followed her into the parking lot.

"Nicole, Uzzat?"

"I thought you wanted me to have this baby?  I thought you were against
abortion?"

"I did.  I mean ... I am!"

She eyed him with suspicion.  "You sure?"

"Yeah."

"You don't sound so sure."

"Of course I'm sure!  You just surprised me, that's all..."

"Shut up and drive."

Dinger's car, a '76 Monte Carlo, smelled of candle wax and hamburgers.
They blasted music while they drove into town, past cows grazing
stupidly in the yellowing fields.  They drove past tilting barns and
grain silos and ugly, old Victorian houses.  She didn't want to live
here.  She didn't want to spend the rest of her life in Flowering
Dogwood.

They pulled into Burger King and parked.  While he was getting their
food, she primped in the rearview mirror, catching

sight of a small hard pink pimple on her chin.  "Oh great," she said.
"Miss Zit-me rica

She lit a cigarette, and when Dinger came back with their food, he
said, "The tip's bright orange."

"I can't help it."

"You'll fry7 your lungs extra-crispy."

"I don't care."

"You'll care later."

"No, I won't."

They didn't speak for a while.  After he finished his burger, Dinger
picked up an Etch-A-Sketch from the car floor and fiddled with the
knobs.  His fingernails were dirty.  He drew a squiggly, angular baby,
and suddenly she loved everything--rain beading down the windshield,
the wipers with their rubber squeak-squeak, hot coffee smells mixing
with Dinger's pretzel smelling scalp, his fuzzy profile with its
ski-slope nose.  His soft features spoke of great potential, of what he
might someday become, and she wanted to know that man.

"I love you," she whispered, throwing herself at him.

"Oh God," he gasped, "I love you, too, Nicole."

His strange gaze flitted across her face, and they kissed for a while,
then she pushed him away and masked her deep love under an expression
of disgust.  "Daddy's going to kill me."

"Don't tell him, then."

"I have to tell him, Dinger!  I have to tell my mother at least, and
she'll tell Daddy, and he's going to kill me."

"No, he won't."

"Ugh!  You're impossible.  We have to figure this out," she said. "Help
me!"

"I'm trying."

"Try harder."  The hot coffee burned her tongue and she could leel a
blister rising up on the roof of her mouth.  Good.  She needed this
pain to remind her of Claire; needed to be scalded, always and forever,
perpetual punishment for her stupid, happy

thoughts.  "When we were little," she told him, "Claire had this trick
where she'd make Abraham Lincoln cry.  She'd wet a wad of toilet paper
and hold it behind a penny and squeeze, and big fat tears would drop
down, and she'd say, "Seer Abraham Lincoln's crying.""

They sat in stony silence while the rain came down.  It made a
shuddering sound on the roof of the car, like someone trying to break
in.  As it Claire were lost in the rain and desperate to get inside
where it was safe and dry.  Nicole looked out the window and thought
about Claire making Abraham Lincoln cry, and a sour taste came into her
mouth.  Everything was a blur.

"D'you think she's dead?"  Grief numbed her throat.

"I don't wanna talk about it."  He smelled of mothballs and wool zipped
up too long inside a winter storage bag.

"I think the police have given up."  She shuddered.  Her feet were
cold.  Her hands were cold.  Right in front of her, raindrops clung to
the doorframe of the car, their shimmering fullness like great beads of
hope.  One by one, they dropped.  "I think my parents have given up."

"Don't cry, Nicole."

"Where could she be?"  she demanded, eyes flashing, hair crackling.

"Maybe she ran off with somebody?"

"She didn't run away, Dinger.  Why would she run away when everybody
who loves her lives right here?  She could drive you nuts sometimes,
y'know?  She could get kind of bossy and in your face, like she knew
better than you, but I loved her so much."

"I know."  He rubbed her back and she tried not to cry.

"If anything happens to her, I'll die."

"No, you won't."

"I will.  I'll stop breathing."

"Cut it out."  He clutched her tight, their raincoats squeaking
together.

"I'll die."  She sobbed, helium-voiced, her breath in the curve

of his neck wafting back in her face, warm and coffee-smelling.  "I
swear to God, I will."

"Nicole."  He shook her shoulders.  "Nicole, look at me."

She blinked at him through a whirlpool of her own foul mood, her misery
and fear.  "What?"

"I want us to spend some time together."

She wiped her wet face with her hands.

"We've gotta find a way to be together ... someplace where no body'll
bother us ..."

She was shivering.

"Someplace where we can hold each other for about a million years.
Don't you wanna be with me, Nicole?"

"Yeah.  "An icy wind licked the back of her neck.

He kissed her.  He put his hand on her breast.  "Oh, Nicole."  His body
trembled as he slid his tongue into her mouth.

Her stomach knotted, a wave of nausea sweeping over her.  "Stop."  She
pushed him away.  "I'm gonna be sick."  She opened the door and leaned
over the rain-soaked asphalt, but nothing happened.  Rain drenched the
back of her neck as she tried to throw up but couldn't.

She slammed the door shut.  "I'm okay."  She lit another cigarette.

"I definitely want this baby," he said.  "I want us to get married and
be a family."

Her knees were knocking.  "I want to go home."

"Okay."  He keyed the ignition.  "I'll figure out a way for us to be
together, like maybe for an entire night, okay?

She wanted that.  An entire night.

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

They drove into the darkening day.

RACHEL TAPPED HER HANDS IMPATIENTLY ON THE STEERING

wheel.  The light at this intersection took forever.  A stiff breeze
blew in through the rolled-down window and pushed her hair into her
face.  She didn't want to admit how angry and frustrated she was.  She
hardly slept anymore, and when she did, she was plagued by nightmares.
The only thing that kept her going lately was the anguish of the
grief-stricken family.

There had been twenty-nine homicides in Kerrins County this past year,
and of those, six had occurred within Flowering Dogwood's town lines.
The FDPD detective squad handled rapes, armed robberies and domestic
abuse cases, in addition to homicides.  Rachel was the youngest of the
three detectives who made up the unit, but she had impressed the older
men with her investigative and organizational skills.  She'd solved two
of the homicides herself--one a domestic quarrel gone bad, the other a
drug-related shooting.  Both cases had been cut-and-dried, but this
kidnapping case ... her brain hurt just thinking about it.

Rachel knew everything there was to know about Claire Castillo: weight,
height, shoe size, dress size, favorite color, taste in movies, books
and CDs; she knew even' necklace Claire owned, every book she'd ever
read, even piece of mail she'd received down to the last postcard.  She
knew what she carried in her purse: calfskin wallet containing ID and
credit cards; Ray Bans in a black leather case; a Mason Pearson
hairbrush; a Mont Blanc pen; a package of Vicks cough drops; a package
of Kleenex; her keys on a plastic-banana keychain; tampons; a tube of
Origins Sassafras lipstick; Sudafeds, a prescription bottle of
Benadryl, and an inhaler.

A lot of cops distanced themselves from the victims, the families, the
corpses.  McKissack did.  He numhed himself to every tidal wave of
grief.  They'd had a running argument about her becoming too personally
involved with the victims' families, but upon graduating from the
police academy, she'd sworn she would never lose touch with the human
element, never forget that the loved ones were in exquisite pain.  She
didn't want to become immune.  She didn't want to be McKissack.

Rachel would never forget her first homicide.  A domestic situation, a
pretty young housewife beaten to death by her husband.  Neighbors
complaining about the noise.  The stench of Richard's Wild Irish Rose.
He'd beaten her so brutally, she'd miscarried on the kitchen floor.
He'd grabbed an electric fan and bashed her head in.  The most
dangerous place in the world, it turned out, was this woman's own home.
Rachel still got goose bumps whenever she drove past the weathered gray
ranch behind the peeling picket fence.

Pulling into Taco Bell, she drove around back where pigeons pecked at
the stray crumbs scattered around a large green dumpster.  The boy was
standing over by the picnic tables, looking tall and skinny and shivery
cold.

"I'm Detective Storrow," she said with an outstretched hand.

"Hi, I'm Dinger."  They shook, then selected one of the picnic
tables.

All around them, trees swept the sky with their upturned branches.
Rachel drew her coat collar around her neck.  Dinger was an
awkward-looking seventeen-year-old with oversized hands and feet on
lanky limbs.  A puppy-dog face on a fast growing body.

"I need to ask a few questions," she began.  "Try to remember as much
as you can.  You're not nervous, are your"

"No," he said, biting his thumbnail.

"Okay.  Where were you the Wednesday night Claire Castillo
disappeared?"

He shivered inside his windbreaker.  His hands were red and chapped,
his cheeks crimson from the cold or nerves or both.  "At work."

"Until when?"

"Seven."

"Where do you work?"

"Kellum Kleaners."

"On Delongpre?"

"Yes."

"And what did you do after work?"  Rachel asked.

"I dunno.  Cruised around, I guess."

"Was anybody with you?"

"No."

"Where did you go?"

He shrugged.  "Just drove around."

"Nicole says she didn't see you that night."

"She wasn't feeling so hot."  He fingered a delicate amethyst ring on a
long silver chain around his neck.

"She told me you called her around nine."

"Yeah.  I used a pay phone at the bowling alley."

"And you guys talked for about ten minutes?"

He shrugged.  "Maybe less.  I ran out of quarters."

"Did anybody at the bowling alley see you that night?"

"You'd have to ask them."

Rachel nodded.  "Then what did you do?"

"I drove around some more."

"Past Nicole's house?"

He looked at her, chewed a ragged fingernail.  "I dunno."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Dinger," she said softly.  "These questions are very important, very
critical."

He looked down at the picnic table pocked with graffiti.  "Maybe," he
admitted.

"Just once?"

"I dunno.  A few times.  I can't remember."

"Did you drive back downtown again?"

"No."  He looked at her, recognition dawning.  "Why are you asking me
all this stuff?"  He said it innocently, sweetly, his adolescent voice
breaking with naked anxiety.

"We're trying to establish where everybody was that night.  It's
routine."

He seemed satisfied with her answer.

"Did you talk to anybody else after nine P.M.?"

He thought a beat, then shrugged.  "Nobody, really."

"Did you buy anything that evening?"

"No."

"Stop for food somewhere?  Fill the tank?"

"Nope."

She looked at him.  He seemed like a good kid, a bit shy and awkward,
maybe, not the brightest bulb in the eleventh grade.  His parents were
blue-collar workers, divorced; he had three siblings and probably had
to fight for everything he'd ever gotten.  Her instincts told her
Dinger Tedesco wouldn't hurt a flea, but he had no alibi.

"So Nicole's not allowed to see you anymore?"  she asked, trying a new
tack.

He cringed, looked around nervously, then pulled something out of his
jacket pocket--one of those green plastic turtles whose head bobbed
when you touched it.  He put the turtle on the picnic table in front of
them and watched its tiny head bob up and down.

"Must be rough," Rachel said.  "Not being able to see her."

He looked at her oddly, and she sensed that she puzzled him a great
deal.  Finally, he blurted, "Yeah, it sucks."

"Do you love her?"

He glowered.

"You don't have to answer that question if you don't want to."

"What's it got to do with anything?"

"I just think people who are in love should be responsible, that's
all," she said.

He met her gaze, eyes blurring with tears, although it could've been
the wind.

"I am responsible," he said defensively.

"Okay," she said.

"I love her very much."

"Okay," she said.  "I believe you."

"I'd marry her today if I could, but they won't let me."

Rachel nodded.

"I don't want to talk to you anymore."  Dinger stood up.  "Are we done
yet?"

"Almost."

He stepped over the picnic bench and walked to his car, a rust colored
'76 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.  "I'm sorry, but it's none of your
business."

"Dinger--?"

He slammed the door and drove off.

KhRRINS COUNTY GENERAL HOSPITAL WAS A SIX-HUNDRED-BED facility that, as
its name implied, served the entire county.  Rachel had followed more
than a few ambulances to the ERin order to take statements from victims
of gunshot wounds or stabbings.  The waiting room was painted
robin's-egg blue and a few rubber plants were scattered around for
ambience.

Dr.  Yale Castillo's cramped office on the first floor of the emergency
medicine suite was tastefully decorated with antiques.  He'd been the
on-call supervising surgeon of the ERat Kerrins County

General for over thirty-five years now, and he and Rachel had crossed
paths many times, although his brusque, official manner made him
difficult to approach.  He had a reputation for heing a stereotype of
the pompous surgeon, but Rachel couldn't help cutting him a lot of
slack these days.  His daughter had been missing for almost three
weeks.

"Please, Detective," he said in a deep, authoritative voice, "have a
seat."

"Thank you."

Yale Castillo was one of those doctors who refused to associate with
the common people--nurses, clerks, orderlies.  Rumor had it he'd ended
up in the ER, handling any and all cases regardless of surgical
potential, because he couldn't get along with the hospital's surgical
staff.  He and Rachel had always had a polite but remote relationship,
and now he seemed to be masking his pain with an even more disdainful
expression than usual.  "How can I help you, Detective?"

"I need to clarify the last conversation you had with your daughter,"
she said, flipping through her notebook.  "You spoke with her on the
afternoon before she disappeared?"

"Yes, she called my office."

"What about?"

"She asked if I'd buy some tickets for the charity dance, a benefit for
the school.  I told her I'd be happy to."

"Did she mention anything else?"

He twisted his gold wedding band around on his finger.  "Let's see ...
she spoke about her rent being late.  Her rent's always late."  He
smiled.

"Anything else?"

"The plumber was in her apartment, fixing the toilet.  She was nervous
about him being there."

"Nervous?  How so?"

"Just that ... she felt self-conscious about how messy the place was.
Something like that."

IT

Rachel nodded.  "Anything else?"

"Not that I can recall," He cleared his throat and his features
softened, and almost against his will he added, "Jackie and I have
called everyone we can think of.  I must've driven around the
neighborhood at least a hundred times."

"Don't worry," Rachel said with false confidence.  "We're doing
everything we can ..."

"I know she'll be all right."

She could see the strain in his eyes from wanting to believe it.  He
must have read about his daughter's case in the papers, picked up on
the growing skepticism of the media, the police, the public in
general.

"We'll find her," Rachel promised, not wanting to destroy his illusion.
Sometimes illusions were the only things holding us together.  Besides,
even if she did take a hammer to it, barn, he'd probably find refuge in
the shards.

"Last night," he said, "as I lay in bed, I tried to remember her face.
Only I'm afraid I've forgotten what she looks like."  He blinked in the
stripes of washed-out light slanting through the slatted blinds.

The silence was broken by an announcement on the loudspeaker:
"Methamphetamine overdose.  Male, twenty-eight years old.  ETA five
minutes."

Ignoring the urgency in the admitting clerk's voice, Dr.  Castillo
smiled wistfully and said, "She started to read when she was two.
Imagine that."

Rachel's face was frozen with pity.  She felt a young Claire at her
side like a sudden gust of wind, imagined a bouncy, smooth skinned
child whose bright, ringing laughter momentarily drowned out the
constant hum of her father's grief.

"Every day," he went on, "it gets a bit worse.  You try to hang on to
your optimism."

"Yes."

"She took ballet, you know.  Seven years.  Piano, tennis.  She

was such a strong little girl.  And smart."  He leaned forward and
rubbed the delicate skin around his sunken eyes.  "Listen to me.  I
keep saying 'was.""

Rachel sat still while he caught his breath.  His shoulders slumped,
his sad vanity evident in the long black strands slicked across his
male-pattern baldness.

"Dr.  Castillo," she said softly.  "We're doing everything we can.
We're working double shifts.  Every officer in the department cares
deeply about this case."

He nodded, his sorrow both soothed and fed by her words, and slowly
regained his composure.  "I did my clinical year at Massachusetts
General."  His eyes were red-rimmed.  "Four years as an undergraduate,
four years of medical school, six years' residency at Kerrins County."
He held out his hands, spread his slender fingers.  "Look at that. Rock
steady.  I've been told I have a gift."

Rachel shifted in the soft leather-upholstered chair, the kind you
could easily suffocate in.

"The most important thing to a surgeon is eye-and-hand coordination.  I
know how to repair potentially lethal bleeding in trauma victims,
restore cardiac function, remove life-threatening foreign bodies.  I
know how to be aggressive and when to hold back.  I can operate for
hours at a time without getting tired, and yet ..."  He looked at her
with resignation.  "None of that knowledge, none of that training will
help me bring my daughter back."

The admissions clerk interrupted over the loudspeaker again, and Dr.
Castillo's eyes turned inward.  "Jackie keeps asking, is this our
fault?  Did we do something wrong?"

"Of course it's not your fault."

"She asks me all the time ... was I a good mother?"  His voice broke.
He couldn't go on.  He quickly wiped his eyes and stood up.  "I'm
sorry, I'm needed out front."

They shook hands.  He had a surgeon's grip, rock steady.

"mom!  i'm leaving!"

Jackie Castillo found her daughter in the living room, her
valentine-shaped face going all pink as she bent down to lace up her
sneakers.  She'd momentarily rested her bike against the wall and left
a scuff mark on the eggshell-colored paint.

"I told you I didn't want you going over there."

"Daddy said I could!"

Jackie bit back her fear and anger.  Nicole was getting her way, as
usual, by skillfully playing one parent against the other.

"It's just a sleepover, Mom.  We're gonna watch TV and eat popcorn and
shit.  I mean stuff."  Nicole was lithe in blue Spandex tights, an
oversized banana-colored T-shirt and blue down jacket, her auburn hair
pulled hastily into a Pebbles Flintstone topknot, unruly bangs held in
place by two green glow-in the-dark barrettes.  She'd inherited her
coloring from Yale's side of the family--same pale skin with its
propensity to burn, same watery blue eyes, same restless legs and
slender hands.  Yale had long ago given up hope that one of his
beautiful, talented daughters might pursue a career in medicine.

"Besides," Nicole said, "I'm sick of staying at home all the time just
because you're a worrywart.  It's not fair."

"I'm only thinking about Claire."

"All we ever do is think about Claire.  It's like she's dead or
something.  Only I had this dream.  Mom.  Claire's alive.  I know she
is.  So you can quit worrying."

Jackie fought the urge to stroke her daughter's cheek, since Nicole no
longer allowed it.  She held herself erect and didn't move like a child
at all.

"Did you bring a change of clothes?"

"Mom ..."  Nicole rolled her eyes, her hand automatically reaching for
her backpack.  "And a toothbrush and a hairbrush and my very own
shampoo ..."

Jackie could feel the tension between them like a crack forming on
black ice.  "When can I expect you home tomorrow?"

Nicole shrugged and grabbed her bicycle, anxious to leave.  She walked
it to the front door.  "We'll probably sleep late."

"How late?"

"I dunno ... two?"

"I want you home by noon, young lady.  No ifs, ands, or buts."

"All right, already."  Nicole swung the front door open and stood under
the yellow porch light, her translucent face glowing with impatience.
Jackie stood in the doorway feeling small, diminished.  She was
shrinking by the minute; her life was receding just as her daughter's
gained momentum.

"I love you too much, I guess," she confessed.

"Don't get mushy on me."  Nicole bumped her bike down the front steps.
As a tiny baby, she used to bite Jackie's breast while nursing; now she
was this lanky creature with the kind of exotic eyes men killed for.

The front door poked Jackie's arm like some shy girl.  Outside, the
November night unpeeled before them, crows weighting the telephone
lines, dark trees bleeding into a violet horizon.  A ground fog was
moving in.  "Nicole?"

"What?"

"Be careful."

"Careful's my middle name."

"Almost forgot."  Jackie tripped down the stairs and hijacked a kiss.
"I'm still your mother, y know."

"How could I forget?"

"I'm going to stand here until you're safe inside."

Nicole frowned.  "What am I, three?"

Three years old.  Jackie remembered when they'd first moved

to Pumpkin Run Road and bought the house, a white clapboard with red
shutters.  There was a side of her back then that desperately wanted to
be Betty Crocker.  She had the man she loved and two beautiful little
girls, two miracles in their summer dresses.  She spent her days
shaking the sand out of their bathing suits, bandaging their cuts,
buying them just the right kind of peanut butter--smooth, not chunky.

And where was her older daughter now with her sweet smile and
adventurous spirit?  Where was the little girl whose asthma
occasionally crippled her enthusiasm, reducing her to a bundle of
trembling limbs and wheezing coughs?  Where was the sweet tempered
child who'd sit out on the front sidewalk feeding cane sugar to the
ants one grain at a time?

"Noon tomorrow," Jackie said as Nicole walked her bike down the
sidewalk.  "Repeat after me."

"I just said so, weren't you listening?"

"Beef stew for dinner tomorrow night," Jackie added lightly.

"Ugh."

"Ha.  Only kidding.  Cheeseburgers."

"Very funny, you rat."

"I'm flattered.  Rats are smart."

Nicole's eyes shimmered under the virulent moonlight.  "Claire's coming
home.  Mom.  I can feel it."  She hopped on her bike and sped to the
end of the street, where she turned into the Pattons driveway.

Jackie waited in the shivering cold until she saw Shelly open the door,
and then and only then, knowing her daughter was safe, did she duck
back inside.

AROUND MIDNIGHT, RACHEL RETRACED THE ROUTE CLAIRE

Castillo had most likely taken from the parking lot to the Hurryback
Cafe and back again.  Somebody had left flowers in a corner of the lot
where Claire's abandoned Nissan Sentra had been found.  It would've
been foggy that night, just like now.  The street lamps were fifty feet
apart.  If the perp had followed her with the intention of grabbing
her, he might've snatched her here, at the mouth of the alley between
the shoe store and vacant storefront.  The alley was Bible black, the
windows of a nearby apartment house sealed shut against the cold.
Perhaps that explained why nobody had heard any screams that night?  Or
maybe the perp had attacked her in the parking lot, in the darkest
corner where her car was found?  The forest grew dense in this section
of the lot, and the nearest street lamp was shrouded in fog.

Still, if she'd been physically grabbed, wouldn't her purse have flown
open?  Wouldn't a shoe have come off?  Wouldn't someone have heard the
screams?  There should have been something left of her at the scene,
some sign that a struggle had occurred.  A woman had been abducted.
Forced into a moving car or windowless van.  According to friends and
family, Claire Castillo would never have given up without a fight.

The scenario didn't make sense.

Turning around, Rachel walked back past the shoe store, the vacant
storefront, the diner, Dale's Discount Hardware, a couple of clothing
shops, a beauty parlor, another empty storefront, a dance hall, a
dental practice.  Was it possible the perp had been hiding in the
darkened foyer of the dentist's office?  Had he leapt out and grabbed
her from behind before she'd had a chance to

scream?  Had he gagged her?  Chloroformed her?  Injected her with some
swift-acting nervous system depressant?  Knocked her out with a sharp
blow to the head?  But there were other shoppers out that night.  The
ground fog was thick, but somebody surely would've heard the scuffle or
seen a man and woman struggling.

Perhaps it wasn't a stranger, but someone she knew?  Perhaps she had
been lured into a car or a building?  Maybe a safe-looking stranger in
a police uniform, or dressed as a minister?  Hughie Boudreau?  He'd
once been a cop with emotional problems.  Would Claire have accepted a
ride from Dinger Tedesco?  Certainly not while her own car was parked
in the public lot.  The Nissan Sentra was found to be in perfect
working condition and with the exception of new brake pads, there
hadn't been any major changes in the last two years.  Maybe she'd
accepted a lift to the parking lot from the cafe?  Six city blocks
could seem a lengthy walk in the foggy cold of an October night in
Maine.

Now Rachel's cell phone rang, the bright sound of it jangling her
nerves.  "Hello?"

"It's me."  The strain in McKissack's voice made her heart skip a beat.
"They found a woman in the woods about five miles from Claire's
apartment."

"Is she dead?"  Rachel asked breathlessly.

"No, she's alive.  They're transporting her to Kerrins County General.
I want you to get over there ASAP."

"I'm on my way."

SIX HOURS INTO HIS FOUR!  LEN-HOUR SHIFT AT KERR INS

County General, Dr.  Yale Castillo woke up from a brief nap in the
sleep room, gowned up and went back into the Pit.  He glanced

at the roomful of sullen faces waiting to be admitted.  Tonight was
mostly garden-variety stuff--flu, fever, miscarriage.  As the senior
person on call, Yale was in charge of all personnel on staff tonight,
which included two interns, a moonlighting resident, a third-year
emergency medicine resident, two junior residents, a pediatric surgeon,
two technicians and three nurses.

"Looks like we've got a full house, Gladys."

"You said it, Doc."  Gladys was the head nurse, a bighearted, matronly
woman who knew enough to keep her distance, which he appreciated.
"They're all coming in at once ... laceration in Room 5, ingrown
toenail in Room 12, gallstones in Room 3 ..."

"Any urgents?"

"No immediates, seven delayeds, six totally non urgent

Suddenly, the EMS radio went off: "Twentyish white female with trauma
to the face and chest ... blood pressure ninety palpable .  good vital
signs.  ETA five minutes."

His face flushed.  He had a flash memory of five-year-old Claire
hurling herself into his arms with a breathless little laugh.  "I
always come back to you, Daddy!"

He snapped into action.  "Let's get some O-negative blood up here,
stat."

"But, Doctor ... we don't know for sure it's your--"

He was already on his way into Trauma Room 1. "Page Hurley!"

She continued babbling behind him but he shut her out, his thoughts
already spiraling inward--little Claire in sweater and shorts at the
beach, Claire feeding peanuts to the monkeys at the zoo--then he
violently shook his head.  He had to keep his wits about him.  If this
was Claire ... if indeed this was his daughter, he needed to be at the
top of his game.  He winced in the stark light of the trauma room, tore
off a joke note somebody had taped to the wall: "Just say ISO to
nefarious substances."

Moments later, the Emergency entrance doors crashed open and paramedics
wheeled the victim past the front desk directly

into Trauma Room 1. Yale heard a low, plaintive moaning as he
approached the gurney, and suddenly he was smack in the middle of a
vicious slice of nightmare.

Her injuries were incomprehensible.  Even the most trauma hardened ER
personnel fell silent, shocked at the violence inflicted on her body. 
A naked young woman lay writhing on the gurney with her eyes, mouth and
ears sutured shut.  There was so much trauma to her face, so much
swelling, her features were unrecognizable.  Blood coagulated around
the tight, precise stitches--simple running sutures placed at an equal
distance and depth, as if to avoid strangulating healthy tissue.  The
patient was hyperventilating through her nose, and her right arm, held
in rigid contortion, was sewn diagonally across her chest wall, the
right fist clamped shut, fingers sutured together like a lumpy baseball
resting on her heart.

Yale struggled for breath, knees buckling, and clutched the sides of
the gurney.  This grotesque creature, this mutilation was not his
daughter.  Couldn't be.  Not in a million years.  Forcefully, he
reminded himself he was the attending physician and, regaining his
composure, he proceeded to examine the woman's body.  Her skin was cold
and clammy.  He checked for capillary refill, applying pressure to the
palmar tip of one of the fingers until it blanched, then releasing it.
A nurse timed the interval until the fingertip "pinked up."

"Let's assess tissue perfusion, not just the BP," he said.  "Monitor
with pulse oximetry."

The patient snorted loudly at the sound of his voice.  Her hair was
caked with dirt, and there was ground-in grime on her elbows and knees.
He refused to admit to himself that he knew that long red hair.  Knew
it intimately, in fact.  That he recognized, more importantly, the
small dark mole on the underbelly of her chin.  All those years he'd
tickled it with his finger, saying, "You know what this isr It's an elf
freckle.  Definitive proof you're my

little elf."  He stood still, in shock, a tiny scream ricocheting
around inside his stubborn skull.

"Oh my God."  His voice barely registered.

"What is it, Yale?"

"It's my daughter."

Claire.  His precious Claire.  Short of breath and wheezing through her
nose.  He recognized the expiratory and inspiratory wheezing ...
hyperventilation, dyspnea.  She was having an acute asthma attack.

"Blood pressure's up to one-thirty over ninety," Hurley, the surgical
resident, said.  "She's having a little trouble breathing."

"No shit.  She's got asthma."  Overwhelmed with panic now,
uncomprehending and trembling, he started barking orders.  "Draw up
some epinephrine, stat!  We need blood.  O-negative!  Monitor peak
flow, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate."

The paramedics moved her body in one fluid motion onto the table, and
the surgical team worked both sides of the bed, swiftly and silently
placing her on a warming blanket, hooking her up to the machines.  The
stillness was interrupted only by the swish of the respirator and the
beep of the cardiac monitor.

"Her temp is up," the nurse said.  Her name, he vaguely recalled, was
Casey.  "Color looks okay."

"Give me 0.3 ml epinephrine, subcutaneous."

"But Doctor--" the nurse said.

"What?"  he snapped.

"Her vitals are still okay."

"She's having an asthma attack!"

The nurse backed off.

"I want SC epinephrine, 0.3 ml.  Hand me those scissors!"

The patient... his daughter ... struggled for breath, not getting
enough oxygen into her lungs.  Her legs kicked in panic as two nurses
pinned her down while Yale attempted to cut the sutures from her mouth.
He worked by rote, his hands jerking mechanically in response to
instructions from his brain.  He worked as

quickly as he could, trying to forget that this gruesome creature was
his daughter, his beautiful, headstrong, adorable little girl.

"Her pressure's down to one-ten over seventy.  Pulse one-ten."

The epinephrine wasn't working quickly enough.  "Give me another SC
epi, 0.3 ml, and a hundred-milligram bolus of IV methyl prednisolone

He managed to remove some of the sutures as she tossed her head from
side to side, fighting him off.  "Hold steady ... steady, please."  She
moaned like a wounded animal.  He wanted desperately to look into her
eyes, her lovely almond-shaped eyes, but they were stitched shut,
swollen and blood-encrusted.  God, how awful, how awful.  No time, not
vital.

"Calm down, Claire.  Daddy's here.  You're going to be all right,
everything's going to be all right, just calm down ..."

The voices in the room grew distant as he struggled to save his
daughter's life.  Her exposed body was a pathetic sight, a conduit for
various tubes and wires.  Hurley was feeling her belly to assess for
internal trauma, the X-ray techs were trying to get a chest.  She
became combative, kicking them away.  A hideous shriek came rattling
from her oxygen-starved lungs.

"Another SC epinephrine 0.3 ml.  Start an IV administration of
magnesium sulfate 2 gin five hundred of saline."

Suddenly she lost strength in her limbs.  With rising panic, he sensed
that she was inexplicably slipping away from him.

"Claire!  Wake up!"

She stopped breathing.  He needed to intubate.  His hands were shaking
violently now.

"Doctor--r"

"What?"  he snapped.

They were all staring at him.

"I can intubate," Hurley said in the calm, efficient voice Yale had
used himself on hundreds of hysterical patients.

"I've got it," he stubbornly insisted, somehow managing to snip the
rest of the sutures from her purplish lips.  He pried open

her mouth and, using the laryngoscope blade to push her tongue to one
side, lifted the jaw and exposed the vocal cords.  He slipped the tube
between the cords into the trachea, forcing 100 percent oxygen into her
lungs with a bag.

A nurse took over, squirting medication directly into Claire's lungs
and ventilating her with the bag.  He breathed a sigh of relief.  At
last he was regaining some measure of control, even if it was
controlled confusion.

His voice was tight.  "What's her blood pressure?"

"Dropping ... I'm getting ninety over palp ..."

"Dropping?"

"... down to seventy ..."

The roomful of faces fell simultaneously.

The monitor suddenly flat lined and she went into cardiac arrest.

"Full arrest!"

Yale stared in horror at the arm sewn across her chest.  "Remove these
sutures, now!"  he screamed.

Everybody grabbed a pair of scissors.  Precious minutes passed as the
room filled with the sound of snipping.  Yale felt sickened by the
intimate frenzy of the people around him.  When they freed her arm, he
began frantic resuscitation efforts, first hitting her in the
sternum.

"The rhythm's V-fib."

"Paddles," he said, placing them on her chest.  "Clear!"

Her body spasmed with the two hundred joules of electricity.

"Pulse?"

"No pulse."

"Clear!"  He defibrillated at three hundred joules.  "Pulse?"

"Still no pulse."

"Let's try 340.  Clear!"

"Epi in.  No pulse."

"Clear!  Check pulse."

"No pulse, Doctor."

"Goddammit!"

"No pulse, Doctor."

There was no spontaneous breathing or movement.  Her lips were blue and
her pale, clammy skin was already beginning to cool.  He couldn't
understand what had gone so terribly wrong.  They'd done everything in
their power to save her, they'd done even thing right.  She'd been
intubated, she was breathing just fine, when all of a sudden there had
been a dramatic lowering of blood pressure.  In an instant, he went
over the entire procedure in his mind, questioning each decision in
turn.  Her wounds were not terminal.  There were no fractures, no
internal bleeding, no ... He glanced at the heart monitor where a
faint, irregular pattern danced listlessly--electrical-mechanical
disassociation, the electrical impulses of the dying heart.  Her vital
signs were pre terminal He knew without even thinking about it that his
daughter was going to die.

"Code Blue!"  he screamed.  "Clear!"

His mind raced, his hands trembled.  He worked on her for twenty
minutes more, but she failed to respond.  Everything around him seemed
to slow way down.  He knew it was over but couldn't stop himself, he
had to resuscitate.  At some point, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Yale," Hurley said softly.

He let go of the paddles, a sickening sense of helplessness engulfing
him.

Everybody stood in silence around the gurney.

"Let's pronounce it," Hurley suggested.

Yale opened his mouth but the words died in his throat.  He emitted a
hissing sound, the full weight of his daughter's death crushing the air
out of his lungs.

"Time is one-thirty-three A.M."  Wednesday, November first.  Hurley
said.

The code team dispersed, leaving only Yale, Casey and the tech who
cleaned the bodies and straightened the rooms in

anticipation of family viewings.  The tech, whose name Yale couldn't
recall, braided his hair in cornrows and had the kind of disposition
Yale distrusted; he never had anything bad to say about anyone and was
always quoting Scripture.  Yale stood watching helplessly while the
tech mopped up blood from the floor and threw out used needle caps and
IV bags.  Casey was carefully removing the rest of the sutures.  She
cleaned the wounds, and Claire's face became suddenly recognizable
again.  Yale gazed down into the cornflower blue eyes of his first
child eyes fixed and dilated--and felt like a fraud.  How had he not
managed to save her?

In moments, the chaotic room was cleared.

"Excuse me, Doctor."  Gladys poked her head in.  "Your wife's here."

Feeling like a condemned man, Yale trudged down the long
ammonia-smelling corridor toward the waiting room.  When she saw him,
Jackie shot up from the sofa.

"How is she?"  She clutched his arm, an ugly tension in her face.  "Is
she okay, Yale?"

He noticed there were splotches of blood on his shoes.  He'd seen lives
wasted daily: babies sealed inside plastic bags, men with their brains
blown out.  He'd broken the news to countless families, always managing
to numb himself to their externalized pain.

"She's gone," he said flatly.

"What?"  She squinted up at him, uncomprehending.

"I did everything I could."

She shook her head, and suddenly he felt a thousand years old.  "What
are you trying to tell me, Yale?"

"I don't know what went wrong."

"So what happened?"

"She didn't make it."

"I don't understand."

His face flushed, voice going flat with anger.  "She's dead,

Jackie."

Jackie stared in disbelief.  Then the raw sound of her grief filled the
stuffy waiting room.  She lost her balance and had to be propped
upright, and Yale was forced to endure every bone chilling, unrelenting
sob.

After a while, she deflated in his arms.  Became compliant.  "I'm
okay," she said, but she was trembling.

"I don't know what went wrong ..."  His voice trailed off.  He stroked
her hair, going through the motions, dead inside.

Now Casey came hurrying down the hallway toward them, holding out
something for him to inspect.  "Dr.  Castillo?"

He looked at the object in her hand.  It was a necklace, a high school
ring looped through a long silver chain.  Dinger's ring.  Nicole's
necklace.  "Where'd you get this?"  he demanded to know.

"It was clamped in her fist."

"Whose fist?"

"Your daughter's fist.  I removed the sutures and this dropped out."

He answered her with stunned silence.

RACHEL STARED AT THE LONG SILVER CHAIN WITH THE

school ring looped through it, now coiled in the doctor's hand.

"It belongs to Nicole," he whispered.  "Dinger gave it to her."  His
eyes were wide with raw fear.  "Nicole refused to take this off.  She
even wore it to bed."

Rachel turned to the nurse, a makeup less naturally pretty woman in her
thirties.  "Where did you find this?"

"Clenched in her fist."  She demonstrated.  "I was removing the
sutures, and I pried the fingers open and this fell out."

The fact that the nurse had removed the sutures before the medical
examiner had arrived was water under the bridge now.  A more urgent
issue was at stake.  Turning to the stunned parents, Rachel asked,
"Where's Nicole?"

They exchanged a narcotized glance.

"At a friend's house," Jackie said uncertainly.  "Shelly Patton's."

"Call her."  Rachel handed Jackie her cell phone, then told the nurse,
"Don't touch anything else.  And get the medical examiner over here
right away."

The nurse hurried back up the wide corridor, scuffed white shoes
thudding dully against the beer-colored linoleum.

"Hello?"  Jackie Castillo spoke into the phone.  "Shelly?  It's
Nicole's mom, could I speak with her please?"  Cupping her hand over
the receiver, she said with visible relief, "She's in the bathroom."

"Tell her you'll wait," Rachel instructed.

Jackie put the phone to her ear again.  "Shelly?  I need to talk to
Nicole.  It's okay, I'll wait.  What?"  The fine lines of her face
creased like folded tissue paper.  "What do you mean she can't

come to the phone?  Shelly," she said in a panicked, cold cadence,
"let me speak with your mother."

SHELLY PATTON SOBBED HYSTERICALLY IN THE SPACIOUS,

antique-filled living room of her home, just five doors down from the
Castillos'.  A petite brunette whose dull, edge less features found
their mirror image in the faces of family members gazing out of
expensive frames mounted on the living room walls, Shelly spoke
haltingly between sobs.  "Nicole said that ... she and Dinger were
gonna ... meet someplace secret..."

"Did she say where?"  Rachel asked as the girl cringed beneath
McKissack's steely scrutiny like some cornered animal.  "Where were
they going to meet?"

Shelly's thin-lipped mother stood off to one side.  "Shelly," she said,
"sit up straight and answer the question."

Shelly shook her head, mucus bubbles dangling from her nose.

"So you agreed to cover for her?"

"Yeah," she sniffed, daubing at her wet face with trembling fingers.
"She told me they wanted to be alone for like a whole night ... she
said, "Do me a favor, okay?  "And I said, "Yeah, okay," and it was like
no big deal ..."

McKissack loomed over the girl like a pure floating spirit of
malevolence.  "It's extremely important that you tell us the truth,
Shelly.  Nicole could be in serious trouble."

"I know," she wailed, burying her face in her hands.

"Help us find your friend."

"I'm trying!"  she blubbered.

"Shelly," her mother scolded.  "Look at Chief McKissack when he's
talking to you."

Shelly reluctantly lifted her mottled, hysterical lace.  "I don't know
where they went... someplace secret, she said!"

Rachel didn't like the look in McKissack's eyes.

Back outside in the New England drizzle, he told her, "This is about as
bad as it gets."

SENSING HE HAD A CRISIS ON HIS HANDS, MCKISSACK ORGAnized another
full-scale search-and-rescue operation.  Officers, bloodhounds and over
three hundred volunteers combed the surrounding forests and cornfields
in the pouring rain.  The entire neighborhood within a two-mile radius
was thoroughly searched.  It rained all day and into the night, and
didn't start to clear until the following morning when helicopters with
special heat-seeking detection equipment repeatedly circled the area,
spotters on board searching for Nicole's yellow T-shirt, her red
backpack, a body lying in a cornfield or a swamp.  Patrol ears cruised
the tangled back roads, searching abandoned buildings, dumpsters and
ditches on their meandering route.  Patrolmen stopped to talk with the
locals, displaying Nicole's picture and asking if anyone had seen
her.

Around 10:00 A.M."  Rachel pulled into the parking lot behind the
medical examiner's building on Lagrange and met McKis sack in the
basement where the autopsies were performed.  Archie Fortuna was
pushing sixty-five but nobody wanted to get rid of him.  He had the
stamina of a much younger man and a mind as sharp and functional as a
tack.  He was corpulent, with a shock of white hair like the tuft on a
cockatoo, and today he reeked of garlic and onions.

The three of them donned surgical masks, gowns and gloves

before entering the morgue.  Claire Castillo's body was laid out on a
steel tray on top of a gurney, lit by an overhead fluorescent lamp.
Rachel could see where the blood had pooled on the underside of the
body, and there were tiny holes in the flesh of the victim's chest,
face and right arm from where the sutures had been.  Her long red hair
coiled onto the steel tray like a bolt of silk.

Beginning the postmortem, Archie examined the external features of the
girl's body in minute detail before starting an internal exam.  Tracing
a gloved finger over the suture holes in her chest, he said, "These
were simple running sutures made of nonabsorbable cotton thread.  The
nurse saved them for me."  He pointed at an evidence bag full of curled
lengths of blood encrusted thread.  "The sutures were placed at an
equal distance and depth and didn't strangulate any of the tissue.
Knotted on the better-vascularized wound edge."

"So this guy knew what he was doing?"  McKissack asked, stress showing
on his face.

"Maybe.  Or could be he's just very neat."  Archie delicately lifted
the girl's left arm.  X rays of the body were displayed in light boxes
mounted on the far wall.  "Injuries to her wrist were antemortem."

"Ten years old," Rachel said.

"There's some sort of sticky residue on her wrists and ankles ..."

"Duct tape," McKissack surmised.

"I'm taking fingernail scrapings now ... looks like mud.  There's dirt
ground into her knees and elbows, and lots of mud and debris on her
body from where she crawled through the woods."

"That's how they found her, right?"  Rachel asked, the thought of it
causing a tectonic shift inside of her.  "Crawling out of the woods on
her hands and knees?"

"All sutured up and everything, yep.  Dragged herself along by

one arm," Archie said, his voice cruelly matter-of-fact.  "Three of
her nails are broken off."

Archie switched on a Luma-Lite, which normally caused any hairs, fibers
or semen stains on the body to glow.  Traces of luminescent fuzz showed
up around her face, neck and chest, especially in the areas of sutured
flesh where fibers clung to the drying blood.  "A lot of these fibers
and hairs might've been picked up in the ambulance or the ER," Archie
said, collecting evidence with a mini--vacuum cleaner.

McKissack stood stiffly beside Rachel, their arms touching, while
Archie slowly ran the Luma-Lite down the length of the victim's body.
He paused on a bright yellow splotch on the victim's left calf.

"Looks like we got lucky, Chief," Archie said, taking a sample.  "I've
found a small amount of what appears to be semen on her left calf.  If
the perp is a secretor, we can get blood type and markers down at the
state lab."

"So he raped her?"  McKissack asked.

"Don't know yet, Chief," Archie said.  "Let's wait until we complete
the internal.  You know," he said, looking at them, "this little piece
of equipment's the best investment I ever made."

"Expensive?"  McKissack asked.

"Hell, the entire lab costs the community one movie ticket per year per
person.  Not bad," he said.  "She was in good health overall.  Well
nourished."

Rachel glanced at McKissack, whose jaw was set.

"At some point, the UN SUB removed her clothes, her jewelry,
everything," Archie said with a shake of his head, "even her earrings.
My guess is he washed her body before driving her out to the woods.
Also took his time making those sutures.  They were very precise."

"He use an anesthetic?"  McKissack asked.

"Without a painkiller of some sort, she would've put up quite a

struggle.  Let me show you something."  He shone the Luma-Lite on the
corpse's feet, which lit up with bright bits of grass and fiery
splotches of mud.  "The soles of her feet are blistered, embedded with
debris ... pine needles, dirt, pebbles ... indicating that she walked
quite a ways through the woods."

"I thought you said she crawled?"

"Crawled out of the woods.  Walked into the woods."  He aimed the
Luma-Lite at her slightly swollen right foot, parted two of her toes,
and a distinctive orange area about the size of a dime lit up.  "See
this spot between the toes here?  If you look real close, you can see a
hole slightly larger than a pinprick."

"An injection site?"  McKissack asked, and Rachel felt him stiffen
beside her.

"Barry?  Let's take some samples."

Archie's assistant, Barry, a thin young man with wire-rim glasses, pale
droopy hair and an even droopier demeanor, handed Archie a bottle and
some swabs, and Archie took samples of the chemical around the site of
the puncture wound.

"I'll need a syringe, Barry."

"Are you saying she was drugged?"  Rachel asked.

"We won't know for sure until the toxicologist examines the blood,
stomach contents, urine and liver.  You know, centuries ago, they
believed that the heart of a person who'd been poisoned wouldn't
burn."

"So you suspect she was poisoned?"

Archie shrugged as he collected vitreous samples with a needle and
syringe and placed them in the glass containers Barry held up gingerly
to him.  "You say the ER staff couldn't figure out what went wrong.
Maybe they didn't do anything wrong.  Maybe she was injected with a
slow-acting poison.  If she was, it should be present in the blood.
Actually, the best place to find poison is in the liver, since it's the
garbage pail of the body."

"What kind of poison?"  McKissack asked.

"You got me, Chief.  There are ten million organic chemicals,

and each of those can be combined with one or more other chemicals to
form an infinite number of mixtures.  If you think about it, anything
in great enough quantity can be toxic.  Water can be toxic."

"Water?"

"People drown."  He winked.

"Let me get this straight," Rachel said, trying to fathom the horror of
it all.  "The UN SUB held her captive, kept her well fed and in fairly
good shape ... and then, sometime late last night, he anesthetized
her..."

"Slipped her a Mickey," McKissack suggested.

"Stripped her, washed her body ..."

"Washing away all traces of any hairs or fibers that might later
incriminate him."

"Mutilated her, stitching up her face and torso, then drove her out to
the woods, where he escorted her to a specific location--"

"Whoa, wait a minute," McKissack said.  "Escorted her?"

"Archie said she walked through the woods long enough to get blisters
on the bottoms of her feet.  With her eyes sewn shut like that, she had
to have been escorted."  She tried not to imagine Claire stepping over
branches and pinecones and twigs, maneuvering her way past wet fir
boughs with one arm sewn to her chest--eyes, ears and mouth stitched
shut.  "Then he forced her to lie down on the ground and injected her
with some slow acting poison?"

"This place between the toes is fairly clean, like it's been swabbed,"
Archie said.  "All the bits of debris were wiped off, and there's
cotton fibers around the site.  I'm going to do a biopsy.  The muscle
is well preserved."

"Wait a minute.  Why march your victim through the woods and then drug
her?"  Rachel asked.

"So that we'd find her there," McKissack suggested.

"But she didn't stay put.  Besides, why would it matter where we found
her?"

McKissack shrugged.  "Why clean the body of all trace evidence, then
leave your sperm behind?"

"Maybe he knows he's a nonsecretor?"  Archie suggested.

"Who found her?"  Rachel asked.

"Ozzie Rudd."  McKissack's countenance was grim.

"What?"

"Claims he spotted her from his rig.  Looks like you reopened the
D'Agostino case just in time."

"Where was she when he spotted her?"

"Crawling out of the woods onto Winnetka Road."

Rachel shuddered, wondering how you could crawl anywhere with your
right arm sewn to your chest, in awe of the victim's bravery.

"She's got abrasions on both knees," Archie said, taking samples.  "The
skin's embedded with dirt.  Lesser abrasions on both elbows.  Some
bruising around the neck and chest, but that could've occurred in the

ER."

Rachel nodded.  "Intubation and CPR."

"Faint ligature marks on the wrists and ankles."  Archie pointed them
out.  "Here ... here ... a slight bruising around the mouth, possibly
from a gag."

"He held her captive for three weeks," Rachel said.  "She must've been
bound and gagged at least some of the time."

"Probably most of it," McKissack guessed.  "Unless he kept her drugged
the entire time."

Archie flicked off the Luma-Lite and straightened his back with a
good-natured groan.  "No major contusions or hematomas.  No
fractures."

"Dinger's not sophisticated enough to pull off something like this,"
Rachel said.

"Ozzie Rudd is," McKissack said.

"I hope to God those two ran away together."

"If they did, we wouldn't have the ring," McKissack reminded

her.  "Whoever it is, he's taunting us.  He's got Nicole, all right.
He's probably got them both."

Rachel choked back the outrage she'd been feeling all morning.  There
was no place to put it.  They were impotent, playing some surreal
guessing game, trying to shine a penlight into the dim recesses of a
sick and twisted psyche.

"Hmm," Archie said, swabbing the vagina and anus for semen.  "No
evidence of rape.  No internal abrasions.  No visible semen stains,
except for the single deposit on her calf."

"I don't get it," McKissack said.  "First he kidnaps her, but there's
no ransom note.  Then he waits three weeks before he drops her off in
the woods, where he ejaculates on her leg.  But first he mutilates her
face and body.  This is fucking unbelievable."

"Then the other daughter disappears," Rachel picked up the thread, "and
her necklace ends up in Claire's hand, tipping us off.  He wants us to
know what he's done."

"Maybe we should look at the father again?"  McKissack said.  "I mean,
what are the odds that both of your daughters get targeted by the same
psychopath?  Let alone the fact that he's a doctor, he knows how to
suture a wound."

"Yale Castillo may be an arrogant jerk," Rachel said, "but he's no
psychopath.  They're a close-knit family.  He adores his daughters.
They're the light of his life."

McKissack tore off his surgical mask.  "All I know is, we've got one
demented puppy-kicking freak on our hands."  He stormed out of the
morgue.

Steeling herself, Rachel headed after him.

 SHE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM IN The BACK PARKING LOT.  MCK1Ssack's jacket
was off, his shirt drenched with sweat.  Above them, red-winged
blackbirds razored the granite-colored sky.

"Time's against us with this type of intelligent, organized offender,"
McKissack said, eyes focused sharply on some middle distance.  "This
crime was well planned, not opportunistic.  He's clearly from the area.
We're dealing with a local."

"There's something I don't understand," Rachel said.  "Why drop her off
in the woods alive?  After all, he'd held her captive for nearly three
weeks.  If she'd lived, she would've been able to identify him through
his voice, the abduction site, maybe even a physical description.  Why
take such a chance?"

"He must've known she wasn't gonna make it."

"The injection."  She nodded.  "But the drug didn't kill her right
away.  What kind of poison doesn't take effect for several hours?"

"You took a toxicology class, right?  Give it your best shot."

She turned the question over in her mind.  "Arsenic is tasteless,
odorless and easy to obtain.  But death is slow and painful.  Besides,
there was no vomiting or diarrhea."

"Heroin overdose?"

"Very strong central nervous system depressant.  No needle tracks, and
therefore no repeat injections.  No vomitus.  In a typical heroin
overdose, the lungs are heavy and show congestion."

"Cyanide?"

She shook her head.  "There'd be localized areas of bright red livor
mortis, cherry red or pink."

"Strychnine?"

"Symptoms occur within minutes.  Violent convulsions."

"Insulin?"

"Takes too long.  Seizures."

"Antidepressants?"

"It's possible.  Confusion, hallucinations, and agitation, progressing
to seizures or coma.  We should be able to detect liver levels of the
drug."

"Antidepressants combined with alcohol?"

"I didn't smell any alcohol, did you?"

McKissack shook his head.  "We'll have to wait for the lab results.
We're dealing with a sophisticated and extremely dangerous man,
somebody we may have already interviewed."

"We interviewed almost two hundred people," she said, overwhelmed by
the implication.

"He needs time alone in a secluded area where he knows he won't be
disturbed."  McKissack's eyes glistened with intense speculation.  "We
should expect some sort of criminal record.  Assaults on women, or at
least obscene phone calls.  He's orderly, perhaps obsessively neat." 
He cleared his throat, spit on the sidewalk.  "Our offender may have a
record, or else there may be an unsolved rape or murder in his
background.  Which leads us back to our good friend, Ozzie."

She gave voice to her skepticism.  "Ozzie Rudd?"

"Think about it.  No evidence of forced penetration in the D'Agostino
case, either, and the body was found just a few miles east of Winnetka
Road."  McKissack was wearing dark glasses that reflected only the sky,
and it disappointed her that she couldn't see his eyes.  On the far
horizon, storm-strewn clouds appeared to be racing westward.

"I really think you're wrong," she said.

"So who found Claire Castillo?"

"We have to assume it was pure coincidence."

"Fat fucking chance."

"Besides, why go to all that trouble, only to cast suspicion on
yourself by 'rescuing' the victim?"

"Cheap thrills?  Hero syndrome?"

"He passed the polygraph eighteen years ago."

"Results were inconclusive," he corrected her.  "His alibi was a scared
sixteen-year-old girl, a known shoplifter."  He scowled.  "So now he
knows he can beat the box.  At least we've got the semen stain.  If
he's a secretor, we'll be able to match the markers."

"You've got a blood sample?"

"We know his blood type.  That'll narrow it down.  He'll volunteer a
sample once we bring him in for questioning."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then he becomes our prime suspect."

"Do you honestly think Ozzie Rudd is capable of something so heinous
and well organized?"

"Three individuals stand out in my mind."  McKissack's teeth were
clenched.  "Ozzie Rudd, Dinger Tedesco and Buck Folette."

"Buck Folette?  I thought you put a tail on him?"

McKissack shook his head.  "Local law enforcement refused to cooperate.
We think the family got to them."

"What about the cabin by the ocean?"

"Family refused to sign a consent search."  McKissack's eyes scanned
the low-hanging clouds.  "Tapper tailed him for about a week, but I
needed him back here.  We don't know where the hell Buck Folette was
last night."

Rachel shook her head.  "He drives a red pickup truck and his house is
a mess."

McKissack shot her a skeptical look.

"We did profiling at the academy.  You said so yourself, the UN SUB is
orderly, organized.  He swabbed the injection site in the middle of the
woods.  Those stitches were precise.  Which means he's compulsive.
Which means his house and car should be fairly well maintained.
Orderly, compulsive perpetrators tend to buy dark-colored cars and
replace them every couple of years.  Buck's pickup is at least ten
years old and it's fire-engine red.  Also the UN SUB most likely has a
great deal of difficulty with women.  BuckFolette collects girlfriends
the way a sheepdog attracts fleas."

"You may be right."  McKissack shrugged.  "Let's see if he's got an
alibi for last night."

"I'd like to interview Dr.  Castillo again," Rachel said.  "I'd like to
find out what happened in the ER."

McKissack nodded.  "I'll talk to Rudd myself."

Sunlight shot through the clouds in slices, momentarily highlighting
the rugged planes of his face.  She wanted to hold him for a moment,
just to keep from shivering to death.

"I never took a profiling course," McKissack said, "but I know what my
gut tells me, and my gut is telling me this was a deliberate act, well
planned and personal."

Rachel nodded.  "Whoever did this wanted to depersonalize her.  Wanted
to degrade her.  That's why he stripped her of her clothes and
mutilated her face."

"The mutilation serves two purposes," McKissack said.  "One, it caused
her a great deal of pain and humiliation, so you can deduce there's a
tremendous amount of anger there.  And two, by sewing her mouth shut,
he prevented us from finding out about his identity immediately."

"It acted like a gag until the drug or poison had time to take
effect."

"He bought himself a little time.  He knew she was going to die.  He
planned it that way.  But why?"

Rachel was quiet a few seconds.  "Whoever it is, I can't fathom the
depth of his depravity.  To actually sit there and do this meticulous
work with the stitching.  It's pure evil."

They locked eyes.

"Things like this aren't supposed to happen here," she said.  "I'm
frightened for Nicole ... for her family ... I don't think they can go
through the trauma of losing another child.  I don't think Jackie
Castillo can take it."

"We'll find her," he said with determined, angry eyes.  "We'll find
them both alive, or I'll quit my fucking job."

All the warmth had drained from her body.  She felt as cold as a
corpse.  "I won't be able to sleep until they're both home safe," she
said.

A clap of thunder announced a sudden downpour, rain beating on their
uncovered heads.  McKissack's umbrella flapped noisily open, and he
drew her close so they could share it, his big arm snaking around her.
Rachel nestled against him, feeling terribly lonely.  Most of her
family was gone, her relationship with her brother was strained, all
her friends had left the area years ago--Anne Marie was a lawyer in
Washington, Linda an advertising executive in Manhattan.  Everyone had
flown the coop, and yet here she was, turning to a married man for
comfort.

"My breath stinks," McKissack apologized, and she hugged him tight,
needing his warmth.

A HEAVINESS SUFFUSED RACHEL'S LIMBS AS SHE RETURNED TO

the hospital to speak with Dr.  Yale Castillo once again.  He hadn't
taken off from work despite his daughter's death, and Rachel thought
she understood.

"Why aren't you out looking for my other daughter?"  he demanded to
know.

She was seated in the same suffocating leather chair as before, feeling
small and powerless, and that was no good.  The case was complicated in
a deep and murky way, and she tried to summon the mental energy she
needed in order to solve it.  "I'm here to find out what happened in
the ER," she said, and he nodded in a resigned fashion.

"The call schedule ran twenty-four hours.  It was a busy shift, the
usual mix of minor trauma and accidents.  Nothing to get the blood
pumping.  Then an announcement came over the radio, ambulance with
trauma."  He rubbed his hands over his cheeks.  "When they wheeled her
in, I didn't recognize her at first.  I thought, this isn't my
daughter.  This is some monstrous ... mistake.  But then the hairs
stood up on the back of my neck and suddenly I knew."  His shoulders
sagged.  "It's been a singular experience for me, Detective."

Rachel's jaw ached from clenching her teeth, and she forced herself to
relax.

"Claire had a history of asthma," he went on, "moderate, not severe.
There was no prior need for intubation.  She'd always responded well in
the past to a treatment of nebulized beta agonists and oral
steroids."

Rachel shifted uncomfortably, sensing the precarious fragility in those
sunken eyes.  "So what happened?"

"I assessed airway and breathing.  Her skin was cold and clammy and she
was short of breath.  I assumed her recent exposure to the cold air and
intense emotional stress had triggered an acute asthma attack.  For
moderate cases, I usually give beta-agonists, but for severe attacks, a
dose of subcutaneous epinephrine is used when aerosolized medication
can't reach the target airway.  So we administered three systemic
injections of epinephrine, but her condition didn't improve."

Rachel could hear the controlled frenzy of the ER behind her, nurses
and interns running up and down the corridor outside the doctor's
office.  "Was that the only medication she was given?"

"No," he continued in a hoarse whisper.  "We also gave a bolus of IV
methyl prednisolone When her condition failed to improve significantly,
I ordered an IV administration of magnesium sulfate. But this had
little effect as well, and we had to intubate.

"We used ketamine to provide sedation and bronchodilation.  We used
slightly smaller tidal volumes than average on a

volume-preset ventilator.  We assessed breath sounds and obtained
arterial blood gas.  But by then, her blood pressure was plummeting."
Leaning forward earnestly, he said, "I can't for the life of me figure
out what went wrong."

"So you opened her airway:1"

"Yes."  He gave a defeated sigh.  "She was fine.  She was breathing
normally.  She should've been okay.  Then her blood pressure dropped to
critical levels, and she lost consciousness."

"What happened next?"

Lowering his head, he cradled his broad, damp forehead in his hands.
"Full cardiac arrest."

"Is it possible," she asked, "something could've gone wrong with the
intubation?"

He shook his head.  "I've done it a million times.  I could intubate in
my sleep."

They sat in stony silence.  She could almost count each inky strand of
hair combed across his bald spot.  "My hands were shaking by that
point.  My hands never shake."

"You administered CPR yourself?"

"Her vital signs were pre terminal I called a Code Blue."  His voice
trailed off.  He stroked his head as if he were petting a dying animal.
"I tried to resuscitate for about twenty minutes.  I refused to give
up.  I refused to call it.  Hurley had to do it."

"Who's Hurley?"

"One of my residents."  He straightened up, eyes red-rimmed and
gleaming like surgical equipment.  "There's an old joke.  The procedure
was a success, but the patient died."

"I'm so sorry about your loss," she said, getting up.  "I want you to
know we're doing everything we can to find your other daughter."

His face contorted, caught between a sob and his effort to control it,
and he confessed, "I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and
don't know if that's me screaming."

She didn't know how to respond to such incalculable grief.

SHUTTING THE DOOR TO DR.  CAST ILLO OFFICE BEHIND HER,

Rachel felt a cold finger on her arm.  She spun around and recognized
the nurse from the waiting room, the one who'd brought them Nicole's
necklace.  She had an experienced grace about her, her eyes honest and
direct.

"Detective Storrow?  Can we talk?"

"Of course."

"Not here."

Rachel followed her out into a barren-looking alleyway between two
cinder block buildings where they stood shivering beside a dumpster
overflowing with IV bags and crumpled paper gowns.

"My name's Casey," the nurse said.  "Casey Angstrom.  I don't feel
particularly great about what I'm about to tell you, the patient being
his daughter and all ... but I just can't keep it to myself anymore."

"Keep what to yourself?"

Casey's face was a slab of candor.  "It wasn't an asthma attack."

"What?"

Casey paused for a moment, her moist eyes scanning the turnip-colored
sky.  "During the assessment period, we're supposed to provide critical
interventions, including positioning and supplemental oxygen.  What
should've been done immediately is, we should've removed those sutures
from her mouth.  If we'd removed them immediately, I could have
administered one hundred percent oxygen through the bag and it may not
have been necessary to resort to any other interventions.  Her color
was good, her temp was up.  She had good vital signs."

"Can you explain how you knew it wasn't asthma?"

"My brother has asthma.  I know what it sounds like, those attacks. I'd
know them in my sleep.  The patient presented none of the symptoms of a
severe attack, outside of frantic breathing.  She was agitated and she
was hyperventilating, hut in my opinion, she wasn't wheezing. There's a
difference.  She was scared to death.  Panic-stricken."  She squinted
at Rachel with extremely alert, intelligent eyes as if trying to
impress upon her the gravity of this information.  "The patient came to
us with generalized swelling and trauma to the face and upper chest,
but she had good vitals.  She had good pressure.  One-thirty over
ninety.  Pulse eighty-five."

"So you're saying ... ?"

"Who wouldn't panic with your eyes, ears and mouth sewn shut?  Who
wouldn't have trouble breathing?  It must've been terrifying."

"Are you telling me that Dr.  Castillo didn't need to intubate?  That
he didn't have to use the procedures he used?"

"Oh no," she said, "no, something happened.  I don't know what.  After
we administered the third injection of epinephrine, shortly after the
third injection, there was a sudden, rapid decrease in blood pressure
amplitude.  She went into shock."

"Dr.  Castillo made a mistake?"

"I don't mean to question the doctor's decisions."

Rachel was confused.  "But you are questioning the doctor's
decisions."

"All I'm saying is, there was a lot of panic in that room."

"So he misdiagnosed her original condition?"

"Gosh, I suddenly feel like I'm on the witness stand."  She edged
toward the exit door.  "I don't know what went wrong.  But I think the
whole thing could've been avoided if we'd all kept our heads.  When
they wheeled her in, she was okay.  Scared, but okay.  I tried to tell
the doctor."

"Exactly what difference would it have made?"

"I don't know."

"Then why tell me?"

She shook her head mutely, eyes wide, and Rachel knew she was holding
something back.  "I've gotta go."

"Casey..."

"I really have to go now ... they'll be wondering where I am.  I don't
want them to know I was talking to you."

"What went wrong in there, Casey?"

"I don't know.  Something awful.  I never want to be that scared again
as long as I live."

GUS ENTERED THE CLASSROOM SWINGING HIS CANE IN SUCH

broad, lethal arcs, Abraham Andrews had to leap out of his way.  Gus
must've been crying because his eyes were swollen shut, and Abraham
guessed he'd heard the ugly rumors circulating around school.  Abraham
was the director of Winfield School for the Blind and Special Needs,
and his neck was stiff from lack of sleep.  He detested being put in
such a position, but Billy Storrow, Claire's teacher's aide, had called
him late last night to confess he didn't know what to tell the
children, didn't have a clue, and so it was up to Abraham to break the
news.

"All right, boys and girls.  Settle down."

The students formed a semicircle, luminous faces uplifted, heads cocked
toward the sound of his voice.  The room's stillness was insufferable.
Claire Castillo's absence clanged like a bell.  She should have been
there, brushing her long, flowing hair off her face, fingering the tiny
gold cross at the base of her throat.

Abraham considered Claire to be one of the best teachers he'd ever
hired, but he didn't know about Billy.  How could someone so bright be
so lacking in ambition?  What was he now, thirty-four?

Billy Storrow was leaning against the blackboard, trying to make
himself invisible.  Arms crossed, eyes downcast.  His knees wobbled,
but his feet somehow managed to plant themselves, and Abraham silently
encouraged him to pull himself together.  Come on, boy, suck it up.
Abraham was there to break the news, but Billy would have to shoulder
the rest of the day himself until a substitute teacher could be
found.

"I'm afraid I've got bad news."  Abraham couldn't keep his usually
booming voice from shaking.  "Some of you may have already heard about
Ms.  Castillo ..."  He broke off in mid-sentence.  Their wide,
expectant eyes were indifferent to the glaring sunlight, and suddenly
he realized how unknowable they were in their innocence.  Next to these
children, he felt old.  Worn-out.  "Ms.  Castillo passed away last
night," he said simply.

The children remained remarkably silent, fingering their pencils and
gazing at the sunlight slanting in through the windows.

"We've all been invited to the service this coming weekend."

"What happened?"  one of the students asked.  Her name was Gabie.
Abraham only had to be introduced once, and the name stuck.  "How come
she had to die?"

Billy wilted, hands covering his face.

Abraham glanced around the room.  "Her heart stopped," he said as
gently as he could.

"Why?"

"Because she was very sick."

"Why?"

"I don't know, children."

"How come her heart stopped?"  a tall boy named Luke wanted to know.
"What happened?"

"There was ... an accident," Abraham hedged, shooting Billy

a sideways glance.  No wonder he'd palmed this heartbreaking little
task off on him.  But it was all right.  Abraham had broad shoulders.

"What kind of an accident?"

"Mr.  Storrow?"  Gus said.  "Are you here?"

"Yes, I'm here."  The children turned expectantly toward the sound of
his voice as if he were an index of their despair and hope.

"What happened to Ms.  Castillo?"

Abraham detected the sub-Richter shift of Billy's pupils and thought to
himself, This won't do.

"Sometimes," Billy answered in a voice softened by sustained shock,
"sometimes bad things happen to really nice people.  There's no ...
there's no explanation why, really ... there's no--"

"She was murdered," one of the children blurted.

There it was.  The word hung suspended in the air.  A communal gasp was
followed by a stunned silence.  Things had strayed far afield.

"Now, children," Abraham said, "speculation will get us nowhere."

"That's not true, is it, Mr.  Storrow?"  Gabie wanted to know.  She had
an awkward way of sitting, never resting for too long in one place, as
if she were being constantly observed.  "Was she murdered?"

Billy was trembling visibly now, lightning dancing behind his eyes.
This wouldn't do.  Not at all.  Another few minutes and he'd be
blubbering like a toddler.  Abraham realized he'd better rearrange his
schedule in order to accommodate these anxious and confused students.
They sorely needed an adult around.

"Who killed her?"  Gus asked, tears streaming down his battered face.
They were all staring vacantly, mouths dots of despair.

"We don't know what happened," Abraham said firmly, taking

the reins.  The class was his now.  "All we know is that someone we
all loved and cared about is no longer with us."

"Where is she?"  asked a small voice.

Looking around the room, he tried to match the face with the voice, and
found the tiny albino girl, the one with the key fetish.  "Well,
Brigette," he said, "she's in heaven now."

The children fell silent again, and he hoped they were conjuring up
their beloved teacher in heaven with wings and a halo, for that was
certainly where Claire Castillo belonged.

THE CAST ILLO HOUSEHOLD WAS THICK WITH ANGUISH.  RAchel crossed the
dining room past an eight-person dining table and matching oak hutch
into the living room, where an impeccably groomed Jackie Castillo
waited for her on the white sectional sofa.  "I stare at the phone and
pray for good news," she confessed, her angular face streaked with
sunlight.  "When it rings, I practically jump out of my skin."

"I'd like to go through Nicole's bedroom," Rachel said softly, "to
search for any possible clues."

"Yes, of course."  Jackie reluctantly emerged from her cloud of grief.
"Right this way."  Her light touch wouldn't threaten a house of
cards.

It was a typical teenager's room, except for the traces of fingerprint
powder covering every surface: newly purchased clothes, stuffed animals
tumbling off the bed, old Cabbage Patch dolls and Judy Blume books
lining the shelves.  There was a dusty telescope in one corner, a stack
of CDs and a CD player in the other.  The last album she'd been
listening to was Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'.

On the desktop was a Macintosh computer and printer, schoolbooks and
crumpled homework pages.  Tucked in the top drawer was an illicit pack
of cigarettes, five dollars in change, and a love letter from Dinger
Tedesco: "I will never stop loving you.  You are so beautiful, Nicole.
Did I ever tell you how beautiful you were?  U have all the answers.
Yers 4-ever, Dinger.

XXXOOOXXX."

Everything--clothes, CDs, books, makeup--was accounted for, except for
what Nicole had worn out of the house that night, along with her bike
and backpack.  Jackie described her daughter's outfit: pair of spandex
tights, white sweat socks, hiking boots, yellow T-shirt, blue down
jacket, the silver necklace holding Dinger's school ring, two
glow-in-the-dark barrettes in the shape of stars, two tiny gold hoop
earrings.

Like her sister before her, Nicole had simply disappeared.  Rachel
didn't know how much more of this she could take.  The room spoke of
the incredible promise of this child on the verge of womanhood.

Nauseated, she left the house, walked out to her car and stood in the
freezing cold.  Every angry thought found instant expression inside her
crowded brain, where promising leads circled and collided with alibis
and dead ends.  She needed to vacuum her mental landscape.  Stop
thinking, she silently insisted, staring at her own papery breath
smudging the bitter autumn air.

RACHEL VISITED THE PLACE IX THE WOODS WHERE CLAIRE

Castillo was last seen alive, a rise near Highway 71 less than a mile
from the downtown business district.  The forest floor was wet from the
recent downpour, carpeted with sword ferns and

fallen leaves.  Old Mo Heppenheimer's cow pasture, where Melissa
D'Agostino's body had been discovered eighteen years ago, was two miles
east.  Rachel stood for a moment in the shadow of the tall pines and
surveyed the eorcloned-off area.  Officers were combing the woods for
clues, and so far nothing useful had been found.  They'd spent the day
soaked to the bone, sifting through wet leaves, overturning stones and
kicking in rotten stumps in their relentless search for evidence.

Rachel trudged past a deadfall fir, with each step her heart beating
just a little harder for the young woman she hadn't been able to save.
She slid down a slimy incline, wondering what it must have been like
for Claire on this death march through the woods.  The UN SUB most
likely had pulled his car over onto the shoulder of Highway 71,
escorted her toward this general area, forced her to lie down, injected
her with an unknown substance and then exited the area, leaving Claire
to crawl out of the woods on her own.  Rachel hoped against hope the UN
SUB had left something of himself behind, but once again the heavy
rainfall didn't help.

Rachel made a mental map of the area.  Eighteen years ago, five stray
cats had been decapitated in a grove one and a half miles northeast of
this location, and Melissa D'Agostino had been strangled to death two
miles east of here.  Her heart was a fist knocking against her rib
cage.  The clouds were torn away, sun shining down through a canopy of
golden leaves, and suddenly everything seemed crystal clear.  She
thought about her brother, the absence of grief in his dull eyes after
their father's tragic suicide.  She vividly recalled a dream he'd once
had about killing a neighborhood girl.  She lived on their block, and
rumor had it she liked to play doctor.  Billy must Ye been thirteen or
fourteen, and he hated this girl, he said.  In his dream, he cut off
her head.  It was the way he'd said it that stuck with her, eyes
flashing, mouth a vicious blur, just like his idea about the Old
Testament God being better than the New Testament Codbrutal, bitter,
avenging, murderous, the kind of deity who took no prisoners and made
no excuses.

She loved her brother but didn't fully understand him.  Sometimes they
could be so close, yet other times he withdrew from her like a snail
into its shell.  Even as children, she sensed he had a secret life.  He
could have easily become a teacher, but instead he'd chosen to remain a
teacher's aide.  He'd won a scholarship to Amherst, had majored in
English, had graduated with honors, and yet he'd never written so much
as a paragraph as far as she could tell.  He was bright and kind, the
best brother anybody could ever want, yet he'd alienated himself from
all his old friends and had never had a successful relationship with a
woman.  His one long-term relationship lasted only a few years. Gillian
Dumont.  She'd moved away over a decade ago and nobody had been able to
locate her after she left Seattle.

Billy lived alone in a house four miles north of here, and worked at
Winfield, half a mile to the northwest.  Billy was obsessively neat. 
He owned a dark-colored car, a forest green Plymouth Breeze.  He'd
always had difficulties with women.  He was very intelligent and
organized. He'd been implicated in the murder of Melissa D'Agostino and
he'd admitted to killing those cats.  Disturbed individuals were known
to torture animals in their childhood.  Violence was generational. 
Billy was a local.  He lived in a secluded part of town and had, in the
past, rented a cabin in the woods near the Canadian border.

Rachel shook her head.  What kind of desperate speculation was this? 
It went against everything she knew about her brother.  Despite his
shortcomings, Billy was no monster.  It failed to make sense to her on
any level, and she dropped the thought as abruptly as it had
appeared.

Reaching for a tree branch, Rachel hauled herself out of a ravine and
grabbed the trunk of a birch tree.  There were indentations in the
bark, three gnarled holes that reminded her of the holes in a bowling
ball.  People sometimes collected sap from

these trees, drilling holes with a gimlet, then hanging a tomato can
on a nail to collect the water-sap.  She traced her fingers over the
rough, sticky bark, then looked around at the patches of light and
shadow, the sky above her a stirred-up summer blue.  Exactly the kind
of weather they should've had four weeks ago when Claire Castillo first
went missing, instead of this relentless downpour that washed away
fingerprints and fibers, hairs and precious clues, leaving no odor for
the bloodhounds to track.  It was cosmically unfair.

Rachel followed an overgrown trail to Winnetka Road, where Ozzie Rudd
had spotted the victim crawling out of the forest.  They'd already
examined the marks in the leafy dirt where she'd dragged herself along,
semiconscious.  With her mouth sewn shut, Claire wouldn't have been
able to scream for help.

The chirp of brakes snapped Rachel's train of thought in half.
McKissack got out of his car and joined her by the side of the road,
his face peppered with beard stubble, eyes red-rimmed from lack of
sleep.  He put on a pair of mirrored glasses and gripped her arm.  "How
are you?"

"Fine."

"Funny, you don't look so hot."

"Neither do you."  She smiled back.

"No word from the lab yet about the semen."  McKissaek's mouth tucked
around the corners.  "How about you?  Any luck?"

"One of the nurses at the hospital told me she didn't think Claire
Castillo had an asthma attack in the ER that night.  She seemed
concerned about the doctor's decision to treat the patient for acute
asthma."

McKissack shrugged.  "Ultimately, it wouldn't've mattered what he did
if she was poisoned."

"Did you get the toxicology report?"

"Not yet."

"What about Buck Folette?"

"Claims he was planted on a barstool in Laconia the entire night hut
can't remember which bar.  We're checking it out."

"Claire's landlord?"

"Says he was home alone, mainlining Laverne & Shirley reruns.  Tapper's
taking his statement as we speak."

"I thought you put a car on him, too?"

"We did, for two weeks."  McKissack sighed.  "We're understaffed and
overbudget.  It was a judgment call."

It was starting to get bitter out.  Evergreen branches stabbed at the
crisp blue sky, and the sun seemed as remote and shiny as an ornament.
She decided to give voice to the question that'd been torturing her all
night long.  "So how do two teenagers disappear into thin air?"

McKissack glanced back up the steel gray road tapering off like the tip
of a knife.  "Seven-thirty P.M."  Nicole goes over to her friend
Shelly's house.  Shelly's mom goes to bed at eleven, and Nicole takes
off on her bike.  If anybody saw her pedaling around that night,
nobody's reported it."

"You searched all the alternate routes she might've taken to Dinger's
house?"

"Thoroughly.  It was fruitless.  In the meantime, Dinger rides his bike
off into the sunset and is never heard from again.  They both vanish
into the mist."

A gust of wind twisted her coat open, and she yanked it shut. "Somebody
has to have seen them."

"We're getting plenty of tips on the hotline.  Usual percentage. Eighty
percent crap, twenty percent promising.  I'm hoping somebody comes
forward before it's too late.  Fuck."  He stomped his feet.  "I'm
freezing my nuts off."

"How much time have we got, McKissack?"

"I don't know."

Her eyes blurred with tears.  "I keep feeling more and more lost."

His features softened.  "Maybe we've got time," he whispered
unconvincingly.  "Maybe we've got a window here."

"He kept her alive for three weeks," she said hopefully.

"To the day."

"When a victim's face is mutilated, especially the eyes, it suggests
the assailant and victim knew one another."  A faint taste of bile
leaked into her throat.  Billy and Claire knew each other.  "I wish I
wasn't..."

"What?"

"Nothing."  She shook off the thought.  "Maybe it's not a relative or
friend?  Maybe it's a complete stranger?"

"I seriously doubt that."  McKissack fastened the top button of his
overcoat.  "We're looking at Ozzie Rudd, Buck Folette, Dinger Tedesco
possibly the landlord."

"Dinger got off work at seven P.M. the night Claire disappeared.  He
has no alibi from that point on."

"Talk to his employer.  See what you can dig up."

THE INSTANT SHE WALKED IN THE DOOR, RACHEL REALIZED

that Vaughn Kellum or one of his employees must be a tailor.  Still,
the sewing up of Claire didn't require skill so much as utter cruelty.
Claire Castillo had all her dry cleaning done at Kellum Kleaners, but
so did a lot of people, including McKissack.  Those who could afford
him swore by him, but Rachel preferred the cheaper places in Commerce
City.

The nineteenth-century Queen Anne was painted moss green, a sign in the
window reading: SATISFACTION GUARANTEED.  Inside, the air was
oppressive.  Rachel couldn't imagine inhaling dry cleaning fumes all
day long.  The walls were pine-paneled, and the

view of Delongpre through the plate glass was obscured by a web of ivy
growing abandoned on the window-sill.  Directly across the street from
Kellum Kleaners was a vacant lot, weeds twisting up through cracks in
the asphalt.  If you stood close enough to the glass and craned your
neck, you could see where Delongpre intersected with Main.

"Mr.  Kellum?"

"Please, call me Vaughn."  He acquainted himself by touching her on the
arm.  Vaughn Kellum owned and operated Kellum Kleaners along with two
old-time employees, Ray Fielding and Jose Manuel.  He was in his
mid-thirties, tall and slender with a charming smile and perfect teeth,
his Nordic good looks marred only by the thick corrective lenses that
magnified his green gaze all out of proportion.  His eyes were
deep-socketed and seemed to roam without purpose, suddenly settling on
her with distracting intensity.  He wore jeans, leather moccasins and a
light blue shirt whose pockets brimmed with pens and receipts, and had
a pair of flesh-colored hearing aids looped around behind his ears.
"The police have been in a couple of times asking about Claire," he
said.  "I still can't get over it.  She was such a good person."

The customer pickup counter was made of oak, the carpet was dove gray,
the walls matte white.  In back behind the garment trolleys, Jose was
pressing clothes.  To his right was a large worktable littered with
facings and pincushions, measuring tape, and a tailor's ham.  To his
left were two dressmaker's forms--a man's suit on one, a
large-shouldered lavender dress on the other.

Vaughn Kellum escorted Rachel into his office, just off the lobby to
the left of the cash register.  Walking through the door was like
stepping into a more genteel age--rosewood tables, Aubusson carpet,
faded photographs in vintage frames.  There was a picture of Vaughn
shaking hands with the mayor, another of him posing with the chief of
police.  McKissack looked ruggedly handsome in his uniform, and she
felt her neck going

pink.  The large, impressive office was well lit and the heavy velvet
curtains were drawn shut against the noontime glare.

Vaughn explored the room tactilely, lightly touching the wall as he
made his way toward the carved mahogany desk.  His computer was on, and
in front of the large-print screen was a magnifier on a fixed stand.
Braille Dymo-tape labels were stuck to every surface, and a Perkins
Brailler "typewriter for the blind" affixed to a typing table was
pushed up beside the desk.  The computer keyboard was large-type, not
Braille.  Behind the desk on a bookshelf sat a small television set
tuned to the weather channel.  The volume was on high, announcer's
voice booming into the room, "Now let's take a look at the East
Coast--"

Vaughn clicked off the set.  "How can I help you, Detective?"

"Please, call me Rachel."

He nodded.  "Would you like some tea?"

"No, thanks.  I'm fine."  She opened her notebook.  "Dinger Tedesco
works for you part-timer"

"I hired him last March.  Sweeping, discount mailings, that sort of
thing."  His corrective lenses were as thick as manhole covers, his
gaze both luminous and unnerving.

"You're aware," she said as delicately as she could, "that Dinger and
Nicole Castillo have been missing for almost a week now?"

"Yes."  Vaughn's gaze may have been blank, but his face was alive with
emotion, his deep concern evidenced in the wrinkle of his brow, the jut
of his chin, the deepening of the parenthetical lines around his mouth.
He had left the door of his office open, and Rachel could see out to
the front of the shop.  Ray Fielding was behind the counter, attending
to business.  A customer had just walked in, the intermittent hiss of
the steam press punctuating their conversation.

"What are Dinger's hours?"  she asked.

"Three to five, four to six.  It's flexible.  Sometimes if we don't

have anything for him to do, he'll finish his homework in my office."
His face tensed.  "His parents must be going out of their minds."

"It's tough on everybody," she acknowledged.

"I think he might've left his latest chemistry assignment here."  His
hands explored the desktop.  "Do you see it?"

Rachel got up and scanned the desk for a teenager's scrawling
penmanship, but found nothing amidst the balance sheets, discount
flyers, self-threading needles and stacks of invoices.  "I don't see
anything."  She sat back down, struck by how flippantly people used
terms like "see" and "hear."

"He's acing math and chemistry, but flunking English."

She nodded.  "You live here, don't you?  Upstairs?"

Vaughn smiled.  "I grew up in this house.  Dad started the business in
'54.  The three of us--me, Mom and Dad--lived here until Mom passed
away.  Then Dad had his stroke.  Now it's just me."

"And you were home the night Claire disappeared?"

"It was a slow day.  We closed shop at seven.  I went upstairs and left
Dinger sitting in front of my computer."

"He didn't leave at seven?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"He had an English paper due the next morning."

"When did he leave?"

"I don't know.  Seven-thirty or eight, maybe."

"And we're talking about the night of October fourteenth?"

"Yes."

"Mr.  Kellum ..."  Rachel hesitated.  "How well do you hear?"

The friendly, unruffled reception he gave to this rather rude line of
questioning bolstered her opinion of him even further.  "As a child,"
he said, "I was diagnosed with moderate to severe hearing loss in both
ears.  These hearing aids are designed to correct severe to profound
losses.  They're very comfortable.  But

if I removed them, I wouldn't be able to hear you unless you shouted,
and even then I probably wouldn't understand what you were saying."

She nodded.

"As long as I remember to replace the batteries, I'm fine."  He waited
a moment, then said, "That was a joke."

"Oh."  She gave an embarrassed smile.

"By the way, Detective, I don't mind answering these types of
questions.  The more informed people are, the less confusion there is
in the world."

"I appreciate your candor."  She flipped through her notebook, anxious
to change the subject.  "So you close at seven?"

"Every night.  Like clockwork."

"Did you hear anything unusual that night?  Scuffling sounds?  Screams?
An argument, maybe?  A shout?"

"My hearing aids amplify all sounds, but I've learned to filter out
those I don't wish to focus on, just like 'normal people do.  So when
I'm listening to the radio, that's pretty much all I hear.  Background
noises don't usually register."

Rachel nodded.  "And you say you went upstairs that night?"

"Ray came over around nine.  We had a few martinis.  Ketel One,
straight up with an olive."

Rachel glanced through the open doorway at Ray Fielding, a blue-collar
guy with a walrus mustache.

"What does Ray do?"

"He's our master tailor."

"I'd like to speak with him."

"Now?"

"After we're done."  Rachel glanced at her notes, then paused.  "Was
Dinger still here when Ray dropped by at nine?"

"No."

"Does Dinger have his own key?

"The door locks behind you and he knows the security code."

"And you trusted him?"

"Sure."

"What about the cash register?"

"Jose makes nightly deposits."

"How often do you let Dinger stay after hours?"

"Just a couple of times so far.  Like I said, I trusted him."

"And you wouldn't be able to hear anything from upstairs, like the
slamming of a door when he left, for example?"

"What are you getting at, Detective?"

"You say Dinger was in the shop until seven-thirty or eight P.M. Claire
Castillo disappeared shortly after eight P.M. I'm trying to establish
if there's a connection."

He shrugged.  "All I can say is, Dinger's a hardworking kid, a good kid
whose family can't afford a computer.  I was shocked to hear what
happened to Claire, even more shocked when Dinger and his girlfriend
disappeared.  I don't know what's happening to this town."  He shifted
in his chair.  "I don't sleep well at night."

"To tell you the truth, neither do I."

"Are you a religious person, Detective?"

"Not exceptionally."

"Neither am I. But I find myself praying lately."

Rachel glanced through the open door again.  Out front, a silver haired
woman in a camel's hair coat shot Rachel an annoyed glance.  Lowering
her voice, Rachel said, "Claire telephoned you several times the week
before she disappeared ..."

"Excuse me?"  He tapped his hearing aid as if it weren't functioning
properly.

She spoke up.  "Claire made several phone calls to you the week before
she disappeared ..."

"About the charity dance, yes.  She was helping us organize it.  It's a
lot of work.  The other board members wanted to cancel, in light of
what happened, but I think Claire would've been disappointed.  She was
very involved in community outreach."

"Did she mention anything about Dinger or her sister?  Anything at
all?"

He thought for a beat, hands folded on the desk blotter.  "Not that I
can recall."

"Your shop faces Delongpre.  Did you see anything unusual on the street
that night ... ?"  She stopped herself, embarrassed.  "I'm sorry, I
didn't mean ..."

His smile contained a hint of melancholy.  "The neighborhood kids used
to call me Magoo.  The term 'low vision' refers to loss of vision which
can't be corrected by medical or surgical procedures.  It's the most
misunderstood disability in the United States.  People think 'low
vision' means you're just a 'little bit blind."  I don't use a cane or
a guide dog, and I pride myself on leading a fairly independent life.
But without my hearing aids or my glasses, I'd be pretty
defenseless."

"I see," Rachel said, then bit her tongue.  There was that "see" word
again.

"With these corrective lenses, my vision's 20/150," he continued.  "I
can spot objects and people across a room and recognize colors.  I use
a hand magnifier for the newspaper.  The books I buy are large-print,
and I can also read Braille.  I have a Tell-Time VII Talking Watch, but
to answer your question, no, I can't see out the window."

She cringed.  "That was dumb.  Forgive me."

"Please, Detective.  I'm more than happy to oblige."

She closed her notebook.  "Did Dinger ever confide in you?"

Vaughn nodded.  "Sometimes."

"Did he ever discuss his relationship with Nicole?"

"Oh, you know.  Typical teenage stuff.  He was anxious to get married.
I advised him to wait, that if it was true love, it'd pass the test of
time.  But then when Nicole found out she was pregnant--"

Rachel froze.  "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry."  He looked at her sheepishly.  "I thought the police
knew."

"Dinger told you this?"

"A few weeks ago."

"How far along is she?"

"He didn't say."

"Did Dinger tell you that he and Nicole were thinking of running away
together?"

"No."

"Was he depressed?  Suicidal?"

"Quite the contrary.  Now that Nicole was pregnant, he figured her
parents would have to let them get married."

"Did he ever mention a secret place?"

"Secret place?"

"Someplace where he and Nicole could he alone together?"

"No.  Look, this is making me uncomfortable ..."

"Trust me, you're doing the right thing."

Vaughn took a deep breath.  "Dinger was very happy until Nicole decided
she might get rid of the baby."

"An abortion?"

"She was considering the possibility.  She kept going back and forth
with it."

"How did he react?  Was he angry?  Make any verbal threats?"

"I believe ..."  Vaughn furrowed his brow.  "I believe if he was mad at
anyone, it was Claire."

"Why Claire?"

"Because she was influencing Nicole."

"Did Dinger ever threaten Claire?"

"Certainly not."  His eyes widened with concern.  "Is he a suspect?"

"We don't have all the facts yet."

"Because I can't see him doing something so ..."  His voice trailed
off.

"Neither can I," she admitted.

"He must've run away.  They must've run away together.  Dinger would
never hurt anyone."

"Vaughn?"  Ray called through the door.  "You got a second?"

Vaughn looked at her, and she nodded.  He stood up and felt his way
along the wall, then paused in the doorway.  "Promise me you'll find
them."

"We're doing our very best," she said softly.

Out front, the silver-haired woman extended a well-manicured claw.
"Vaughn, I want to share my good news!  My daughter Julia's getting
married!"

"She is?"  he replied, sounding genuinely delighted.  "Wow, that's
great.  When did this happen?"

THAT NIGHT, RACHEL MET MCKISSACK AT BIG TEF.  "S, WHERE

they sat across from each other in a dimly lit booth.  Rachel ordered a
glass of wine while McKissack knocked back another scotch.  He looked
so beaten down, she wanted to reach out and stroke his cheek.

"I'm a prick," he confessed.  "I still want you.  Even in the midst of
all this crap, I want you."

"Shut up, McKissack."

"I'm a bad influence."

"It's not like I'm the victim here.  Your wife's the victim.  Go
apologize to her."

"You know what freedom is?"  He slurred his words.  "Freedom's when you
don't give a rat's ass what other people think."

"You're drunk."

"And you're beautiful."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Beautiful and wise.  Wise, but not jaded."

She looked away.  "Nicole's pregnant."

That made him sit up straighten "What?"

"Vaughn Kellum told me.  Dinger wanted the baby, but Nicole was
considering getting an abortion."

McKissack's eyes narrowed.

"Dinger lied to me.  He told me he got off work at seven the night
Claire disappeared, but Vaughn says he stayed until seven thirty or
eight doing his homework in Vaughn's office."

"Why lie about a thing like that?"

"Maybe he saw Claire as a threat."

"Okay."  McKissack rubbed his eyes.  "Back up."

"Claire's the person Nicole turns to for advice.  Nicole doesn't trust
her parents, they don't listen.  They don't understand.  But Claire
knows about love.  She understands Nicole's desires and needs.  And
because she lived with Buck Folette for two years, Claire also knows
what it's like to be trapped in a bad relationship."

His eyes registered understanding.  "And she doesn't want her little
sister making the same mistake.  It was Claire who advised Nicole to
get an abortion?"

"Bingo."

"So Dinger wanted her out of the picture."  He tossed back his scotch.
"Nicole's parents never liked him, but Nicole sees them as the enemy,
so they're not the real threat.  It's Claire's opinion that counts."

"They'd been going together for nine months.  We can assume Dinger knew
about Claire's Wednesday night habit."

"He hangs out after work, waiting for eight o'clock to roll around."

"Pulls up in his car just as she's leaving the cafe."

"Offers her a lift to the parking lot.  Claire tries to talk to him
about Nicole, and that's what sets him off."

"He knocks her unconscious."

"Then abducts her.  Where?"

"Wherever he and Nicole are hiding out."

McKissack took a moment to absorb this scenario, then shook

his head.  "Three weeks, the perp waited.  A seventeen-year-old kid
can't wait that long.  He'd be impulsive."

"Besides, where does a seventeen-year-old get poison?"  Then it hit
her.  "Chemistry."

"What's that?"

"Dinger excels in math and chemistry."

"Yeah, but we don't know if it's poison yet."  McKissack frowned and
scooped up Rachel's hand.  "We don't know shit."

She studied him a lingering beat.  "How're you getting home?  You sure
aren't driving."

"I thought you'd take me to your place."

"Fat chance."  She smiled, the threat of it flourishing in the silence
that followed.  Her face grew hot as he stroked her cheek.

"I wonder when," he asked, "mvsuit of armor fell off?"

Rachel parked in front of McKissack's house.  All the lights were out.
"Movies," he said, slurring his words.  "They don't need me.  Gotta
whole life without me."

"Come on," she said, helping him out of her car.  He leaned heavily
against her as they walked up the gravel path toward the front porch.

"Town's goin' to hell.  You notice?  We're all fighting for deck chairs
on the Titanic."

"Shhh."

He gazed at her beneath the yellow porch light.  "Hiya, beautiful." She
fumbled with his keys, turned the lock and they both tumbled inside.

McKissack's house smelled alien to her, of roast chicken and Lemon
Pledge.  The front hall was dark, and McKissack leaned lightly against
her.  "Are you flirting with me?"  he asked, and she nudged him toward
the kitchen.

"No, I'm leaving."

He grabbed her around the middle, wouldn't let go.  "I'm

scared, Rachel," he confessed, his boozy breath warming her face. 
"I'm scared I'll forget how to be happy when I'm not with you,"

She pried his fingers from around her waist.  Her hands were trembling.
"This isn't 'happy.""

"It's the only time I'm alive."

Angry now, she pressed his face between her hands.  "We're in your
fucking house, McKissack.  Standing in your fucking kitchen.  Your wife
and children live here."

"I don't live here.  I live between your legs."

She wanted to hit him.  She turned to go, but he hooked her wrist, spun
her around and drew her irresistibly toward him.  She fell into his
arms as if she belonged there.  Tears sprang to her eyes.  His voice
was tender.  "Rachel..."

He kissed her.

"Don't."  Her stomach rose to her throat as if she'd just stepped off a
cliff.

"I love you."

"Stop."

"I want you."  He kissed her as if there wasn't enough air left, and
much to her dismay, she let him ... let him kiss her ... and started
kissing back ... when suddenly the telephone's jarring ring skittered
up her spine.  McKissack ignored it and the machine clicked on.

"Hey, Chief," a male voice said, "it's God speaking, pick up."

McKissack looked at her, stricken, as if they were suddenly miles
apart.

"Answer it," she said.

His sweaty face sagged.  "Hello?"  He listened a long beat.  "Right
there."  He hung up.  "We got the lab results back on the semen stain.
Our perp is a secretor.  B-positive."

"Ozzie's blood type."

The world came crashing down.

EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, OZZIE RUDD DROVE TO HIS

ex-wife's house to pick up Colette and take her to school.  The Gothic
cottage with pink trim used to be Ozzie's house, but now it belonged to
Mae.  It hurt that their marriage had gone bad, that Mae hadn't been
able to find it in her heart to forgive him for his many
transgressions.  He'd been insensitive.  He was pigheaded and sometimes
verbally abusive.  Worst of all, he wasn't headed anywhere.  He figured
that was his biggest sin--not being ambitious enough for his
intelligent wife.

"Thanks for doing this," Mae said at the front door.  She looked
confident, tailored, her well-toned stomach moving with every breath.
She reached into her pockets and dug out Colette's medication, her dark
glasses and a box of cough drops.  "She's got a cold but she'll be all
right," she said.  "She's in her room.  We need to talk."

"Mind if I use the can?"

Ozzie used the bathroom in the front hall, but the soap was one of
those flimsy discount brands and the dirt stayed stubbornly beneath his
fingernails.  He checked himself in the mirror; he needed a nose hair
trim.

Out in the kitchen, Mae poured him a cup of coffee.  The coffee must've
been sitting there awhile.  "I'm getting married," she announced.

"You're what?"  His heart fluttered.

"Getting married.  Oh come on, Ozzie, don't look so shocked.  It's been
a couple of years now."

"I know ... but it's just ... I never figured that either of us would
get married again."

"Why the hell not?"

"Let's not fight, Mae.  I'm kind of in shock here, okay?"

"You've still got those damn eyes."  She sounded mad as hell.  "All the
men in your family have those goddamn eyes."

His eyes were blue with thick lashes like rows of commas.  "We've all
got hairy backs, too," he said.  "So who is this guy?"

"You don't know him."

"Enlighten me."

"Don't snap at me!"

"I'm not snapping."

"Yes, you are."  She set her coffee cup down.  "I'm not going to argue
with you."

"No argument."  He threw up his hands.  "Sorry."

"Okay."

"Okay" He got a glimpse of his reflection in the window above the sink
and sucked in his gut.  His face was weather beaten, sunburnt, and his
brown hair was gradually turning silver.  He wondered what it was about
his muscular arms, his self deprecating sense of humor and deep voice
that Mae no longer loved.

"So who's Mr.  Congeniality?"

"He's an entertainment lawyer," she said.

"A what?"

"I met him through friends."

She had friends without him now, too.  She had a whole life that didn't
include him.

"He's from San Francisco," she said quickly.  "We're moving there."

"You're what?"  The air rushed out of his lungs and he almost inhaled
his coffee.  "You're moving where?"

"I've given this a lot of thought, believe me ..."

"Thought?"

"Ozzie ..."

"How dare you?"

"I'm not going to have a scene in this house!"  She stomped her
foot.

"You bitch!"

"Oh great."  She threw up her hands.  "That's just great.  And you
wonder why I divorced your"

"How dare you take my daughter away from me!"

"I think you should leave now."  Her hand rested on the receiver. She'd
called the police on him once before, but nothing had come of it, since
she hadn't pressed charges.

"What about Colette?"

"Stop screaming at me."

"I can't believe you sprang this on me!"

"I won't talk to you unless you calm down."

"All right."  He rubbed the back of his head.  He was feeling
disemboweled.  Here he was, guts pooling over the shiny linoleum, and
all she could say was "calm down."  "I am calm," he said.  "I'm
calm."

"I refuse to get into this with you."

"I said okay."

"I swear to God, I'll call the cops."

"I'm over it."  He paced the floor, taking deep, laborious breaths. 
His stomach ached.  His skeleton tingled as if he'd been pumped full of
radioactive isotopes.

"Mommy?"  Colette called from the other room.

"Everything's fine, honey.  Your daddy and I are just talking."

"Daddy, are you taking me to school today?"

"In a minute, sugar."

They listened for a moment more, Mae wringing her hands, Ozzie pacing
back and forth.  He stopped to face her.

"I guess I could move to San Francisco.  I guess I could follow the two
of you around like a dog.  Live in the cracks and crevices of Colette's
life."

"Yes, you could," she said flatly.

He wanted to slap her.  His blood was on fire.

"Listen, I know it's not the best news for you.  For Colette, either.
But I can't help it, dammit, I fell in love.  I fell in love with him,
Ozzie.  What else am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know."

"He's an entertainment lawyer, for chrissakes.  It's not like he can
open a practice here."

"Colette's school is here."

Her face went pink.  "I've been looking into that.  There are other
schools--"

"But it won't be Winfield.  All her friends are here.  She grew up in
Flowering Dogwood.  She loves her teachers.  And she loves me, Mae, as
much as you hate to admit it.  I'm a huge, important part of her
life."

"Jesus, I know that.  You think I'm stupid or something?"

He'd never felt such a burst of hatred.  He shook his head violently.
"I can't accept this."

"What?"

"Sorry."

"What d'you mean, you can't accept this?  This is not your decision!"

"You can't take her away from me without any warning."

"I've already spoken to my lawyer, Ozzie."

"Merry Christmas, Mae!  You and your lawyers."

"What am I supposed to do?  I have a life.  And Steve can provide for
us ..

"Steve."  He spat the name out.

"That's right."

"Great."  He snagged his jacket and strode out of the kitchen, went
into Colette's room and held her tight.  "You ready, sweetie?"

"Yes, Daddy."  She giggled.  Her hair smelled of her mother's shampoo.
Colette's room was filled with a soft pink light, bed overflowing with
stuffed animals--Roger Rabbit, Big Bird, Raggedy Ann and Andy.  A w
hole crowd.  Ann and Andy's button eyes were pulled off so they'd be
blind, too.  Finger paintings

covered the walls, hanging plants late-bloomed in the bay window and a
fat hamster named Dibbs nibbled lettuce in his cage.

She'd always wanted to ride in an airplane.  When she was little,
they'd play a game where he'd lie flat on his back and lift her high in
the air, prop her tummy against the soles of his feet, hold her by the
arms, and she'd be flying.  Laughing, giggling, squealing an explosion
of mirth.  "I'm flying, Daddy!"  Magically he made her spin, bob and
weave, and all the while she'd clutch his fingers as if they were vines
growing out of some slippery slope.  And after a while she'd be all
tuckered out, arms and legs dangling from the pull of gravity, her
white-blond hair scratching his eyelids like sleep dust, and he'd
gently lower her down into his arms.  "No more airplane.  Beddy-bye
time."

At the front door, Mae's face was carved out of stone.  "Have your
lawyer talk to my lawyer," she said.

"Fine."  He wanted to kick her.  He wanted to burn the house down.  His
house.

"Fine."  She shut the door in his face.

FRIDAYS WERE A BUSY TIME FOR COPS IX MOST COMMUNITIES.

You had to break up bar fights and stop drunk drivers, and today was
going to be no different, McKissack thought.  On top of the usual
mischief, they'd gotten the lab results back from the semen stain on
the victim's calf identifying the perp as a B secretor with three
genetic markers.  Ozzie Rudd had no alibi for the night Claire
disappeared.  He was the one who found her crawling out of the woods
three weeks later.  His blood type was B-positive, same as the semen
sample; they knew that from the Melissa D'Agostino file.  McKissack bet
it was Rudd's semen on Claire's

leg and the only way to determine that beyond a shadow of a doubt was
with a DNA test based on a blood or semen sample from the man
himself.

Earlier that morning, armed with a warrant, McKissack and Tapper had
searched Rudd's empty apartment on Maynard Avenue, then conducted raids
on two homes the suspect was known to have visited.  Rudd's ex-wife
indicated he'd picked up their daughter at seven and had driven her to
school, but Colette was marked absent, so McKissack issued an expansive
radio alert over scrambled police channels, informing surrounding law
enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for Rudd's truck.

McKissack was pumped.  They had enough to convict, and although they
hadn't found evidence of Nicole or Dinger or Claire inside the
apartment, they'd swept the area with wide transparent tape to collect
fibers and hairs for future prosecution.  McKissack was convinced he
could wring a confession out of Rudd, and along with it the location of
the remaining victims, dead or alive.  All they had to do now was find
him.

McKissack was on his way back to the station when he spotted Rudd's
Long Ranger pulling out onto Montalbanco Drive.  Heart hammering in his
chest, he made a U-turn and radioed in.  "I've located the vehicle ...
it's traveling erratically ... just crossed over the double yellow
lines and swerved back ..."

McKissack checked that his weapon was loaded.  Rudd's ex wife claimed
he didn't own a gun, but you never knew.  An officer was allowed to use
whatever reasonable non deadly force was necessary to make an arrest
and to protect himself and the public from bodily harm.  If Ozzie Rudd
fired a gun, that would justify the use of deadly force, but then
McKissack might never find out where the bodies were buried.

He'd gone to work with a gun on his hip almost every day of his life,
and now it was burning a hole in his side.  He could practically taste
this arrest.  Just trying to make the mean streets of our community a
little safer.

"what if you lived with daddy always?  would you like that?"  Ozzie
handed Colette a Milky Way, which she quickly unwrapped and devoured,
melted chocolate dappling her chin.  They bounced along in the cab of
his eighteen-wheeler, wind roaring through the open windows, rain
spattering the windshield as they climbed the hill past ancient
toppling bed-and breakfasts, heading north toward Aspen Park.  In the
early 1900s, preservationists had bought the land, afraid the timber
companies might level the forests.

"Would you like that, sweetie?"

"You gonna move to San Francisco with us, Daddy?"  She sounded excited.
Her forehead was damp in the way that only Colette's skin got
damp--that dull luster, as if she were glowing from inside.

"What if we moved someplace together, you and me?"

"And Mommy, too?"

His chest constricted.  He couldn't explain what he'd been thinking,
this thing about running away and taking her with him.  Just the two of
them.  The details were sketchy, but the idea burned through him like
Chinese mustard.

The road intersected with Aspen Park Loop, where they crossed a stone
bridge and ascended a steep hill, twisting away from the valley and
winding further into the woods.  He tickled her under the chin and she
gave a barking shriek, then grabbed his arm and held on tight.  God,
this unconditional love, this guileless affection was killing him.

"How about it, pumpkin?"

"You and me and mommy?"

"No."  He swallowed hard, sand trickling through his body, foot going
numb on the gas.  "Just you and me, cuttlefish.  How about it?"

She released his arm and let out a shout--of joy?  of rage?  She
twisted herself into a strange shape, shoulders hunched inside her
jacket like two frightened animals.

"Colette?"  His throat was dry and his eyes stung from the gritty wind
blowing into the cab.

"No!"  she shrieked, and suddenly she was crying, sobs like giddy notes
blown from an old saxophone.

"Please don't cry."  But she wouldn't stop, and he felt as if he'd been
hit by a soft train.  He searched for the nearest turnoff as she tossed
her head violently from side to side.  "Honey ... Colette?  Calm down
now ..."

He pulled onto a soft shoulder, tires skidding on the damp earth, and
Colette flailed her arms, her fingernails grazing his cheek.  Her elbow
hit the door handle, the door flew open and she slipped from his
grip.

"Colette!"

She tumbled out and teetered on the soft shoulder, screaming in a
high-pitched voice.  His little girl, lost and thrashing in this
nowhere, no-walled edge of highway.  She pitched toward the woods, and
he tackled her, and they both went down in the drizzle.

"Colette, I'm sorry," he whispered, heart fluttering like a netted
fish.  He held her tight and caught a glimpse of the woods to his left,
its piney undergrowth the kind of place no little girl should ever get
lost in.  He both loved and dreaded this faraway corner of the country
with its black cherry, its quaking aspen and stunted, wind-blasted
balsam firs.  "It's okay, sweetie, I'll take you home.  Everything's
gonna be all right."

Lifting her in his arms, he dried her tears, but now his chest heaved
and he was sobbing.  He wept so hard, his knees buckled, and he
crumpled to the side of the road.  Shoulders spasming,

lungs hiccuping with grief, he clung to his daughter and sohbed like a
baby.

And then--miraculously--her forgiving hands reached for his face, and
the next sob that escaped his lungs was like the final surrender of all
his bad intentions.

"I love you, Daddy."

"I know," he whispered, holding her, holding her, knowing he was losing
her with every passing breath.

"I love you, Daddy."

"I love you, too, sweet pea

RAIN STREAKED THE DUSTY WINDSHIELD OF MCKISSACK's police car as he
pulled up behind Ozzie's eighteen-wheeler, hand reaching in back for
one of the stuffed animals he usually carried to comfort children
involved in car accidents.  He got out and cautiously approached Ozzie
Rudd, whose face was wet from crying, and his little girl, who clung to
him like a barnacle.

"Everything okay?"

Rudd peered up at McKissack from some scary, dark place.  Hollow-eyed
and deathly pale.  "Yeah, we're fine."

"I'm gonna have to ask you to stand up, Ozzie," McKissack said quietly
so as not to alarm them.

Rudd got to his feet like an old man and took his daughter's hand.  "We
were just leaving."

"I'm afraid I can't let you go.  There's a warrant out for your
arrest."

"Arrest?"  He glanced at his daughter.  "What for?"

"Kidnapping and attempted murder."

Ozzie stood for a confused moment, grip tightening on his daughter's
wrist until she yelped.  "Oops.  Sorry, honey."

McKissack took out his handcuffs and ratcheted them down on Rudd's
wrists while he read him his rights, and all the while his little girl
was whining and fussing, tugging on her daddy's pant leg.

"Mind if I talk to your daughter?"  McKissack asked.

"If you have to."

"Only take a second."

Ozzie leaned against the truck while McKissack knelt and performed a
cursory exam, inspecting the child for contusions and abrasions.  She
looked fine, except for the fact that her eyelashes were wet with fresh
tears.  A siren wailed in the distance.

"I'm Chief McKissack.  What's your name?"

"Colette."  She probed his face with sensitive fingers, and McKissack
smiled and handed her a fuzzy pink seal.  "Here, this is for you."

"Thank you."  She clutched the toy to her chest.

"You okay?  You've been crying."

Her lower lip crimped.  "I wanna go home."

"Oh for God's sake."  Rudd's mask cracked, and McKissack got a glimpse
of the inner torment that drove him.  "My ex-wife's getting married.
She's taking Colette to live with her in San Francisco.  I'm upset.
Colette's upset.  Been a real crappy day."

McKissack straightened.  "Sorry to hear it, Ozzie."

"Yeah, well ..."  He stood like an empty grain sack, slack arms
shackled behind him, and blinked so slowly, McKissack thought for a
moment he might be putting him on.

Now several black-and-whites pulled up alongside the truck.  Tapper got
out.  Keppel got out.

"One of you make sure Colette gets home safe," McKissack said, and
Keppel took the girl's hand.

"Daddy?"

"It's okay, sweetheart," Ozzie said grimly.  "The policeman's gonna
take you home."

"Daddy, what's wrong?  What's happening?"

"Nothing, pumpkin.  I'll be fine."

McKissack escorted Rudd over to his car as Tapper cracked open the back
of the eighteen-wheeler, evidence collection kit in hand.

"Drive carefully," Tapper told McKissack.  "It's gonna get slippery."

MCKISSACK PREFERRED CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS IN AS PRIvate an area as
possible, free from outside interference and ringing phones.  He'd
decorated the interrogation room at the station himself, had even
handpicked the furniture.  Unlike some oldtimers who preferred austere
and sterile environments, McKissack believed that discomfort rarely
produced the desired results.  First and foremost, the room should be
comfortable with a moderately official feel--pictures and certificates
on the wall, soft lighting, comfortable chairs.

McKissack led Ozzie into the interrogation room, where there were no
windows to distract, and sat behind a large desk piled high with
folders, thus giving himself the psychological advantage.  At some
point during the interview, he might move away from his desk and sit in
a chair opposite the one Ozzie now occupied, thereby demonstrating
empathy and trust.  To get a person to confess, you needed to gain
their confidence.  Ninety percent of the time, they wanted to get it
off their chest.  Whenever McKissack detected the suspect was on the
verge of confessing, he'd move his chair so close, their knees
practically touched.

"Make yourself comfortable," he began, uncapping his pen.  "You're
gonna be here awhile."

Ozzie slumped in his seat.  "Do you mind telling me what this is all
about?"

"We found a semen stain on Claire Castillo's leg.  Just got the results
back from the lab today.  Secretor.  B-positive blood type.  We'd like
a blood sample to determine whether or not the genetic markers match
yours.  But I can tell you right now ... that was your semen on the
victim's leg."

McKissack stared at the man he was about to interrogate.  Rudd wore
rain-splattered jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, a leather bomber
jacket and shitkickers.  The shitkickers were dusty except where fat
raindrops had exploded on the yellowish leather as he'd run from his
truck into the station.  He had broad shoulders and a beer belly, was
no taller than McKissack but heavier by about twenty pounds.  He had a
trucker's tan--arms and neck only--and his facial expressions ranged
from don'tgivea-shit to fuck-you-asshole.

"Christ."  Rudd shifted in his seat, an odd smile blooming.  "That's
what you're arresting me for?"

"That's right."

Rudd almost laughed.  Shook his head.  "You're way off base."

McKissack frowned.  "Why don't you tell me your side of the story? 
I'll write down your statement and then you can read and sign it.  Fair
enough?"

"I'd be delighted to give you my statement, Chief."

McKissack nodded.

Oz.zie's face grew solemn, "When she crawled out of the woods, I
practically shit my pants."

"I need to know what you did the entire day."

"That was Wednesday, right?"  Rudd chewed thoughtfully on his lower
lip.  "I was with my daughter."

"Can anyone corroborate?"

"Yeah."  The muscles in his jaw twitched.  "I've got an alibi, pretty
much, if that's what you're getting at."

Nursing an intense dislike for the man, McKissack said, "Why don't we
start with nine A.M.?"

"Okay."

McKissack wrote out Ozzie's statement as he spoke:

"I was between jobs.  I slept past noon.  I had Colette for the
afternoon and was really looking forward to it.  I picked her up after
school.  Her teacher can verify the time.  We went out for dinner at
the Drop Off.  The waitress there, Suzi, knows me.  Then we went back
to my place and listened to some music.  Colette likes Billie Holiday.
Then I drove her to her mom's house.

"We got to Mae's around six-thirty P.M. She can verify the time.  We
had dinner together, and surprising as it sounds, we didn't argue, for
once.  Sort of like old times.  Then after dinner, Mae said something
that shocked me.  She said, "How come I'm not over you completely?
Well, you could've knocked me over with a feather.  Maybe it's the hurt
in my eyes that got to her?  I don't know.  But she invited me to stay
for coffee.  Then she did something totally unexpected.  She stroked my
arm, and her touch was ... forgiving.

"We go outside and she walks me to the truck.  She wants to see what
I've got in back.  "Nothing much," I tell her.  I can't believe I'm
doing this, but we climb in back together, and I gather all these
packing quilts and make us a sort of nest, and we make love in the
dark.  She tells me it's for the last time.  I can't believe this is
happening, but it seems right.  And while we're making love, it's
almost like I'm weeping.  Like I'm releasing all this anger and
sadness.  Like it's the right thing to do.  Like it's okay for Colette
to be with her.  But you wanna know the real kicker?"

McKissack glanced up from his legal pad.

"I didn't know it at the time, but she'd just gotten engaged."  Ozzie
bit his lower lip.  "To an entertainment lawyer, of all things.  What
the hell's an entertainment lawyer?"McKissack wasn't going to share
this bitter, ironical moment with him.  "Go on."

"I left around eight and drove to Commerce City.  Dropped in at the
Hoary Toad for a drink.  It must been around midnight when I finally
headed home.  I was driving south on Winnetka Road when I spotted
something up ahead.  I slowed clown and saw this pale figure crawling
out of the woods.  She was ... naked, and there was something wrong
with her.  At first I thought she'd been shot, maybe, like she was
clutching her chest because of a gunshot wound or something.  I hit the
brakes and pulled over.  I sat for a moment, thinking maybe I'd
imagined it.  I hopped out and there she was, twenty yards back, making
the weirdest sounds."  He shuddered.  "My heart was going a mile a
minute.  The sight of it just shocked the bejeezus out of me.

"I don't know much, Chief," Ozzie said, "but I do know you're not
supposed to move a person who's badly injured, so I told her to lie
still.  I ran back to my cab, radioed for help and got a packing quilt
out of the back.  She was shivering, so I covered her up.  Then I sat
there, held her hand, talked to her a little bit.  It took ten minutes
for the ambulance to arrive."  Ozzie was staring at him with something
like vindication in his eyes.  "So you see ... I guess it was my semen.
But I didn't kill anybody."

McKissack sat back.  It was awfully hot in here.  "We'll have to verify
your account with your ex-wile."

Ozzie's eyes grew pinched and curious.  "Why do you hate me so much,
McKissack?

"I don't hate you, Oz.zie.  I don't think about you that much."

"Oh yes, you do.  It's like ... stuck in your throat, how much you hate
me.  I can see it in your eyes.  It's weird, because I've never done a
fucking thing to you."

McKissack smiled.  "Maybe I hate what you used to be, Ozzie."

"Oh yeah?  What's that?"

"An ungrateful little deadbeat with an ax to grind."

Ozzie glanced away for a moment.  "Can I go now?"

McKissack shook his head.  "Let me give you some advice, free of
charge.  Hire yourself a good lawyer.  You're gonna need it."

THE SKY'S MOLTING GRAY GAVE WAY TO VARIOUS SHAPES-clouds like rocket
ships and scavenging bears.  Rachel stepped into the Hurryback Cafe,
where the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee mingled with frying onions, and
took a seat in one of the wide vinyl booths.  The waitress's nametag
said Becky.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions, Becky," Rachel said, flashing her
badge.

"You a cop?"

"Detective."

"Sure, okay.  Except the cops asked me a buncha questions already."
Becky had a pasty face and black-hennaed hair that emphasized the
blankness of gaze.  The coffee came out of the pot like hot, shimmery
sand.  "It's about Claire, right?  She used to eat here Wednesday
nights.  She'd sit in that booth over there and read a book.  Sometimes
we'd chew the fat.  I liked her a lot.  She was a big tipper."

"Did you notice anything peculiar about her that night?"

"Peculiar?"

"Was she nervous or distracted?"

"No, I don't think so.  Just unwinding at the Hurryback, as per usual."
Becky flopped down opposite Rachel in the booth, a St.  Christopher's
medal riding the pulse in her throat.  The diner's floral wallpaper was
as faded as a bad Polaroid.  "She came in here for lunch sometimes,
too.  Grilled cheese on rye and a Snapple.  Iced tea with lemon."

The diner had a timeless, weathered feel with its potted palms

and pressed-tin ceiling.  A gray-haired waitress stood over by the
register, staring at them.  "Who's that?"  Rachel asked.

"Vera."  Becky waved her over.  "She's a witch.  Don't quote me,
though.  She'd give me a hot tongue, a cold shoulder and a hard
time."

Vera sauntered over, arms folded across her flat chest, candy apple
uniform dotted with stains.  "We're not supposed to fraternize,
Becky."

"She's not a customer, she's a detective."

"Oh."  Vera raised an inquisitive eyebrow.  "You work with Jim
McKissack?"

"Yes."

"I used to know him."  Beneath the polite exterior, Rachel detected
some bite.  "You folks nab any suspects yet"?"

"Sorry, I'm not at liberty to discuss the case," Rachel said, and Vera
nodded with practiced resignation.  "I would like to ask you a few
questions, though."

"Ask away."

"I know the police have already spoken with you both, but it's
important that you try and remember ... did you happen to see which way
Claire Castillo headed after she exited the diner?"

Vera shook her head.  Rachel couldn't help feeling she was being
appraised somehow.  "Your name Rachel Storrow?"

"Yes, it is."

"Mm."  Vera's gaze seemed to reach right inside of her.

"Do we know each other?"  Rachel asked.

"No," Vera said, softening.  "No, we don't."

"Claire probably went window shopping after she left here."  Becky blew
a ribbon of black hair off her face, but it drifted down over her eyes
again.  "She was a clothes horse.  Her taste is kinda similar to mine.
Bergman's has the best selection."

Rachel glanced out the window.  Flowering Dogwood boasted the widest
Main Street in New England--virtually empty now except for a few
scattered pedestrians.  Across the street, a young

woman had her arm around an old man's waist and was gently guiding him
off the curb.  The old man clung to her as if she were asking him to
step into a raging river.  From here, you could see the
time-and-temperature sign at the bank.

"Is it true what they say about Claire?"  Becky asked with wide awake
eyes.  "The way they found her, I mean?  All sewn up like
Frankenstein?"

Both waitresses stared at Rachel with fierce concentration, as if
willing the rumor not to be true.

"I'm sorry," Rachel said.  "I can't discuss it."

"Becky," Vera said with a wave of her hand, "we've got legitimate
customers waiting."

Becky gave Rachel a disappointed smile.  "I sure hope they find Nicole.
She's in my sister's class."

Vera waited for Becky to leave before saying, "Don't you just hate
that, telling more lies to cover up other lies?"

"Excuse me?"

Vera touched Rachel's arm lightly, confidentially.  "He ain't worth it,
honey.  No man is."

Rachel blinked dumbly.  Vera walked away.

Great, so everybody knows our business.  That's just great.

Outside, Rachel headed up the street toward Bergman's, past the vacant
storefront, the hardware store, the shoe store and Ruthie's Fashions.
Then came Bergman's, then Gayle's Beauty Parlor and an empty
storefront.  An alley.

Where Delongpre intersected Main, there was Dusty's Ballroom Dancing, a
dental practice, a ghostly Victorian mansion with plenty of office
space available, Kellum Kleaners and the town's information center. 
And beyond the information center was a weedy lot, and then the woods. 
The woods encroached upon the town like a fungus.  Even' street, it
seemed, ended in woods.

She turned and looked the other way: liquor store, toy store, used car
lot, 99c store.  Sears, the public parking lot.  Whoever

had kidnapped Claire Castillo had done so in full view of the entire
town.  The police had interviewed every business establishment on Main
and Delongpre, but apparently no one had seen a thing.  Why had she
even bothered the waitresses at the Hurryback?  She could have gone to
the station and read the reports.  The police were buried under an
avalanche of paperwork.

If Ozzie Rudd wasn't guilty, then who was?  It was a foggy and cold
night.  Claire most likely would've skipped the window shopping and
headed back to her car.  The UN SUB must have abducted her somewhere
between the Hurryback Cafe and the parking lot.  Had Dinger gotten off
at eight and offered Claire a ride?  Was Dinger capable of such
violence?  Or was Buck Folette the man they were looking for?  If Buck
had offered Claire a lift, would she have taken it?  Had he attacked
her from behind?  Had he waited in an alley?

Rachel sighed, making breath clouds in the air.  She had another
interview to do, one she'd been avoiding.  A big rig drove past,
stirring the wind and making a shuddering sound as she trudged toward
her car.

UP NEAR THE CANADIAN BORDER, ROUTE 88 BENT SOUTH AWAY

from Baxter Gorge, whose densely wooded cliffs and slabs of quartzite
were formed in the Devonian Age, when an immense ice sheet covering all
of in'ew England began to melt.  The melting ice water drained into the
Androscoggin River, a favorite for anglers seeking rainbow trout in the
furious white water.  Route 88 continued south down into the widening,
glacier-carved valley where waterfalls splayed and forked into streams
that riffled over boulders and meandered through the area of town

known as the Triangle.  The Triangle sat on the site of old Fort
Hostile, erected in 1777 to protect early settlers from Native American
war parties.  The fort was burned to the ground in 1783, and this was
where Dinger Tedesco currently resided with his mother and three
siblings.

Rachel was sadly familiar with the area: crumbling mansions floating on
a sea of debris, screen doors busted off their hinges, voices raised in
anger, tiny bodies flung against apartment walls.  She got a lot of
domestics in this neighborhood, some B&Es, an occasional drug-related
death.

Rachel took a left up a steep, poorly paved road, a silver painted
mailbox giving away the hidden driveway: TEDESCO.  The trailer's white
walls bled rust.  The rusted-out carcass of an old Dodge Charger nudged
the trailer's rear bumper in the gravel driveway.  Scattered across the
muddy front lawn were old tires and children's toys.

Rachel got out of the car and approached the trailer, boots crunching
on gravel.  "Hello?  Anybody homer" The trailer had miserly, dark
windows.  Next to the Dodge Charger was a pumpkin patch, vines growing
tangled and wild, and behind that a large chicken wire coop holding
plump rabbits, their hard pink eyes like an infestation of beetles upon
their whiteness.

Rachel knocked on the door but nobody answered.  Touching her nose to
the glass, she peered into darkness.  "Hello?"  Her scalp prickled as
she felt a distinct presence gazing back, then detected a cluster of
words.  Whispered, not spoken.  Somebody was sitting in the dark,
pretending not to be home.

"Police!"  She thumped on the door with her fist, and finally a small
pale figure approached.  The door creaked open.  The boy reminded her
of an old man with his taut mouth and sour stare, his spindly arms and
legs.  "Hello?"  he said, peering up at her questioningly.

"Is your mother home?"

"She's out grocen' shopping."

Rachel scanned the neighborhood, pockets of poverty as far as the eye
could see, and beyond this heart-wrenching poverty, the cornfields, the
woods and a dirty smudge of horizon.  She squinted into the murky
interior where shadows danced deceptively.  "Are you Dinger's
brother?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"We need to talk, Mrs.  Tedesco."  Rachel raised her voice.  "Mrs.
Tedesco?"

The silence that followed was deafening; even the birds stopped
singing.

"I'd like to talk to you about your son Dinger.  I need to ask you some
questions so we can bring him home, safe and sound."

Something stirred and creaked.  There was a rustling sound, and finally
a figure emerged like a whale from the soggy depths.  An obese woman in
a blue-floral tent dress with limp brown hair like a banana peel draped
over her head said in the high voice of a sickly child, "Yes, what can
I do for you?"

"Mrs.  Tedesco?"  Rachel held out her hand.  "I'm Detective Storrow."

The woman offered Rachel a plump, limp, moist hand for her to squeeze
and said, "I thought maybe you were one of them reporters."  Her breath
smelled yeasty.  "They come crawling' up the hill to harass us, talkin'
about how my boy run off with Nicole Castillo."

"Can we talk for a minute?"

"Sure.  C'mon in."

The air inside the trailer was moist and eucalyptus-smelling.  Two more
children were curled up on the sofa, tattered outfits revealing their
bony frames.  The older boy seemed more vulnerable than the other two
children despite his flattop haircut and paste-on tattoos.  He sat on
the plaid sofa with his knees drawn to his chest, and beside him, like
a frightened bird, was a little girl who cradled the sofa's musty
arm.

"Would you like some Lipton tea?"  Mrs.  Tedesco offered, and

Rachel declined, but then changed her mind.  Mrs.  Tedesco disappeared
into the tiny kitchenette.  "My mother used to buy those pinwheel
cookies, remember?  I love them cookies, but you can't find 'em
anywhere."

Rachel took a seat in a damp-smelling armchair beside the TV set and
became the sole focus of the children's attention.  There were pictures
of the family on the walls in neat simple frames.  Back issues of TV
Guide and People were stacked on the slender coffee table.  Tall
plastic cups decorated with football figures littered every surface.
The potted geraniums in the window were mottled with fungus.

"My ex-husband does carpentry work," Mrs.  Tedesco said, a clatter of
teakettle and china cups emanating from the kitchenette.  "Case you
need a fix-it man.  Here's his card."  She dug inside the pocket of her
tent dress.  "Oops.  Had one somewhere.  He's real good with his hands.
Made me a computer stand with a paper tray I'm studying computers at
the community college."

"You and your ex ... are you still closer" Rachel asked.

"Oh my, yes.  He's good with yard work, all kindsa stuff.  I'm his
manager.  I get a percentage of whatever business I can dig up."  She
let out a death-rattle cough.  "Roger and Dinger have such a strong
bond.  Dinger sure loves his dad."

"Where's Roger live?"

"Over there on Carpenter Street.  Funny, huh?  A carpenter who lives on
Carpenter Street."

Rachel took down Roger's address and phone number, then asked, "He
doesn't know the Castillos by any chance, does he?"

"Oh yeah.  Did some yard work for them over the summer.  Worked on
their pool."

"And you say you and Roger get along?"

"Like bread and butter."  Mrs.  Tedesco came out carrying two cups of
tea.  She set Rachel's down on the coffee table in front of her, then
squeezed in between the pale, dirty children on the sofa.  "So what can
I do for you, Detective?"

"I need to ask you about the day Dinger disappeared."

"Well, he went to school, then he went to work."

"Around four-thirty?"

She shrugged.  "He's got, watchacallit... flexible hours."

"School lets out at two-thirty, doesn't it?  Where was he between
two-thirty and four-thirty?"

"Over Chris's house.  Chris lives with his stepdad four blocks that
away Those two together are three stooges short of a load."

"And he borrowed your car?"

"I let him use it, long as he gasses up."

"What time were you expecting him home that night?"

"Dinger can stay out until eleven o'clock on weeknights."

"How's he doing academically?"

"Okay, I guess.  He's good at math and science, but he's lousy at
history, and he's failing English and social studies.  He's a big kid,
but he ain't interested in sports.  Go figure."

"Does he own a chemistry set?"

"What?"

"A chemistry set?"

"He used to have one when he was little."

"Have you ever known him to take drugs?"

Mrs.  Tedesco let out an indignant grunt.  "My kids don't do drugs.
Dinger can't even stomach secondhand smoke.  He made me quit."

Rachel nodded and flipped through the pages of her notebook.  "He took
off on his bicycle that night.  Why didn't he take the car?"

"I was using it.  Had to go to the clinic to have a DDT or ... you
know, that thing that scrapes your insides?  An IUD or something?  Kind
of like Roto-Rooter?"

"You mean, a DC?"

"Yeah, sucks your insides out."  Mrs.  Tedesco made a sour face and
rubbed her stomach.  "You want a cookie?  I got YumYums."

"No, thanks."  Rachel smiled.  "Mrs.  Tedesco, can you think of

anyplace Dinger might have gone to be alone?  Someplace private?"

"Oh gee.  Lemme think.  Him and Chris used to hang out in the barn that
got torn down last year ..."  Her voice trailed off.

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark, Rachel could make out the
girl more clearly--she looked twelve or thirteen, with dirty-blond
hair, hazel eyes and the beginnings of acne on her cheeks.

"Do you think Dinger might've confided in one of your other
children?"

"Gee whiz."  Mrs.  Tedesco looked at her brood.  "Holy cow, kids. 
Who's holdin'out?"

"What are their names?"

"Sheba ... Duncan ... Franklin."

Rachel smiled at the girl.  "Hello, Sheba."

"Hello."  A mere whisper.

"Speak up, mouse fart," Duncan, the younger brother, sneered.

"Sheba," Rachel said, leaning forward, "did Dinger say where he was
going last Wednesday night?  The night he and Nicole disappeared?"

Sheba's eyes went wide like her mother's.  "Well, um--"

"We can't hear you, goose poop!"

"Mom," Sheba whined, "make him stop."

Mrs.  Tedesco pinched Duncan's thigh.  "Quit teasing your sister."

"Owl"

"Sheba," Rachel said, trying to remain focused, "your brother's missing
and I'm trying to find him.  Nobody's going to get into trouble here,
isn't that right, Mrs.  Tedesco?"

"Absolutely not."

"I need you to tell me the truth."

Sheba had a sweet smile.  She drew her knees up to her chest like her
brothers were doing and her clothes made a rustling sound.  "Dinger
said he and Nicole were gonna get married."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he said they were gonna have a baby."

A surprised Mrs.  Tedesco shifted her bulk on the couch and her three
children bobbed like buoys in her wake.

"It's okay, Sheba," Rachel said as coolly as she could.  "No one's
going to get into trouble.  Your brother needs your help.  Trust me, I
won't get mad at anything you say."

Sheba chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip, then continued: "He said if
it was a boy, he was gonna name it Brother, and if it was a girl, he
was gonna call it Mercedes."

Rachel smiled her encouragement.  "Interesting choices."

"When I have a baby, I'm gonna call it Portia like in Julius Caesar, if
it's a girl.  And if it's a boy, I'll call him Fabio."

Duncan made farting sounds.  "Fabio!  Oh Fabio!  Sounds like something
you'd spit up in the morning."

"Trust me," Mrs.  Tedesco interrupted, "I don't know nothin' about any
baby."

"That's perfectly all right," Rachel said.  "Sheba, what else did he
tell you?  I need you to think real hard."

Sheba thought for a moment, then glanced at her mother.  "Just that I
wasn't supposed to tell."

"Don't worry, you're not in any trouble."

"And that if Nicole's parents found out, they'd kill him."

"Nobody's gonna kill anybody," Mrs.  Tedesco said uneasily.

"And that Dinger and Nicole were gonna run away together and get
married."

"Did he say where they were going?"

Sheba stared mutely at her and shook her head.

"I heard him talkin' on the phone," Franklin piped up.  "He was talk in
to some guy named Billy."

"Billy?"  The hairs prickled the back of Rachel's neck.

"Or maybe it was Bobby."  Franklin frowned.  "Yeah, I think it was
Bobby."

"When was this?"

"Last week."

"Last week, before he disappeared?"

"I can't remember."

" "I can't remember," " his younger brother sneered, pressing his palm
to his mouth and making a farting sound.

"Cut it out."  Mrs.  Tedesco twisted Duncan's nose, Duncan screamed in
exaggerated pain, and his brother and sister giggled.

Rachel stood up.  "Thanks, you've been very helpful."

"But you haven't finished your tea."  Mrs.  Tedesco followed her to the
door.  "D'you think they ran away?"  she asked in an urgent, hopeful
whisper.  "D'you think they ran off to get married or something?"

"I don't know," Rachel said.  "We're doing everything we can to locate
them."

As she turned to leave, the children on the couch cried out in unison,
"Savonara!"

RACHEL DRONE TO THE BLIND SCHOOL WITH THE INTENTION

of talking to Billy, but instead found herself parked behind Knoxwood
Hall, the department for head injuries.  She was feeling achy and had
taken some cold medicine and now her head was groggy.  It was a
typically frigid November afternoon, the temperature in the thirties.

The building's furnace pumped pockets of hot, dusty air into the drafty
lobby.  A silver balloon floated at the far end of the receptionist's
desk.  Anchored to a pencil sharpener, it delicately drifted with the
fickle air currents.  Rachel glanced at the flowers on the countertop,
a sensual yellow bouquet that aggressively greeted people as they
walked in the door.

"Excuse me," she said, approaching the receptionist, "I'd like to
speak to Russell Crenshaw.  I'm from the police department."

The elderly woman seemed slightly out of breath.  "There's a flu going
around," she said, shoving the nozzle of a Vicks inhaler up her nose
and squeezing.  She picked up the phone and dialed.  "Hi, it's me.
Russell's got a visitor."  She listened a beat, then cradled the
receiver.  "He'll be here in a minute, have a seat."

Rachel picked up a brochure and took it to the sagging lobby sofa.
"Adult Services: Comprehensive Rehabilitation Programs for Head-Injured
Persons 18 Years & Older."  According to the brochure, there were
approximately 700,000 head injuries in the United States each year. 
The most frequent reason for visits to the emergency room was head
injury. Every year, more than 140,000 Americans died as a result, with
2,000 cases in a persistent vegetative state.  The typical survivor of
severe head injury required five to ten years of intensive
rehabilitation, resulting in a cost of $8 million over a lifetime.

The sound of a rattling trash cart reached her ears before Porter
Powell came into view.  She identified him by his nametag.  He had a
babyish face and startled, sandy blond hair, and was taller than the
man accompanying him by several inches.  He hummed to himself, a
tuneless groan, and shook his head so forcefully, his hearing aid fell
out and began to whistle, high pitched and insistent.  The
man--Russell, she assumed--followed him at a short distance.

"Hide your food," Russell said.  "Porter's coming."

"Spare me," the receptionist said.  "I'm going for a cigarette."

She ducked into the ladies' room just as Porter Powell stopped short of
the silver helium balloon rising up from her desk.  He ran his hands
through his thick, stand-up hair, then poked at the balloon, which
bobbed above the pencil sharpener.

"Ung!"  he grunted, and clapped his hands.

"You wanted to see me?"  Russell said.

Rachel stood up and they shook hands.  "Detective Storrow."

"Billy's sister?"

"Yes.  I have a few questions about the night Claire Castillo
disappeared."

"Porter, no," Russell said firmly.  He was a thin, middle aged man in a
Star Trek T-shirt.  "Porter's on a mission," he explained.  "It's his
job.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, he empties all the wastebaskets."

As if on cue, Porter rounded the receptionist's desk and found the
wastebasket.  He grasped the sides of the metal barrel and scanned the
desk for stray scraps, his eyes as wide and blank as puddles after a
hard rain.

"That's fine, Porter," Russell said, tilting back on his heels.

Porter spotted a dust ball on the rug and stooped to retrieve it, his
back expanding as he bent over until it was as broad as a billboard. 
He upended the wastebasket, shook it viciously into the trash cart and
fished around for stuck pieces of tape.  He returned the wastebasket to
its place beneath the receptionist's desk, all the while making
breathy, guttural sounds at the back of his throat.

"Thank you, Mr.  Powell.  Good job."

Porter didn't respond.  Instead he fingered the balloon's string, and
the balloon hopped anxiously up and down.

"Porter," Russell warned.

Obediently, he returned to the cart where he throttled the full trash
bag, then secured it with a twistie.

"His big thing is neatness," Russell explained.  "I have to stop him
from carrying too many half-filled trash bags out to the sidewalk in
front of the building.  He's very thorough, I'll give you that."

"So I see," Rachel said with a smile.

"His one big vice is running water.  He likes to go upstairs and play
with the bathroom faucets.  He'd run water all day long if we let him.
Isn't that right, Mr.  Powell?  So you wanted to know ... ?"

"Was there anything unusual about Billy's appearance the night Claire
disappeared, when he brought Porter back?"

"Hm."  Russell frowned.  If he thought there was anything odd about her
line of questioning, he didn't let on.  "As far as I remember, no.
Billy brought him back around nine, just like always."

"Did you two speak?"

'"Hey, man, how's it going?"  Stuff like that.  "Cold out?"  I probably
asked him how Porter was, you know... what'd he get himself into this
time?"

"Was there anything unusual about Porter's behavior that night?"

He squinted at her.  "What d'you mean?"

"Was he more agitated than usual?"

"Porter's always agitated.  A year ago, he was a normal teenage boy,
headed for college on a football scholarship; then one night, he and
his buddies decide to go drinking and driving, right?  Big mistake.
Porter's the lucky one, if you can believe it.  Head trauma impact.
He's lost a lot of cognitive abilities--attention, memory, reaction
time, higher-level reasoning.  He's got a constellation of behavior
problems.  Hyperactivity, irritability, impulsivity ..."

"So you're saying ... there was nothing out of the ordinary about his
behavior that night?"

"If his behavior could be called ordinary, no."

"Would you mind if I asked him?"

"Porter?"  He seemed surprised.  "Be my guest."

Russell corralled Porter onto the plaid sola, where he bounced
excitedly up and down and shook his massive head.

"Porter," Russell said, "this is Detective Storrow--"

"Rachel."

"Porter, this is Rachel.  She wants to ask you some questions, okay?
Okay, buddy?"

"Yup."  He bounced up and down, avoiding eye contact.

"Hello, Porter," Rachel said.

"Yup," he said.

"Do you remember Billy?"

"Uh-huh."

"He's your volunteer, isn't he?"

"Uh-huh."

"Remember when he picked you up about four weeks ago?  It was a
Wednesday night, do you remember?  Middle of October?"

"Yup."

"Do you remember that night?  It was sort of foggy.  You and Billy went
out to eat, I think.  You shot hoops in his backyard.  Remember?"

"Yup.  Billy and me ..."

"That's right.  Do you remember what happened that night?"

"Who you sittin' in for?"  Porter asked with an abrupt shake of his
head.

"Excuse me?"

"Who you sittin' in for?"

She looked at Russell.

"He thinks you're a substitute teacher."

"Oh."  Rachel smiled.  "No, I'm a police detective, Porter."

"Police?"

"Yes."

"What's that?"  He pointed at her lap.

She looked down.  She had her notebook out.  "These are my notes."

"What for?"

"I'm writing down your statement."

He clapped his hands excitedly and bounced up and down on the squeaky
sofa, loose as a rag doll.

"You're really revved up today," Russell said.  "Did you eat your
Wheaties this morning.  Porter?"

"Yup.  What're you doin'?"

"I'm writing down everything you say," Rachel responded.

"What for?"

"It's my job."

IT

"What's that:1" He pointed at her chest.

She glanced down.  Her coat was open, the handle grip of her gun
exposed.  She smoothed her coat shut.  "That's my weapon.  I'm a police
detective.  Don't worry, I'm not going to use it."

"On bad guys?"

"I try not to use it, Porter."  She glanced at Russell, worried she
might've frightened them both, but Russell only shrugged.  "Porter,"
she said, "do you remember anything about the night you and Billy spent
together about a month ago?"

He abruptly stopped bouncing and stared at the floor, making itsy-bitsy
spiders with his fingers.

"Do you remember anything about that night?"

"Girls," he said cryptically.

"What's that?"

"Girls."

"What about girls?"

"We got girl."

She leaned forward.  Did he mean Rachel herself?  Was he still
confusing her with a substitute teacher?  "I'm sorry?"  she said.

"We got girl."  He was bouncing violently now.

"What girl?"  she asked with growing alarm.  "What girl, Porter?"

"Porter," Russell said, "cool your jets."

He obeyed instantly, hands steepled in front of his face.  "We got
girl."

"What girl?"

"Yup."

She glanced helplessly at Russell, who merely shrugged.  "I doubt he
remembers much of anything," he said softly.  "Porter has severely
limited cognitive capacity.  His family has unrealistic expectations,
I'm afraid."

Porter was rocking violently now, head ducking lower and lower toward
the ground.  Russell intervened, reaching for Porter's shoulder and
gently, physically steadying him.  Porter stopped rocking long enough
to rub his eyes and Hap his large, fleshy hands.

"I'm really disappointed in you," he said, flapping his hands as if
he'd burnt them on a stove.  "I'm really disappointed in you ..."

"Okay, buddy, calm down."

He jumped up and ran across the lobby toward the counter in front of
the receptionist's desk, bumping into it with his sneakered feet.

"Porter!"  Russell called out.

He folded the bouquet in a firm handshake, brought the flowers to his
nose and inhaled, his broad fleshy face lit by their yellow ness "I'm
really disappointed in you ..."

Russell slowly approached.  "Chill out, buddy."

Porter's fingers tightened around the stems.  When he released his
grip, yellow petals fluttered to the floor.  "I'm really disappointed
in you ..."  He bolted up the stairs.

"Porter, no!"  Russell took off after him.

Shivering, Rachel stood and cinched her belt.  Perhaps she shouldn't
have corner The stairwell shook as Porter pounded back down the stairs
again.  He charged toward her, breathing noisily through his nose,
snorting like a bull, and for an instant she thought he might bowl her
over.  Instead, he made a U-turn and hammered toward the reception
area.

"Yikes!"  The receptionist turned right around and went back inside the
ladies' room.

Porter snatched the silver balloon by its string and gave a sharp tug.
The string snapped, and Porter gleefully ran with it out the front
door.

Russell was hot on his heels.  "Porter Powell, you come back here!"

Rachel headed after them, keeping a safe distance.

Outside, Russell grabbed Porter's shirtsleeve and the fabric ripped as
Porter twisted away, surprisingly agile.  He looked up at the sky and
let go of the balloon.  He let out an exultant cry as the balloon
ascended into the wide blue yonder.

Russell turned to Rachel with an embarrassed grin.  "He's been
plotting that for days, I'll bet."

"I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING FOR A FACT.  MOST PEOPLE'S DOORbells don't
work," Boomer Blazo said as Rachel struggled to keep up.  They were
walking door to door, reading meters in an area where some of Flowering
Dogwood's oldest homes were located.  Boomer wore a blue shirt
inscribed with the gas company logo.  He'd been at it for ten years
now, and his wife was expecting twins soon, and he wasn't sure how they
were going to make ends meet.

"You know, I like this neighborhood," he said.  "I got a real juicy
book today.  All outside meters.  I can do about fifty an hour, that's
a real juicy book.

"When you have to do a lot of walking," Boomer went on, "that's a bad
book.  Too many busted doorbells, you gotta knock.  People get mad if
you knock.  "What's wrong with my doorbell?  "Twenty-five houses an
hour, that's a bad book."

"I wanted to talk to you about the night Melissa D'Agostino was
murdered, Boomer."

"You know, Officer ... should I call you Officer?"

"Rachel's fine."

"Rachel, I've struggled practically my entire life trying to put that
episode behind me.  I don't particularly like the fact that you're
cracking the case wide open.  I mean, this is my life now.  I've got a
wife and kids.  I'm a decent, hardworking citizen just like anybody
else.  I don't think I should be harassed for something that happened,
hell... a lifetime ago, to be perfectly frank with you."

"I respect your honesty, Boomer," she said, struggling up a short hill
toward a brown house where the family's laundry was draped over the
second-floor balcony.  "But iNeal Fliss said I should talk to you about
where Billy was that night."

He stopped her with a broad, ink-stained hand.  He was lanky, almost
gaunt, and reminded her so much of the shy, pimple faced adolescent who
used to hang out in her brother's room, smoking pot and throwing open
the windows in the dead of winter to get rid of the smell.  "She lied,"
he said, his gravel voice lowered to a whisper.

"Who lied?"

"Gillian Dumont."

"About what?"

"About afterward.  When we all took off."  Boomer shook his head in
frustration.  "First we dropped Melissa off near the exit, right?  Then
Neal and I drove to my house where we shot pool all night, and Ozzie
and Dolly went to the Dairy Joy, and Billy dropped Michelle off, then
supposedly drove over to Gillian's, right?  That's what they both said,
right?"

Rachel nodded, fingers gripping her pen.

"Well--" Boomer's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.  "They lied."

"You can prove this?"

"No, I can't."  He continued up the hill, and Rachel lost her footing
and nearly slipped in the mud.  "Let Gillian tell you herself."

"I haven't been able to locate her."  She shuffled through the Melissa
D'Agostino case file, searching for Gillian's yellowed statement. 
"Both parents dead, no living relatives.  She moved around a lot.  I
tracked her to Seattle, but there's no forwarding address."

"Well then, I can't help you."  Boomer's hands were balled into fists.
Approaching a robin's-breast-red door, he depressed the button, but the
doorbell didn't work, so he knocked, knuckles scraping the peeling
paint.

"Wait."  She made him stop.  "Tell me what she said.  Tell me
everything."

He worked his teeth over his lower lip, silently debating, then
wrinkled his nose.  "She told me--and this was years after it
happened--she told me Billy never came over to her house.  Not at
five-thirty, I mean.  He went over later on, around eight o'clock, but
not earlier.  She lied to the police.  She would've done anything for
Billy."

The sun broke through the clouds, and Rachel squinted up at him.  "She
told you that?"

"Years after it happened.  Right before she moved to Chicago."

"And you believed her?"

"She had no reason to lie to me."

Something clutched at her, and for an instant she almost couldn't
breathe.  She struggled to remain calm, or at least to look as if this
information hadn't rattled her viscerally.  "Boomer," she said, "it's
critical you remember correctly ... if Billy didn't go over to
Gillian's at five-thirty, then where did he go?"

"Okay, that's the weird part.  He told her he went back for Melissa
because he felt guilty just dropping her off like that.  But when he
got to Black Hill Road, she was gone.  He drove around looking for her
but couldn't find her anywhere.  And Gillian believed him.  He said if
she didn't lie for him, he'd be in big trouble, since there was a whole
hour unaccounted for."

"Five- thirty to six-thirty."

Boomer nodded.

An elderly woman opened the door.  "Yes?"  She eyed them suspiciously.
"What is it?"

"Meter reader," Boomer announced, rifling through his logbook.

"Why didn't you ring the doorbell, young man?"  she asked angrily, and
Boomer gave Rachel a sly wink.

RACHEL FOUND THE SPARE KEY BILLY HAD GIVEN HER IN CASE

of emergencies and unlocked the door.  He wouldn't be coming home for
several hours, and her stomach contracted sourly as she entered the
chilly house.  This was not what a professional did; this was not what
a loving sister did.

Quickly, she searched the downstairs area, knowing full well that a
warrantless search was inadmissible in a court of law.  She risked
tainting herself and the case in her search for answers, but this was
no longer about following procedure, it was about saving lives.  Her
head felt swollen to twice its size and there was a knot inside her
blistered heart the size of a basketball.

The chartreuse-painted living room was clean and neat, magazines
stacked on an 1843 dowry chest--National Geographic, The New Yorker,
Scientific American; pillows propped against sofa arms; remote on top
of the TV set; books placed neatly back on their scrub pine shelves.
Billy was an avid reader.  He was a member of several book clubs and
read anything he could get his hands on.  His exercise equipment was
located in the closed-in porch just off the kitchen: rowing machine,
Nautilus.  There were no dirty dishes in the sink.  Everything had been
put away, and the linoleum floor was dotted with Roach Motels.

Upstairs, she checked the bathroom, damp towels folded over the towel
rack, then gazed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and told
herself it didn't matter; none of this mattered.  Billy was incapable
of such monstrous behavior.  There were two dried starfish in the
medicine chest, along with a dozen pill bottles-aspirin, Advil,
Sudafed, Nytol, Tylenol, Sleep-Eze, No-Doz, laxatives She found a
discarded razor blade and several rumpled tissues in the wicker
wastebasket.

Now she'd done it.  Might as well go the distance.  Inside Billy's
tangerine-painted bedroom, she fished through his bureau drawers,
careful not to disturb the T-shirts, socks and folded underwear.  An
empty cigar box with a red clay pipe inside.  Her thoughts swam without
a frame of reference, disassociated words twisting through her head.
She tried to concentrate as she looked in Billy's closet, where she
found several unopened Yves Saint Laurent shirts on the top shelf, then
her fingers touched a Ziploc bag.

Gingerly, she pulled it out.  Pot and rolling papers.  She slid these
back into their hiding place.  She wasn't there to bust her brother for
possession.  The academy didn't encourage recruits to rat out
lawbreaking relatives, but rather to avoid them.  To not associate with
them.  Down on the closet floor where shoes and sneakers made soldierly
rows, she found a box of family photos and other memorabilia tucked
behind a folded quilt.  She sorted through the photographs: herself at
seven, smirking at the camera, striking a bathing-beauty pose; their
parents holding each other tenderly, laughing with their heads thrown
back, eyes incandescent.  She remembered how, when they were kids,
Billy used to tell her he could catch time in ajar.  He'd sweep his
hand through the air as if he were snatching fireflies, then screw the
lid on tight.  "I've got a whole hour in this jar," he'd say.  It had
been Rachel's idea to poke enough holes in the Jid so that Time could
breathe.

Peeking beneath the bed, she couldn't find a single dust bunny.  Her
heart grew heavy.  Neat, he was neat.  That fit the profile.  She
glanced at all the books on his built-in bookshelves.  The house was a
virtual library.

She sat on the edge of his bed and opened the drawer of his bedside
table.  Inside were his reading glasses, a box of tissues and a small
jewelry box.  She opened the jewelry box.  Inside was a pair of plastic
windup teeth, a miniature Godzilla and a green plastic

turtle, the kind whose head bobbed when you touched it.  Something
deep inside of her snapped.  Goosebumps traveled from her scalp and
riffled down her arms.  The room spun around for a dizzying instant,
then stilled.  She examined the plastic turtle, which seemed identical
to Dinger's in every way.  "Oh my God."

The means of obtaining evidence must be acceptable to the presiding
justice.  You need enough circumstantial evidence to obtain a search
warrant.  A request for a search warrant must be supported by a police
oath describing the specific place to be searched and specific items to
be seized.  "Probable cause" means a reasonable ground for belief, less
than evidence justifying a conviction, but more than bare suspicion.

She put the turtle back in its box, a growing fury propelling her to
her feet.  Her scalp burned, her ears itched.  "Nicole?"  The lonely,
frightened sound of her own voice in the huge, empty house chilled her
to the bone.

The attic was cold and dusty, a few flies sluggishly buzzing against
the window screen.  "Hello?"  she called out to the darkness.  "Anybody
up here?"  Her scalp tingled as she half anticipated some desperate
response.  Billy had taken the train set from home and set it up in the
attic, miniature cars and buildings under a layer of dust as thick as
snow.  She crawled beneath the attic eaves and pulled out boxes one by
one.  "Hello?  Is anybody here?"  She found a collection of bird
feathers in a manila envelope, a set of daggers with ivory handles
couched in a red velvet case, books and more books, winter clothes
stored in mothballs.  A space heater.  A broken window fan.

Back downstairs in Billy's bedroom, she glanced around, hoping she
hadn't left any telltale signs of her illicit presence, then went
downstairs.  The floorboards in the front hall were badly warped.  Her
face burned.  She hesitated at the basement door, doorknob slippery in
her hand.

The door creaked open.  "Hello?"  she called down the stairs.  She
switched on the light and descended.

The basement was damp and musk-smelling.  A water heater hummed in one
corner.  He'd been refinishing a couple of eighteenth-century benches.
His power tools hung neatly from a cork board.  Peering into all four
corners, she found no kidnap victims, no dead bodies, no gruesome
tableaus.

Outside, the wind ripped her coat open as she raced for her car.  It
beat against her uncovered face and found the narrow band of exposed
skin at the back of her neck.  She got in the car, slammed the door,
then turned on the heater and shivered for a good long while, hating
herself.

THAT NIGHT, Rachel.  FOUND MCKISSACK IN HIS OFFICE, GAZing out the
window.  She sought his reflection in the glass and gropingly recalled
the first time they'd made love, right here in his office, late one
night on the stained oak floor.  The urgency of his need had been like
a secret thought grown too big to contain any longer.  She'd been
energized by their furious lovemaking.  Her body hummed, the thrill of
it buzzing in her ears.  She'd never felt so brave or dangerous or
nakedly alive as on that night.

Now a strange new fear tightened its grip on her body.  She had
betrayed her brother, and this knowledge spread with light speed to
every corner of her being, every cell.  She could feel her own
self-loathing coursing through her bones like the cancer that had
claimed her mother's life.  Certainly her father would never have
approved of her tactics.  Perhaps that was why he'd committed
suicide--to avoid finding out the truth.  That Billy had a secret life?
That his son might be a cold-blooded murderer?

"We got the lab results this afternoon," McKissack said.  "No

presence of sperm inside the vagina or anus.  No indications of forced
penetration."

"So she wasn't raped?"

"In all likelihood, no."  He held her eye through the window's
reflection.  "We spoke with Rudd's ex-wife.  She corroborates his
story, and she has no reason to.  The information hurts her, doesn't
help.  Plus the bartender at the Hoary Toad ID'd Ozzie from a
photograph.  Looks like he's clean."

"So this wasn't a sexual crime?"

"To the best of our knowledge, no."

"What about the drug screen?"

"Multiple drugs were found in her system.  Four of these were
administered in the ER--epinephrine, methyl prednisolone magnesium
sulfate and ketamine.  Epinephrine is commonly used in emergency rooms
for the treatment of asthma."  Swiveling around in his chair, he held
her eye.  "A high concentration of a fifth drug was also found.
Thorazine."

Rachel drew a blank.  "An antipsychotic?"

"The injection site on the foot also tested positive for Thorazine."

"He injected her with an antipsychotic?  But why?"

"Antipsychotics have potent blood-pressure-lowering properties.  When
epinephrine is injected into an individual taking phenothiazine anti
psychotics the blood pressure can drop to critical levels."

"But I thought epinephrine was a cardiac stimulant?"

"According to the lab report, Thorazine is one of the few drugs that
can actually reverse the effects of epinephrine, making it a
potentially lethal combination."

Rachel's hands tingled, this new information opening up a realm of
terrifying possibilities.  "You mean he injected her with Thorazine
knowing full well that the ER team would administer epinephrine?  And
that the combination could kill her?"

"Looks that way."  McKissack masked his frustration and rage beneath
layers of practiced restraint.

"I don't believe it."  She shook her head.  "Are you implying that the
UN SUB somehow knew the ER staff would respond to Claire's asthma
attack by pumping her full of epinephrine?"

"Not just any ER.  Not just any doctor.  One doctor in particular."

It took a moment for his words to register.  She caught her breath,
incredulous.  "You're telling me that the offender knew Claire's father
was scheduled to work in the ER that night?"

"I'm beginning to suspect it."

She shook her head in disbelief.  "You're really scaring me,
McKissack."

"As in ... 'who the fuck are we dealing with here?"" He cracked a
bitter smile.  "I know.  I scare myself sometimes."

"So he knew Yale Castillo would be on duty that night?  That Yale would
assume his daughter was having an asthma attack and administer
epinephrine?  Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yes."

Rachel's head swam.  She had to sit.  "This is insane."

McKissack scowled.  "She was alive when they brought her in.  In good
health, Archie said.  He'd been feeding her--they found fucking
macaroni-and-cheese in her stomach.  No fractures, no contusions."  He
let his fist slam down on the desktop.  "He fixed it so her own father
killed her."

They locked eyes.

"Dinger Tedesco is failing all subjects but math and chemistry."

McKissack arched an eyebrow.

"Nicole was pregnant.  Claire knew about it.  She might've threatened
to tell their parents."

McKissack rubbed his chin with his thumb.  "Still, he had to bring her
someplace secluded and keep her there for three weeks."

"I asked Dinger's mother if she knew of any such place.  She
didn't."

"Three weeks is a long time.  The kid's in high school.  We're talking
about a very sophisticated crime here."

"Who, then?"

"Buck Folette.  Thorazine is an antipsychotic."

"He's not smart enough."

"He's just crazy enough."

"What about his alibi?"

"The night Nicole and Dinger disappeared?  Couldn't find anybody who
remembered him.  He refuses to take a poly.  His lawyers have already
contacted us.  Fucking lawyers.  I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts he's
our man."

"But it doesn't make sense.  Nicole knew about Buck's history.  She
would've screamed bloody murder if she saw him coming.  She would've
run in the opposite direction.  No way he could've dragged those two
off without a struggle.  Dinger's a big kid."

"So maybe he drugged them?"

"How?  He never would've gotten close enough."

"Then who the hell are we dealing with here?"  McKissack barked. 
"Who's got the fucking depravity to sew up a beautiful woman like that
and make sure she ends up in the hospital during her father's watch? 
How do two teenagers disappear without a trace?"

"I don't know."  She buried her face in her hands.

"What else you got for me, Storrow?"

She swallowed hard and looked at him.  She couldn't withhold the truth
any longer.  "Remember you warned me not to reopen the Melissa
D'Agostino case?  You said you never know what you might find?"

He nodded, eyes tightly focused.

"Well, I think my brother might be a suspect."

McKissack gave no hint of surprise.

"I think Billy's involved," she repeated.

"I heard you.  I'm trying to absorb this."

"Dinger's brother claims he overheard Dinger talking to a "Billy' on
the phone.  Then he said, no, maybe it was "Bobby."  But it got me
thinking.  So I drove over to the head-injured department at Winfield
and interviewed Porter Powell."

"Porter who?"

"Billy's head-injured kid.  His alibi the night Claire disappeared.  He
drove Porter back to his dorm around nine-ten, which means he couldn't
have gotten downtown any sooner than nine-twenty, right?  Well, what
was he doing at eight P.M.?"

"Shooting hoops with the kid."

"What if he's lying?  What if Billy picked up Claire after she left the
diner with Porter Powell in the car?"

McKissack's eyes darted with acknowledgment.  "Since this kid doesn't
have the capacity to relate the experience to anyone."

"I asked Porter if he remembered that night.  He kept talking about a
girl.  "We got girl' were his exact words," she said a little
breathlessly.  "The Melissa D'Agostino case wasn't sexual, either.  No
penetration, no abrasions."

McKissack nodded.  "Whoever decapitated those cats is capable of great
cruelty."

"So I spoke to Boomer Blazo.  He told me Billy and Gillian lied about
the evening Melissa died.  It turns out Billy wasn't with Gillian from
five-thirty to six-thirty.  He went back for Melissa after he dropped
Michelle off, at five-thirty, but he claimed Melissa was already gone.
Gillian covered for him."

McKissack squinted at her.

"And what about the lower-case, underlined 'b' in her organizer?  She
was supposed to meet Billy the following night, Thursday night, and
there's an upper-case "B' in the calendar.  "B' for Billy.  Could the
lower-case 'b' also mean Billy?"

"That wouldn't make sense."

"But we've proven she's erratic with the initials.  What if it does
mean Billy?  Why is it underlined?  Was she mad at him?  Did they

have an argument?  Did they get together to discuss it?"  Rachel was
pacing now.  "My brother sometimes rents a cabin in the woods up north.
He was physically abused as a child.  He's in his mid-thirties, lives
alone in a big house in a remote part of town.  He's obsessively neat.
Hasn't had any kind of solid relationship with a woman.  McKissack,"
she said, "he fits the profile."

He ran his hands through his hair.  "Slow down."

"And I found something else.  During our interview, Dinger pulled out
this little green turtle.  You know the kind?  Those plastic turtles
whose heads bob up and down?  Well ..."  She took a deep breath.  "I
found a turtle just like that inside Billy's house.  Tucked away in a
drawer."

"You made an illegal search?"  McKissack cried.  "Rachel, this does not
leave my office!  Do you understand?  We never discussed it."

"I couldn't help it, I had to find out."

"Look at me point-blank and tell me you think your brother's capable of
something as fucked up as this."  He stared at her hard.  "Look at
me."

"I don't know."  Her eyes welled with tears.  "I think I understand
what my father was going through the night he killed himself.  I think
he figured it out.  God, he must've been so overwhelmed, so--"

"Rachel, don't do this to yourself."  He stood up.  "You're too close.
He's your brother, for chrissakes."

He put his arms around her.  He smelled faintly of Old Spice.  Nobody
wore Old Spice anymore.  She slid her arms around his thickened waist
and held on tight.

"You're off the case," he said, breaking it to her as gently as he
could.  "I'm sorry.  We'll have a sneaker car follow Billy around. Once
he's cleared, if he's cleared, I'll reassign you."

She nodded, strength draining from her limbs.

"The search you made wasn't any good.  Forget the turtle,

we've gotta find probable cause.  See if anybody saw Billy and Dinger
together, hearsay's admissible in the affidavit."

"What about Gillian Dumont?"

"If she's a key witness but can't be located, the prosecutor's gonna
dismiss the charges.  We arrest anybody on suspicion of kidnapping and
possibly murder, we'll need a great deal of corroborating evidence to
make the charges stick."

Rachel shook her head.  "This is crazy.  Billy isn't capable of
something so diabolical."

"I agree.  You didn't find any dead bodies, did you?"

She shook her head.  "But remember the cabin ..."

"If he goes anywhere, we'll know about it."

"My head is killing me."

"Shhh."

"I feel like I failed him," she confessed.

"Don't let it defeat you, sweetie."

"Hold me."

She felt his body stiffen.

"Rachel," he said, drawing back, but she wouldn't let him go.

"No, this isn't sexual, McKissack.  It's not anything."

He relaxed against her, finally realizing she had a deeper
psychological need to hold him.

"I'm scared."

"I know."  He sighed, looking at her with off-duty eyes.  "So am I,
sweetheart, So am I."

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT WHEN RACHEL TOOK HIGHWAY 71

at Bent Fork and headed south past the sprawling mall on the short
drive home.  She could barely keep her eyes open.  Approaching the
Wible Road exit, she caught a cluster of red taillights up ahead and
hit the brakes.  A big rig had jackknifed across the center divider,
blocking all northbound and southbound traffic.  Rachel radioed for
help, then got out to assess the damage and offer assistance if
necessary.

She quickly approached the confusion of sideswiped cars and voices
raised in panic.  The slick black road was eerily lit by the
crisscrossing headlights of idling cars, and at the bull's-eye of these
intersecting high beams was a body.  A boy's body, sprawled faceup on
the asphalt.  Naked.  Duct tape covering his eyes.  More duct tape
binding his wrists.  Over a dozen onlookers clustered around, staring
solemnly down, and Rachel noticed right away that no one had touched
the body, a strong indication he might be dead.  She ran the last few
yards and bent over the boy, ripping duct tape off his eyes.  The shock
of recognition ricocheted around inside her skull like a pinball--it
was Dinger Tedesco.

Leaning down, she checked for a pulse.  His face was drained of blood,
his lips a theatrical blue, eyes open to the night sky, the irises like
fogged glass.  The body was already growing cold.  There was a wide
tread mark across his chest and she was almost certain he was dead, but
she checked his airway for obstruction anyway and tried to start his
heart.  Tried with a fervent, futile hope-against-hope.  She straddled
his legs and, placing the heel of her hand one finger-breadth above the
intersection of the ribs

and sternum, began the compressions, and a thick gob of blood shot out
of his mouth and hit her smack in the forehead.

The onlookers gasped and stepped back, but Rachel continued
administering CPR, asking between breaths, "How long has he been lying
here?"

"Five minutes, give or take."

She continued with the CPR until paramedics arrived and took over, and
only then did she start taking down names.  It helped her to keep busy,
to have something to do.  She didn't want to remember the living,
breathing boy she'd just met, with his soft features and awkward
disposition.

Now a bald burly man wearing earmuffs and a Bulls jacket approached
her.  "That's my rig," he said, pointing at the jackknifed truck.  "I'm
the one who hit the kid."

She pulled him aside and he gave her his statement.  "I was on the road
for about five hours, heading for Augusta, when all of a sudden this
kid jumps out in front of me.  I stomp on my brakes, blast my air horn,
nothing.  It's like he doesn't see or hear me.  He's just stumbling
around in the middle of the road, singing."

"Singing?"

"Like he's drunk or something."

"You could hear him singing?"

"I couldn't hear him, no, but I pinned him in my headlights, and he
looked like he was singing.  You know, drunk and dancing around and,
like ... singing.  So I'm trying to avoid the kid, you know ... but
it's too late."  He shook his head.  His mouth was tight.  "Damn, I'm
all shaky."

"You said he jumped out in front of you?  Where did he come from?"

"There."  He pointed at the woods.

Cautiously, she approached the edge of the forest while police sirens
sounded in the distance.  Standing on the soft shoulder of the highway,
she squinted into the woods and thought she detected movement, ghostly
and receding.

The voices behind her grew distant as she waded into the thickets.
Twigs snapped underfoot.  She paused for a moment, eyes adjusting to
the darkness, ears alert to any sound.  She'd seen something seconds
ago--the flash of a face in the soft moonlight, a human silhouette. 
Now she cocked her head and listened.  Behind her on the highway, two
cruisers pulled up simultaneously, and the big rig's engine made a low
relentless rumble.  She moved deeper into the woods, further away from
the noise and the lights, her service weapon drawn.

And suddenly she heard it... the sharp snap of a twig ... the sound of
branches slapping back ... about twenty yards ahead.  She couldn't see
a thing.  The woods were dark as pitch.

Lungs on fire, Rachel ran back to her car, grabbed a flashlight from
the glove compartment and headed into the woods again.  The bottoms of
her shoes slipped on moss-covered rocks, but she righted herself and
tried to get a bead on his direction.  His ... subconsciously, she'd
assumed it was a he.  She fought her way furiously through the
thickets, flashlight beam dancing and bobbing, creating jumpy shadows
as she ran.  Her hand clutched the checkered grip of her gun while her
flashlight played over gnarled tree roots, sword ferns and blackberry
bushes.  Above, the sky was starless because of the haze, but you could
see the moon--a soft glow like a mother's admonition.  Small, she felt
small.

She had lost him, whoever he was, lost him in the time it'd taken her
to run back to her car.  She was chasing phantoms.

Her foot caught on something, the sound of roots being ripped from the
ground, and she flew forward, landed with a dull thud, flashlight
hurtling from her hand.  It rolled downhill a short distance,
highlighting a small patch of forest floor--brambles and moss and
stones as big as fists and golden leaves freshly fallen.  Something
shrieked, a startled bird.  An owl hooted in the distance.  She picked
herself up, brushed herself off, retrieved the flashlight and stood a
frozen beat.

Above her head, the hazy moon roosted in a nest of tree branches.  For
the first time in forever, she wanted a cigarette.  She wanted to be
home in a hot bath.  She wanted to get good and drunk.  She didn't want
this to be happening in her town.  She wanted to stop suspecting her
brother.  She wanted her father back.  She wanted a safe world, a just
world, not this horrible, complicated quagmire where lonely women like
herself sought out the company of married men.

A twig snapped yards in front of her.  Clutching her revolver, she ran
toward the sound but didn't see anything up ahead, just tree trunks,
straight and imperious as nuns in her flashlight beam.  "Police!  Don't
move!"  she shouted, and her heart made a dull, bad beat.

There was no reply.  She glanced back the way she'd come, a naturally
occurring path the forest had already swallowed up.  Where was she? She
didn't have a clue.

"Police!  Don't move!"

Wrestling her way through another tangle of thickets, she burst out of
the forest, every inch of her wide awake and throbbing, and stood on an
incline overlooking the back of Lincoln Street in the downtown
district.  It seemed like the saddest, deadest place on earth.  A
raccoon was prying the lid off a garbage can in some dank alleyway.
Several buildings stood abandoned, their windows boarded up.  Nobody
went out anymore.  People were scared.  During the day, children walked
in groups of two or more.  Parents watched until their kids were safely
on board the school bus.  The hardware store had had a run on dead-bolt
locks.  An evil psychopath was snatching people off the streets.  Women
were jumping at shadows.

Now a car pulled onto Main Street, driving slowly at first, then
gaining speed.  A forest green Plymouth Breeze, just like Billy's. Just
like Billy's.

BILLY'S FACE WAS FLUSHED, BUT HE MANAGED TO REIN IN HIS

rabid indignation.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

They stood in the front hall of his rented house, family pictures
adorning the walls.  Their father and mother, the four of them
together.  Ten-year-old Billy with his arm around Rachel, her face
tilted trustingly toward his.  It broke her heart, and for a moment the
words wouldn't come.

"What?"  he demanded to know.

"You were driving up Main Street..."

"Yeah, so?  I was at the hardware store."  From a pine sideboard, he
picked up a small paper bag imprinted with Dale's Discount Hardware's
logo.  "Since when is it a crime to shop at the hardware store?  And
what the hell happened to you?"

She suddenly realized she was covered with dirt, wet leaves and grass
flecking her coat, pine needles lacing her hair.  Blood smeared across
her forehead.  "A boy was killed on the highway.  I chased somebody
through the woods."

"Jesus, Rachel, what's going on?"  His eyes were hard on her.  "Are you
saying I'm a suspect?"

She steeled herself.  "Where were you tonight, Billy?"

His eyes grew incredulous.  "Where was I?"  Defiant, he ripped open the
bag and several dozen picture hooks scattered across the needlepoint
area rug.  "At the hardware store buying picture hooks!"

"And before that?"

He shook his head numbly.  "I can't believe this.  You actually think I
killed Claire?  That I... sewed her up?  You think I'm some

kind of psychopath?  That I'm capahle of something so twisted and
perverted?  Am I hearing you correctly?"

His words had a corrosive effect.  She felt terrible.  Despicable. What
kind of person was she?  What on earth could she be thinking?

"Billy..."

"This is about Dad, isn't it?"  His eyes flashed with a slow burning
bitterness.  "This is about him putting that gun in his mouth and
pulling the trigger."

"No, Billy ..."

"Just because Dad and I didn't get along ... I mean, I loved him, man,
with all my heart.  But sometimes it's easier to love a parent when
he's dead."

"I'm sorry, Billy.  I'm exhausted.  This case has got me all turned
around ... I don't know what to think anymore."

"Bullshit, Rachel."  The hurt in his voice came from a really miserable
place.  "How can you say you love me and then turn around and accuse me
of something so vile?  This is fucking unbelievable."

"Billy, I'm just doing my job ... I'm trying to figure out--"

"You're killing me!"  Tears sprang to his eyes.  His features
contracted as he bit back his rage and pain, and suddenly she recalled
how, all during their childhood, he would fly into rages, thinking
everybody was against him, even her.  "Dad struggled with his own
private demons, we'll never know what was going on inside his head that
night.  Doesn't matter what kind of a hot shit detective you think you
are, Rachel, you will never find the missing piece to that puzzle.
Trust me."

"Billy, I didn't mean to accuse you ..."

"I'll take a lie detector test."

"What?"

"I want to.  In fact, I insist on it.  I'm not having my kid sister
running around thinking I'm Ted Bundy."  Crossing his arms, he

shut her out, his lean, handsome face drained of all emotion.  "I'll
take a polygraph."

"Billy, I don't think that's advisable."

"Yeah, whatever."  His eyes were streaked with hatred, and she felt the
rebirth of a deep, impenetrable sorrow, like a scab being peeled off
before the skin underneath has had a chance to heal.  "I'll cooperate
with the police."

"I think you should hire an attorney."

He stood there, waiting for her to leave, only she didn't want it to
end this way.

"I can't help wondering," she said softly, "what it was like for him,
Billy.  Billy?  I have a gun.  But I'd never turn it against myself.
Just a few days before he killed himself, he seemed so happy.  He
seemed like himself, y'know?"

Billy uncrossed his arms, coolly polite.

"And I keep hoping ... that it was a clean shot, you know?  One clean
shot to the head.  No pain.  Because I couldn't bear the thought,
Billy"

"I know, Pickle."  His voice was suddenly forgiving.

Tears sprang to her eyes.  "I'm sorry, Billy ... I really am."

"I'll take a polygraph.  Then maybe you'll believe me."

"Billy ..."

"It's okay."

"You know," she said, wiping her face with wet hands, "I used to see
Daddy's ghost in the house.  Just the whisper of him, y'know?  And I'm
thinking ... maybe I was chasing a ghost in the woods tonight?  Maybe I
wasn't chasing a human being at all?"



RACHEL FINALLY ARRIVED HOME AT 2:00 A.M. AND DRAGGED

herself upstairs to the bathroom, where she somehow managed to strip,
draw a hot bath, and climb into the tub.  A hard knot had formed in her
left leg, and she worked it between her fingers.  She soaked for what
seemed like days, wanting to erase all the bad thoughts racing crazily
around inside her brain.  Stupid thoughts, jumbled thoughts.

She'd snagged a bottle of wine on her way up but had forgotten to grab
a glass, so now, wrapped in a pleasant haze of steam, she chugged
directly from the bottle.  Just as she was beginning to feel human
again, the doorbell rang.

Downstairs, wrapped in a thick terry cloth robe, she answered the door.
It was McKissack, looking haggard.  He said nothing, just raised an
eyebrow.

She stepped aside and he came in, his agitated energy wrapped in a
blanket of cold air.  She didn't want him there.  Shutting the door
against the bitter wind, she stood with her arms folded protectively
across her chest.

"You were there?"  he asked.

"I was."

"So tell me about it."

"I was driving home and spotted the accident and pulled over.  I
administered CPR until the paramedics arrived, then jotted down some
names.  Then I thought I saw something in the woods."

"Like what?"

"Like a person, maybe.  I'm not sure.  Anyway, I chased him through the
woods and quickly lost him."

"Him?  It was a 'he'?"

"I didn't actually see anything other than maybe the flash of a face
initially ... I heard twigs snapping.  I saw branches moving."

"So where'd you lose him?"

"I came out of the woods behind Lincoln."

"And that was it?  You didn't see anything else?"

"Nothing," she lied, wondering if he could tell she was lying, since
McKissack was a pretty good shit detector.  "Downtown was dead."

He nodded.  "So maybe this guy you were chasing--"

"Or thought I was chasing--"

"--parked downtown ... escorted Dinger Tedesco through the woods and
pushed him out onto the highway, Boom ... instant puppy chow."

"But that's absurd.  Why park downtown?"

"Exactly.  Why risk it?  Why not just drop him off someplace along the
highway?"  McKissack nodded thoughtfully, then changed direction.
"Truck driver says Dinger looked drunk to him.  Strung out."

Rachel nodded.

"You ripped the duct tape off his eyes."

"I thought I could save him."

"Paramedics said there was like zero chance of that.  He died instantly
of massive internal injuries.  Snapped his neck."

"I'm no paramedic, McKissack."  She wiped the gooseflesh off her arms.
"When's the autopsy?"

"Archie's on his way right now.  Care to join me?"

"I thought I was off the case?"

"Well, now you're a witness."  He gave her a halfhearted smile.
"Besides, your brother just called and said he was willing to take a
polygraph."

She could feel herself blushing.  "My brother?"

"Yeah.  Seems you went over there and accused him of murder.  Says he
wants to clear things up as soon as possible.  He's being
extraordinarily cooperative."

She shut her eyes and sighed, not wanting to look at him anymore.

"So you saw nothing in the woods?"

"It could've been the wind, swaying branches, a million things.  I'm
not sure I saw anything at all, McKissack."  She glanced angrily at
him; he shouldn't have trapped her like that.  "But when I came out of
the woods, I saw a car I recognized, yes.  It looked like my brother's
car."

"Only one car in the whole of downtown?"

"There might Ve been other cars, I don't know.  Nobody goes out
anymore.  Everyone's terrified."

"These other cars ... you get a description?"

"No, McKissack."  Her voice was harsh.  "I panicked, okay?  Are you
satisfied?  I saw Billy's car and I ran back and drove over to his
place."

"And accused him of murder?"

"I told him I was having problems with the case, I told him I had some
suspicions ..."

"Jesus H. Christ."

"I had to, McKissack."  Anger heated her face.  "He's my brother, I
thought ..."  Her shoulders slumped with defeat.  "I don't know what
the hell I was thinking."

"You got that right."

"Oh, and you're perfect," she found herself shouting, her limbs
electrified with long-repressed rage, "coming over here and fucking me
while your wife and kids are sound asleep?"

He stared blankly at her, then looked away.

"We all make mistakes, McKissack."

"He's cooperating.  No harm done."

"I can't live like this."  She touched his arm so that he would look at
her, "I can't do it anymore."

He didn't respond.  His eyes were veiled.

"I feel so vulnerable when I'm with you, and I hate feeling that way. 
I care so much, it hurts, Jim.  I'm scared when I'm with

you and scared when I'm away from you.  It's absurd to be so
vulnerable."

He took her hand and looked at it as if it were something delicate he
was charged with protecting.  He slid his thumb across the bumps of her
fingers.

"I'm not sure I love you, because I can't ever have you," she
continued, "because it's impossible ... but when you talk to me, when
you're nice to me, McKissack ... I feel so tender inside.  So raw.  It
hurts all the time.  We've got to end this, once and for all."

She watched in silence as a tear slid down his cheek.  He was looking
very fragile, and she fought the urge to stroke his face.

"How many times have I asked you, when're you gonna share that
beautiful heart with some nice young man instead of this old
gizzard?"

She smiled through her tears.  "These words ... these words we're
speaking right now ... they're going to tear us apart.  But that's
good.  We need to be torn apart, McKissack."

"I know."  His voice was barely audible.

"I hate this."

"So do I."

"But we have to.  My heart feels so heavy."

"Mine, too."

He pulled her toward him and kissed her.  The knot in her leg throbbed.
She was a bundle of little hurts today, and his kisses stung.  His ears
were small and endearing, and the second time they'd ever made love,
inside this house, she'd kissed both his ears, making him turn his head
first this way and then that, and before he went home, he'd left a pair
of his shoes by the front door to frighten away intruders.

"God--" He inhaled.  "You smell like soap."

She drew away from him, a guttural sound emitting from her throat as
she bit back her tears.  She wasn't going to break down in front of
him.  "So it's over?"

"If you say so."

She shivered.  "Good night, then."

"Aren't you coming?"  he asked, buttoning up his overcoat.

"Coming?"

"To the autopsy?"  He held her eye.  "I need you back on the case,
Rachel.  I seriously doubt your brother's a suspect, and as long as
he's cooperating ..."

"Oh."  She looked around, hating this kitchen, the textbook green of
its walls.  "Five minutes."

"Look."  He grabbed her arm.  "Let's talk about this other stuff later,
okay?"

"What other stuff?"

"The 'us' stuff."

"There's nothing more to discuss."

"Yeah, well, I'm not done processing it yet."  He smiled.  "I knew
someday you'd find out what a loser I was and dump me."

She smiled back.  "I've always known what a loser you are."

EVEN STRONGER THAN THE FAMILIAR DISINFECTANT SMELL OF

the morgue was the stench of booze coming from Dinger Tedesco's
split-open body.  Archie Fortuna hovered over the steel tray examining
the bloody pulp that had once been Dinger's internal organs.  "Nothing
here but kibbles 'n'bits," he announced to the room.

Rachel couldn't look.  The victim had "bumper" fractures of the lower
legs from where the truck had struck the tibia and fibula, the calf
region.  There was internal hemorrhaging and spiral fracturing of the
bones, and his legs looked like overstuffed Christmas stockings.

"The truck braked late," Archie said into the microphone.  "The victim
was impacted, slammed down, and run over by a wheel.

There's a wide patterned tire-tread mark on his chest and a large
purple abrasion on his backside from where the body scraped along the
pavement as the tire passed over it, pushing it backward."

They had found at the back of Dinger's head, clamped to his hair, a
glow-in-the-dark barrette in the shape of a star.  One of Nicole's.
McKissack stood examining it in an evidence bag.

"He's mocking us," he said.  "He doesn't think we'll catch him.  He
thinks he's invincible."

"We'll catch him," Rachel said with certainty, heart pounding.

McKissack put down the evidence bag and shook his head.  "This is
looking more and more like somebody in the medical profession.  Someone
with access to syringes and Thorazine, who knows how to suture a wound.
Somebody who's maybe got a grudge against the good doctor."

"We've interviewed almost a hundred hospital employees."

"What about patients?  Some wacko who came into the ER for treatment
and wasn't satisfied?"

"A patient who's got access to Thorazine?"

"Buck Folette's got access."

"I keep telling you, he also has an alibi."

"If his junkie friends are to be believed.  I can't think straight.
Time's it?"

"Three-thirty."

"Jesus wept."

Rachel tried not to think about Billy again.  Always Billy.  He had
access to medications such as Thorazine at the blind school.  Many of
the children were multiply handicapped and some required daily dosages
of Haldol or diazepam or insulin.  He'd once told her that security at
the nurses' station was nonexistent, that anyone could jimmy into the
medicine cabinet.  She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him sewing
anything, then wondered if that mattered.  How difficult was it to
stitch a wound?

"He abducts the victim," McKissack went on, "holds her captive for a
specified period of time before letting her go.  He can't

live in an apartment building.  Too many potential witnesses.  He's
gotta be able to slip in and out undetected."

"Both victims were discovered late at night."

"Under cover of darkness," McKissack said, snapping his fingers.
"Almost forgot.  We got the lab results back on the thread today. Turns
out it's all different kinds.  White, blue, red, green. Thirty-three
pieces altogether.  No single piece any longer than three inches."

Rachel frowned.  "I don't understand."

"The kind of thread you'd find around the house.  All different lengths
and colors."

"This case just keeps getting weirder."

"What the hell is this?"  Archie shouted behind them, and they turned
toward the examination table.  The medical examiner rarely swore, and
the surprise on his face alarmed her.

"What is it?"  McKissack asked.

Archie was holding up a bloody, pulpy mass in his gloved hands.  As the
object came into focus, Rachel could see it was a small plastic bag
with something folded up inside, a rubber band wrapped around it
several times.

"Where'd you find that?"  McKissack asked.

"Stomach."  Archie gazed at them over his surgical mask.

"Careful," McKissack said as Archie carried the object over to the sink
and rinsed it under the tap.  Using a pair of surgical scissors, he
snipped the rubber band in half and the plastic bag expanded, falling
open.  Archie handed the bag to McKissack.

With gloved hands, McKissack took out a folded piece of paper from
inside the bag.  It looked like computer paper.  Smoothing it open on
the flat marble countertop, they could see the looping, girlish script
in felt tip pen.

McKissack and Rachel glanced at one another before bending over the
page to read beneath yesterday's date: "Dear Mom and Dad ..."

SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ASLEEP.  SHE'D BEEN UP FOR TWENTY

hours straight and now she was supposed to be catching up on all that
missed REM sleep, but she couldn't stop thinking about the letter.

"Dear Mom and Dad, please don't worry about me.  I love you both very
much and I don't want you guys spending the rest of your lives crying
over me and Claire.  I'll be with my big sister soon, and I'll be with
Dinger, too.  (P.S. Dinger, I love you-wish I'd told you that more
often, but we'll be together soon and then I can tell you in person!)
Mom and Dad, I'm pregnant.  Sorry I didn't mention it sooner, but I
thought you'd be really mad.  Besides, I really wanted this baby.
Dinger and me were going to get married and everything, but now we'll
be together in heaven, me and Dinger & the baby & also Claire, don't
forget.  I'm sure she's smiling down on us right now.  I can feel it.
She's an angel.  Don't cry, you guys.  Be happy for me.  Love always,
Nicole."

Rachel bolted upright, her heart a clenched fist.  She couldn't sleep.
She'd never sleep again.

THE NEXT DAY AT THE STATION, RACHEL BUMPED INTO BILLY

on his way out.  "I passed," he told her without emotion.

Relief suffused her.  Passing a polygraph wasn't definitive, but

it was a huge leap in the right direction.  "Oh Billy, that's
terrific," she said, meaning it with all her heart.

"You know, it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to detect the surprise
in your voice."  He brushed coldly past her, and she followed him out
of the building onto the front steps of the station.

"Billy, I'm so sorry."

He spun around.  "You want me to forgive you, don't your"

"Well... yes," she said, eyes pleading.

"Only problem is, I can't.  I'm still pissed at you, Rachel.  You and
Dad both."

He strode off, and she followed him with her eyes, hoping that someday
he'd find it in his heart to forgive her.  This case had turned her
inside-out, but the truth still mattered.  The world had weight.  She'd
made a huge mistake, but that was the price you paid.  She only
regretted that Billy had had to pay, as well.  She felt awful about
it.

McKissack breezed out of his office, his face coated with a patina of
sweat.  "Heard the good news?"

She smiled.  "Best I've had all week."

"It gets better.  Lab results came back on Dinger Tedesco's blood. 
They found traces of methohexital in his blood."

Barbiturates and alcohol were a deadly combination.  "So he probably
would've died even if he hadn't gotten hit by a truck?"

"No.  I said traces."  McKissack took her by the elbow and propelled
her into the conference room where the others were waiting.  "Not
enough to kill him but enough to severely impair his judgment."

"The UN SUB made sure Dinger was on the highway in a very vulnerable
condition," Tapper continued, picking up the thread.  "He knew he'd get
hit by something.  Truck, car, motorcycle."

"But he could walk," Rachel said.  "His legs weren't bound together, he
could've run away."

"Exactly.  He was betting Dinger would be so fucked up, he'd

just stagger around in the middle of the road.  He's still playing
mind games with us."

"Maybe he was watching?"

"I doubt it."

"Our very clever UN SUB knew that Dinger was gonna get hit, just like
he knew we'd find Nicole's chain in Claire's hand, just like he knew
we'd do an autopsy and find Nicole's letter inside the victim's
stomach," Keppel said.  "This thing's planned out so precisely, it's
freaky.  He planted that letter like some crooked bust."

"Let's stay ahead of him, people."  McKissack sounded desperate, and
they all sat a little straighter in their chairs.  "Let's think the way
he thinks.  Let's crawl around inside his skin, let's anticipate his
next move.  C'mon!  Heads together."

"Time sure ain't on our side," Cavanaugh murmured.

"Think!"  McKissack commanded, and the room fell silent.  "What's his
plan?  What comes next?"

"Clearly," Tapper picked up the ball, "he's gonna do something heinous
to Nicole Castillo."

"Only he won't kill her," McKissack said.

"And he won't rape her.  He's probably feeding her macaroni and-cheese
as we speak.  Keeping her warm.  He'll release her alive, but then
something else will finish her off."

"Or someone else," Rachel jumped in.  "First Claire's father, then a
random truck driver, and now--"

"Who's the lucky person gonna be?"  McKissack looked around the room as
if he were accusing each of them.  "Who's gonna end up killing Nicole
Castillo?"

"She has no medical condition that we know of," Tapper said, "like
asthma or diabetes."

"She smokes," McKissack said.

It hit Rachel like a slap.  "She's pregnant."

The room fell silent.

"Dear God."  McKissack rubbed his face hard, as if he were trying to
rub through to the bone.

"An abortion?"  Tapper said.

"This is going nowhere fast," McKissack said nervously.  "Let's back
up, people."

Rachel thought for a beat.  Did the V in Claire's Day-Timer stand for
baby?  "McKissack," she said, "that would bring us back to the
hospital."

"What?"

"Somebody in the medical profession, you said."

"Right."

"We should go over the interviews, we should ..."  Rachel's shoulders
slumped.  They'd recently combed through hundreds of interviews looking
for any possible leads, but nothing had panned out.  Dead ends, all of
them.  "The nurse," she suddenly said.

"What nurse?"  McKissack grew alert.

"The nurse at the hospital who told me it wasn't asthma, remember?  Her
name's Casey something ... she said Dr.  Castillo misdiagnosed Claire's
asthma attack."

"So who've you gonna believe?"  Tapper asked with a fixed sneer.  "Some
nurse, or the doctor on duty who happens to be the girl's father?  And
what the hell does it matter anyway?"

"If she wasn't having an asthma attack," Rachel conjectured, "then they
shouldn't have administered the epinephrine."

"Because," McKissack said, "combined with Thorazine, that's exactly
what killed her."

"You mean," Cavanaugh said, "the good doctor made a mistake?"

Rachel nodded.  "A fatal mistake."

McKJssack pointed at her.  "Go find that nurse.  Talk to her.  See what
else you can dig up."

She pushed back her chair.

THE LAST PLACE YOU'D WANT TO EAT, RACHEL THOUGHT, WAS A

hospital cafeteria.  Patients hacked at rickety nearby tables, doctors
and nurses rummaged through the utensil tub for knives and forks.  For
a moment, she imagined a host of germs permeating the humid,
food-smelling air.  She and Casey Angstrom were having coffee with
little containers of nondairy creamer, and Rachel's stomach turned
sourly.

"What prompted you to tell me about Dr.  Castillo's misdiagnosis?"  she
asked.

Casey shrugged inside the fuzzy blue of an oversized sweater, flyaway
hairs trembling ever so slightly with each beat of her heart.  "I just
thought you should know."

"Why?"

Her voice grew unexpectedly small.  "I shouldn't be telling you this. 
I could lose my job."

"Casey.  You could save a life here."

Her eyes widened with concern, and she took a deep breath.  "He's done
it before."

"Done what before?"

"Come to the wrong conclusion before."

Rachel gave a shiver.  "You mean he's been threatened with a
malpractice lawsuit?"

"Child endangerment.  Gross negligence.  Failure to recognize a lethal
condition ..."

"And this has happened more than once?"

Pause.  "Yes."

"How many times?"

Casey's eyes darted frantically over the grid work along the
cafeteria's ceiling.  "I don't know."

"More than a couple?"

She nodded.  "It goes way back."

"Over a dozen?"

Another pause.  "Yes."

The cafeteria smelled of meat loaf and chicken noodle soup and all the
prefabricated foods served in public institutions from time immemorial.
"Do you think Dr.  Castillo would let me see those files?"  Rachel
asked.

Casey shook her head, a serious look on her face.  "He's such a proud
man.  I don't think he'd want anybody to know."

"So how did you find out?"

"Last year, he was sued for willful injury to a child for misjudging
her condition.  He thought this little girl had an ear infection, when
it was actually a virus, a serious intestinal infection.  The child
went into shock before she was finally given fluids intravenously.  The
case was thrown out by the tribunal."

"Meaning?"

"It never went to court.  I had some concerns, so I spoke to the
admitting nurse, and she told me about the other cases."

"Has anyone ever died under his care?"

Casey seemed to shrink from Rachel's scrutiny.  "Listen, Detective, I'm
not trying to impugn anyone's reputation here."

"If a patient died under his care, I need to know."

Casey shrugged.  "All doctors lose patients."

"Yes, and it could provide a surviving family member with a motive."
For some reason, Rachel thought of Fred Lake, Claire's landlord.  She
remembered his limp, his comment about Claire's father being a rich
doctor.  What if he'd sued once for malpractice?  What if he'd lost a
loved one?

"I'd like to help you, but I don't really know anything more."  Casey
glanced at her watch.  "I've gotta run."

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"I hope you find her before it's too late," she said, hurrying off.

DR.  CAST ILLO WAS IN DIRE NEED OF A SHAVE, AND THE VIOLET

circles under his eyes gave him a feral look.  Rachel found him in
Trauma Room 3 with an elderly patient--a white-haired, starry eyed
skeleton whose legs were covered with bedsores and swollen with
infection.  She moaned repeatedly while Yale drew blood from her arm.
"Please please please ..."

"Dr.  Castillo," Rachel said, "we need to talk."

"Please please please ..."

He barely glanced up.  "I'm rather preoccupied right now."

"When you get a moment."

"There is no such thing as 'a moment' in ERIt's related to your
daughter's case."

"Oh, all right," he said, tension building in the muscles of his neck.
"Give me a minute,"

He quickly dressed the woman's bedsores while her complaints escalated:
"Please please please please please!"

"That's enough, Mrs.  Steussie, you're hurting my ears."

A pause.  Then whimpering, "Please please please ..."

A few minutes later, he led Rachel into his office, where they stood
just inside the door.  He kept his hand on the doorknob, impatience
jerking at his limbs.

"Yes, what is it?"  he snapped.

"Have you ever been charged with malpractice?"

His eyes narrowed to little bandwidths of light.  "What's that got to
do with anything?"

"It could have a lot to do with it," she said.  "If a patient suffered
under your care, it might provide motive."

He gave an abrupt shake of his head.  "I doubt very much that one of my
former patients would be involved in such a thing."

"Doctor, has anyone sued you for malpractice because a family member
died?"

He seemed outraged by the suggestion.  "Detective, let me tell you
something.  I am a dedicated doctor who chose to practice on the front
lines of medicine because I wanted to save lives.  Should a doctor be
punished for attempting to help his patients?"  His stern face was
flushed.  "Medicine isn't an exact science.  We're only human.  We make
mistakes.  We are not God."

She waited a sufficient beat before saying, "Dr.  Castillo, somebody
has targeted your family and I'm trying to figure out why."

They held each other's eye, then his shoulders sagged, and he exhaled
sharply.  "Do you need them all?"

"That would be very helpful."

A knock came on the door.  "Doctor?"

"Be right there!"  He turned to Rachel.  "Some of them go way back.
I'll have to dig them out of storage.  My secretary will deliver them
to you later today."

"The sooner the better," she said.

He nodded.  "I understand.  Now if you'll please excuse me, I have
patients to attend to."

She took a shot.  "Do you remember Fred Lake?"

"Who?"

"Fred Lake?"

He shook his head, confused.  "Not that I recall."

"Perhaps a relative of his?"

"I don't remember any Lakes, but I've seen so many patients."

"Doctor!"

"My secretary will get the files to you by the end of the day.
Good-bye, Detective."

He left her standing in the corridor, where an accident victim,

strapped to a backboard with a neck collar in place, gazed up at her
with plaintive eyes.  Rachel smiled back encouragingly when her cell
phone rang.  It was McKissack.  "Rachel, we need to talk."

SHIVERING, RACHEL WAITED IN THE PURLIC PARKING LOT FOR

McKissack to show up.  He pulled up in his Buick LeSabre and opened the
door.  "Hop in."

The car was warm and smelled of popcorn.  "I just found out Yale
Castillo has at least a dozen malpractice charges against him," she
said, "possibly more.  That got me thinking about Fred Lake.  Hey,
where are we going?"

"No place in particular."  He looked exhausted, face slack, clothes
rumpled, as if he'd slept in them.

Aspen Loop Road climbed steeply through lush, deciduous woodlands that
offered diverse habitats for more than three hundred birds and forty
mammals, including deer, red fox, mink and otter.  This road dated back
to 1842 when a carriage road was backed into the slopes, its first
three miles winding up through a forest of hardwoods, then switch
backing through mountain ash and paper birch.  The ride was creamy
smooth; McKissack had recently become a big American-car fan.

"What's wrong, Jim?"

"I'm leaving my wife."

She felt as if she'd stepped onto a rocky boat.  She couldn't catch her
breath.

"Listen to me, okay?  He held her eye, and a deer darted in front of
them, and Rachel screamed.

McKissack slammed the brakes and the deer made a graceful

swan dive into the woods and disappeared.  The car swerved, tires
shrieking, and they came to a dead stop in the middle of the road.

He was breathing heavily.  "Holy Christ."

Rachel could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.  "Jim," she said,
voice shaky.  "This is crazy."

"No, let me talk."  His grip tightened on the wheel.  "I can't find the
chemical in my brain that says it's wrong."

"You're just going to leave her?"

"I don't have some big overall plan," he admitted, putting the car in
reverse and backing onto a soft shoulder.  He jerked the emergency
brake, then turned to her.  "All I know is ... you're so much a part of
my life, you're like my legs or something."

She was tempted.  Sorely tempted.  "You're making a big mistake."

"It's not like I haven't thought this through, Rachel.  I was raised
under an iron code of discipline.  There were some things you didn't
do, and divorce was a biggie."

She shook her head.  Refused to meet his gaze.  The car's heater
hummed, and she could see the forward edge of the hood and its integral
grille where the deer's hoof had tapped the surface.

"I love you, Rachel.  I love you and I want to be with you."

"What about your kids?"

The question mark dropped away, revealing a simple truth.  McKissack
gazed out the window at the woods.  Neither of them spoke.  The heated
air grew stuffy, and Rachel's thick woolen coat chafed her skin.

"Take me back, McKissack," she said.

"What is this, National Hero Day?  We have to be so good?  We have to
be so perfect?  We've gotta fix everybody else's feelings and forget
about ourselves?"

Heart aching, she held his eye.  "We have to try."

"Look, I've been over and over it..."

"You'll end up hating me."

"No," he said angrily.  "You're the one who'll hate me.  My kids will
forgive me before you do."

It was true.  She wouldn't let him leave his family because that would
make her a murderer, in some sly way.

His eyes were bitter.  "Nobody's interviewed Roger Tedesco yet," he
said, pulling back onto the road.  "I want you to do the honors."

"What about Fred Lake?"

"I'll take care of it."

"McKissack," she said, "I know what you are."

"Oh yeah?  What's that?"

"One of the good guys."

He glanced at her and cracked a smile.  "Don't squeaky-clean me,
Rachel.  I'm as selfish a prick as anybody else."

ROGER TEDESCO LIVED IN A DILAPIDATED SHACK IN A REMOTE

part of town just east of the Triangle.  The living room lights blazed,
the windowpanes rattled from an ill wind, and Roger Tedesco, an obese
man with a gray goatee and a kind, open face, occupied most of the
couch, propped up by a multitude of pillows.  He was alone in the
house, submerged in grief, a box of tissues clutched in one hand, a
picture of his son in the other.

"Siddown," he said with a congenial wave.

Rachel sat in the captain's chair with its spongy seat cushion.  A
nearby space heater stood dangerously close to a pile of old
newspapers.  Roger clamped a wad of tissues over his runny eyes, and
she gave him a moment to collect himself.  His broad shoulders
convulsed several times before settling, then he blew his

nose and tucked the used tissues into a cardboard box full of
accumulated litter.

"Mr.  Tedesco ..."  She almost couldn't look into his eyes, two
pinpricks of grief.

"Call me Roger.  Everybody does."

"Roger, I have to ask, it's procedural... where were you on the day of
your son's abduction?"

"Working," he said.  "I'm a carpenter who lives on Carpenter Street."
He snorted laughter, then dissolved back into his watery grief.  "I was
doing some work for the Pooles.  You know the Pooles of Hanover Road?
They're renovating their kitchen."

She set her notebook down.  "Do you know who might have done this to
your son?  Who might have wished him harm?"

His eyes welled with a magisterial sadness as he plucked several
tissues out of the box and pressed them to the sweaty veins of his
temples.  "No, I don't.  Everybody loved that kid.  He's as good as
they come."

"Do you think--"

"You wanna know what I think?  You really wanna know what I think?"  He
glared at her.  "I think there's a serial killer loose, that's what I
think."

"We don't know that for sure," she said calmly, carefully.

"Yes you do."  He pointed a large soggy index finger at her.  "You
know.  We've got a serial killer in Flowering Dogwood and he's killing
innocent kids."

"Mr.  Tedesco ... Roger ..."

"And if you goddamn cops were out there doing your job, you and me
wouldn't be sitting here talking right now.  I told his mother not to
let him stay out all hours of the night, but she's so goddamn lenient.
Everybody's too goddamn lenient nowadays.  Everybody acts like life's
just one big bowl of Jell-O.  Well, I've got news for you, baby.  I've
got news for you.  This world ain't one stitch safer than it was a
thousand years ago when people were getting gobbled up like pretzels by
great big hairy things."

The living room was drafty, warmth from the heater dissipating almost
instantly into the chilly night air.  Rachel drew her coat, now draped
over her chair seat, back around her shoulders.  It was raining again.
Rain spattered the rattling windowpanes.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr.  Tedesco," she said as sincerely as she
could, "but trust me, down at the station, we've been working
sixteen-hour days.  Support staff, detectives, state police.  There's a
task force working around the clock.  There's a $20,000 reward. There's
a twenty-four-hour hotline.  We've scoured the neighborhoods,
interviewed friends, acquaintances, known criminals.  We've eliminated
all of them, either through polygraph examinations or alibis.  None of
us sleeps, none of us eats.  Trust me, we did everything we could to
find your son, and we feel terrible that we failed.  We take it to
heart, Mr.  Tedesco.  So please don't tell me we aren't doing our
job."

He watched her a dull beat, eyes mellowing.  "You know," he said, "I
appreciate that, Officer."

"It's okay."

"I really do.  I appreciate that.  You know, it gets pretty isolated in
these parts.  I could count my nearest neighbors on one finger.  Nobody
drops by.  Dinger used to drop by."  His voice broke off and his jaw
muscles stiffened.  "I always suspected there was something darker
going on in this town.  Something evil.  You know what I'm talking
about, Officer?"

"Not exactly."

"Drug activity.  Marijuana, methamphetamine labs.  Stuff like that."

She sat forward.  "Did Dinger take drugs?"

"I don't know.  Maybe.  Just maybe."

"Have you come across any drugs in his possession?"

"I smelled marijuana on him a coupla times."

"Do you think this crime might be drug-related?"

"Hell, yeah."  He ran his fingers through his peppery gray hair. "Hell,
yeah.  Drugs.  It's definitely drug-related."

She decided to approach it from a different angle.  "Did he have any
enemies, Mr.  Tedesco?"

His voice was indignant.  "Dinger have enemies?"

"Well, did he?"

He snorted laughter.  "Enemies?  Who the hell has enemies besides
politicians and gang-bangers?"

"If he was smoking marijuana, he must have bought it from someone. 
Drug dealers make fearsome enemies ..."

"Absolutely not.  No enemies.  Dinger was a good kid.  He was a bright
kid.  You see his smile?"  He showed her the picture clenched in his
fist, a Polaroid in a cheap plastic frame.  "This kid was going places.
He was on a straight trajectory.  He's my pride and joy, this kid." 
His shoulders heaved, and he was sobbing again, massive arms and legs
shaking as he tried to shrug off his world-sized grief.  She waited
until he'd composed himself.

"Did he ever mention a man named Fred Lake?"

"Fred who?"

"Lake."

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"What about Buck Folette?"

"Nope."

She hesitated.  "Billy?  Does he know any Billys?"

He squinted at her.  "He just might know a Billy.  I can't
recollect."

"Any kids he didn't get along with at school?  A teacher he disliked? A
run-in with some adult?  Did you and he fight?"

"What?"  She could see his eye-whites.  "Me and Dinger?"

"It's a standard question."

"Yeah, sure.  Yeah, sure, we fought once in a while.  What father
doesn't fight with his offspring once in a while?"

"None that I know of."  She smiled.  "What were the arguments about?"

"Oh, you know ... self-reliance."

"Excuse me?"

"Self-reliance.  That's the biggest lesson a kid can learn.  Taking on
responsibility.  Becoming self-reliant.  That's how a boy becomes a
man, I told him.  I have this story."  He wiped his nose with a fresh
wad of tissues.  "It's about this blind guy, see.  His name's Henry,
And Henry grew up in this small town way up the coast of Maine, near
Bar Harbor.  And Henry was a gearhead.  You know what a gearhead is? 
He works on cars all the time.  He knows cars front wards and
backwards. He eats, lives, breathes and shits motor oil, pardon my
language.  And most strangers never suspected he was blind."

Outside, the wind picked up, shivering through the rafters.

"So one day, it's spring, see ... he goes into the woods to pick
blackberries.  Deep into the woods.  He knows where the best
blackberries are.  But when he doesn't come home for supper, his folks
get kind of worried.  So they report him missing, 'cause he's blind,
see.

"And the police go to find Henry, see, who they think is lost.  And a
cop bumps into Henry in the woods.  And Henry asks him, what's up?  And
the cop tells him somebody's lost in the woods.  So Henry offers to
help out.  "What's this guy look like?"  he asks.  And the cop says,
"All I know is, he's blind."  And suddenly, Henry realizes that he's
looking for himself."  Roger squinted at her.  "Now how do you suppose
a blind man finds his way through the woods?"

"I don't know," she said.

"He carves notches in trees."

Rachel was struck dumb by the story, blood pounding in her skull as she
recalled the three holes she'd found in the bark of the birch tree in
the woods where Claire Castillo had been found.  Three indentations,
like the holes in a bowling ball, long overgrown.  Notches carved into
the bark of a birch tree many years ago.  Of course, she thought, of
course ... She knew who the UN SUB was.

RACHEL SPED OVER TO CLAIRE'S APARTMENT BUILDING AND

scaled three flights of stairs, since the elevators were broken.
Winded, heart thrumming in her ears, she unlocked the door of Apartment
402 and ducked under the yellow police tape.

The place was like a photograph, trapped in time, just the way Claire
had left it the morning of the day she disappeared.  Rachel felt like
an intruder as she walked through room after room, flipping on lights.
Traces of fingerprint powder covered every surface, and her shoes
clacked on the hardwood floors, indecently loud.

All that remained of Claire in a physical sense--the vibrant mess
inside her apartment, the shimmering clutter of it-brought the victim
momentarily back to life.  Books scattered across every surface
reflected her interest in art and architecture, theater and literary
fiction.  Her coquettish, perhaps insecure side was revealed by the
number of Cosmos and Glamours scattered about.  Bags of exotic pastas
alongside carefully selected bottles of wine were reminders of her
sophisticated culinary tastes.  She was something of a paradox--sloppy
at home with her personal items, organized at school with teaching
schedules and grade books, her appointments and Day-Timer.

In the bedroom, Rachel flung open the closet door and whipped out the
dry cleaning bag with the white blouse inside.  She tore off the
receipt and studied it.  There it was.  How could they have been so
shortsighted?

Hastily scribbled on the receipt was "One white linen blouse, one blue
silk blouse."  The pickup date was Monday the 12th, the

Monday before Claire had disappeared.  Rachel searched the closet for
a blue silk blouse.  She pocketed the receipt and rummaged through
Claire's bureau drawers.  She ducked in the bathroom, ransacked the
clothes hamper.  There were no blue silk blouses anywhere inside the
apartment.

Claire had been wearing a pink silk blouse the night she disappeared.
The blue silk blouse was back at the dry cleaners.

Now Rachel's cell phone rang.  "Hello?"  she said, breathless with
discovery.

"Rachel?  It's Phil."  Phillip Reingold, the dispatcher down at the
station.  "You just got a package.  Hand-delivered."

"Be right there."

THE POLICE STATION WAS UNUSUALLY QUIET FOR THIS TIME OE

night.  Rachel picked up the package and went upstairs to her office.
An enclosed note summarized what she was about to discover: "Dear
Detective Storrow, Please bear in mind that the enclosed spans my
entire 30-year career as an ER surgeon, and that most of the 16 charges
filed against me were dismissed by the tribunal.  Only three reached
the settlement stage.  I hope this proves useful to you.  Sincerely,
Yale Castillo."

It was happening so fast, the puzzle pieces falling too conveniently
into place.  She couldn't prevent her hands from shaking as she riffled
through the files, searching for his name: Vaughn Kellum.  Born 1963.
One year older than Billy.  She opened the file folder and a snapshot
of a young boy fell out, plaintive green eyes staring out of a sad
little face.  She began to read:

FORMAL REPORT OF VAUGHN KELLUM

CAPTION: Vaughn Kellum vs.  KCGH, Inc.

FILE NO: 33-288-000

LOSS DATE: April 3, 1971

1. CLAIMANT DATA

Vaughn Kellum was born on March 1, 1963.  His mother, Mary Kellum, is a
housewife.  His father, Tito Kellum, owns a dry cleaning establishment.
Vaughn has no brothers or sisters and medical records indicate Mary
Kellum has had three miscarriages since his birth.

2. STATUS OF CLAIM

Active.  We have received both a request for medical records and a
letter of representation from an attorney at Blum, Tysdale and Papish.
The attorney's name is William Papish, Esq.

3. DESCRIPTION OF FACTS

Vaughn Kellum had twenty-one office visits and nine emergency room
visits during his first eight years of life.  The only illnesses were
diaper rash, colic, flu, mumps, and the like.  Emergency room visits
were mostly for sprains, contusions or abrasions attributed to the
child's clumsiness.

One month after Vaughn turned eight, his mother noticed flu like
symptoms."  She administered baby aspirin and fluids and put the child
to bed, hoping he would feel better in the morning.

The next day, April 2, 1971, the child vomited and was lethargic and
feverish.  At approximately 11:00 a.m."  the mother brought the child
into the emergency room at KCGH where the patient was treated by Dr.
Yale Castillo.  Dr.  Castillo examined patient and attributed the fever
to a benign viral

infection.  He prescribed baby aspirin, recommended bed rest, and
advised the mother to bring the child back if the fever persisted.

On April 3, 1971, at approximately 10:00 a.m."  parents called Dr.
Castillo and told him that although the child had initially improved,
he was now having trouble breathing.  Dr.  Castillo instructed them to
let the child rest and see how he fared.

On April 3, 1971, at approximately 12:00 p.m."  the parents called Dr.
Castillo and told him that the child was having shallow respirations.
The mother was troubled that the child's eyes appeared to be "sinking
in."

Dr.  Castillo instructed them to bring the child in promptly.  They did
so, and Dr.  Castillo noted that the child had developed chills, was
lethargic, and had sluggish capillary refill.  The mother insisted that
the child "looks terrible, doesn't look like himself."  Dr.  Castillo
performed a blood test and diagnosed a gastrointestinal ailment, gave
the child Pedialyte, an electrolyte solution to prevent dehydration,
then ordered a tepid bath and a chest X ray.  The emergency room was
busy and Dr.  Castillo probably saw ten to twenty patients during the
time the child was there.  Family asked for "some kind of intravenous
or something."  Dr.  Castillo explained that the child's tongue was
wet, so he was no longer dehydrated.

It was at this point that the child had his first seizure.  Dr.
Castillo administered an antiseizure medication, Dilantin.  The dosage
used was 50 mg per kg of body weight per day with plasma levels of
approximately 70 micrograms per ml.

After four hours in the emergency room, at the parents' insistence, the
child was placed in-patient for observation and to stabilize his
medications.  Dr.  Castillo attended to the child in consultation with
Dr.  Selby.  The child's parents noted that the child appeared not to
respond immediately when spoken to, and also that he no longer looked
at them directly.  After examination.

Dr.  Selby discovered that the child had marked nuchal rigidity '

and could not completely extend his leg from a position of 90 flexion
at the hip when supine.  His oral temperature was 103.6F.

Based on the presenting symptoms, Dr.  Selby suspected meningitis.  ;

At 4:30 p.m."  the patient was placed in an isolation room with staff
observing proper precautions: gown, gloves, and mask.  A lumbar
puncture was performed and Dr.  Selby's suspicions were confirmed,
meningococcal meningitis.

Before beginning antibiotic therapy, Dr.  Selby administered steroids
to reduce any subsequent neurological sequelae.  The Dilantin was
discontinued and diazepam was administered to control the seizures.
Penicillin was administered in divided IV dosages and was proven to be
highly successful.

Since meningococcal meningitis is a highly contagious form of bacterial
meningitis, health care team and family members were administered a
prophylactic treatment of rifampin 600 mg BID for two days.

4. POTENTIAL AREAS OF LIABILITY

It is doubtful that the plaintiff could prove medical negligence, since
bacterial meningitis is highly unpredictable and the child was
receiving the best of care at KCGH.  Not every patient will display the
signs or symptoms of meningococcal meningitis, and frequently patients
will appear healthy only hours before they develop symptoms and die.

5. INJURIES DAMAGES

When last investigated, the child's vision was "poor" and it was not
clear how he was able to interpret what he saw; also he had a hearing
impairment that could perhaps be corrected with the use of hearing
aids.

Visually impaired, hearing deficit.

Developmental damage, as yet unknown.

6.  INVESTIGATION

Potential defendants: Yale Castillo, M.D."  attending physician of
emergency medicine at KCGH.

7. COVERAGE BC/BS Trust

8. UPDATE

Vaughn Kellum is currently under the care of Dr.  O'Brien at St. Mary's
Hospital, where he is being treated for visual hearing impairments.  He
has been seizure-free for four months.  He has been diagnosed with
moderate to severe hearing loss and is visually impaired, but with the
use of corrective lenses, he can spot objects and people across a room.
To date, it is not known what cognitive or developmental delays may
have occurred, although he seems bright and responsive.  Plans are
under way to enroll him in Winfield School for the Blind and Special
Needs, where he will receive specialized treatment for his multiple
handicaps.

She stared at the sheets of paper describing in matter-of-fact detail
what would turn out to be the seeds of a murderous rampage.  How could
Yale Castillo have known that this tiny child he'd so negligently
treated would grow up to be a hate-filled monster bent on vengeance?

She shoved the files back inside the large manila envelope, locked the
envelope in her desk drawer.  Checking that her gun was loaded, she
went to knock on McKissack's door.  He wasn't in.  The station was
spectacularly quiet.  She practically flew down the stairs.

Phillip Reingold was reading Interview, sipping his first in a probable
succession of espressos.  "Phil?"

He delicately set down his cup and blinked at her.  "Rachel, you scared
the bejeezus out of me."

"Where's McKissack?"

"They all left about twenty minutes ago.  Went to pick up Buck
Folette."

"What for?"

"Apparently he's ready to talk."

"Talk?"

"Good news, honey," Phillip said, "we've got our man."

"No, Phil.  Buck Folette didn't do it, Vaughn Kellum did."

He screwed up his face.  "The dry cleaner?"

"Tell McKissack I'm going over there.  I think I know where Nicole
is."

VAUGHN kellum's KINGFLRS RESTED LIGHTLY ON HIE DOORknoh.  His magnified
eyes through their corrective lenses made her think of clouds.  She
didn't know why.  Green as kale, they searched for the shape of her.
"Guess winter's come a little early this year," he said with an
expansive smile.  The porch light cast sinewy shadows into the dim
recesses of the dry cleaning establishment.  It was half past seven.
Vaughn's employees had all gone home; business was done for the day.

"May I come in?"  Rachel asked.

"Watch your step."  He graciously stepped aside.  The shop smell cd of
cinnamon tea.  Spicy.  Pleasant.  She experienced a twinge of
self-doubt.  What if she was mistaken?  More than that, what if she was
egregious!) wrong?  This tall, suave, graceful man, this pleasant
visually challenged hearing-impaired person couldn't possibly be the
psychopath she was looking for, could he?

"Tea?"  he asked as they entered his office.

"Love some."  She tried to steady her breathing.

Water boiled on a hot plate in a corner of the room.  Vaughn found a
mug and spoon, poured her a cup of tea, then felt his way along the
wall toward her, fingertips skimming over the white paint, his
opalescent eyes straining to read her face.  "This'll warm you up."  He
walked back to his desk and took a seat.  "So what brings you out on a
night like tonight, Detective?"

"Murder," she said softly.

He cocked his head, lips frozen in a thin smile.  "What's that?"

"Murder," she repeated, spoon clinking against china.  "Claire
Castillo's murder.  Dinger Tedesco's murder."

"Ah."  He sat back and waited.  His handsome, inscrutable face was
dominated by those distorted eyes, and she recalled how she and her
friends used to make fun of anyone even the slightest bit different.
"Retard" was about the worst insult you could hurl, and Rachel bet
young Vaughn Kellum had gotten "retard" a lot.  That it had shaped
him.

He was wearing a red flannel shirt, khaki trousers, and leather
moccasins--perfect, she thought, for walking through the woods.
Vaughn's shirt pocket contained a number of stubby pencils and dry
cleaning tickets he'd forgotten to remove, now that his shop was closed
for the night.  Her eyes came to rest on one of the Braille Dymo-tape
labels, a series of raised dots that signified letters of the alphabet,
numbers.  She was certain that, if she looked hard enough, she could
have located the configuration of three dots she'd found on the birch
tree that day.

"How can I help you?"

She removed the dry cleaning receipt from her pocket.  "We found this
stapled to a dry cleaning bag in Claire's closet, but there was only
one blouse inside."

She handed him the receipt and he rustled it between his slender
fingers, then brought it almost to his nose.  Opening the top drawer of
his desk, he took out a hand magnifier.  As he examined the receipt,
she caught a glimpse of his left eye magnified to the size of a
baseball.

"Do you see what it says there?"  she asked.

"I think this is Jose's handwriting."

'"One white linen blouse, one blue silk blouse,"" Rachel said.  "There
were supposed to be two blouses inside the dry cleaning bag, but we
only found one.  The white linen blouse."

"Maybe she took the blue blouse out of the bag?"

"I couldn't find it inside the apartment.  And the night she
disappeared, she was wearing a pink blouse."

He put the hand magnifier down and passed her the receipt back.  "I
don't know what you're driving at, Detective."

"Claire picked up two blouses from your shop on Monday, October 12th,
two days before she disappeared.  She picked up two blouses, but
there's only one blouse inside the bag."

His head moved ever so slightly, as if he were responding to some inner
rhythm.  "Maybe a friend borrowed it?  Her sister, perhaps?"

Rachel wavered for a moment, then shook her head.  "I don't think so."
The 'b' in Claire's Day-Timer hadn't meant Billy or Buck or Brigham or
baby, it'd meant blouse.  Pick up blouse.

"You see," Rachel said, "I've learned a lot about Claire Castillo.  She
was kind of sloppy, kind of careless with her belongings, not the type
to inspect her dry cleaning in the store.  She brought two blouses
home, only to discover one of them still had stains on it.  She'd asked
you to remove the stains, but you hadn't done a very good job, and when
she called you up to complain, you said you'd take care of it.  She
brought the blouse back the following day, Tuesday, then made plans to
pick it up on Wednesday night.  You knew she ate dinner at the
Hurryback Cafe every Wednesday night, it was convenient for her to pick
up the blouse afterward.  She trusted you.  You've been her dry cleaner
for years.  You two have worked on charity events together.  There's no
reason in the world why she shouldn't trust you."

"I honestly don't know what you're getting at," he said, upper lip
beading with sweat.

"Your shop ... this house is recessed from the street," Rachel

continued.  "The nearest street lamp is twenty yards away.  Kellum
Kleaners is wedged in between a vacant lot and the information center,
which closes at five.  The whole town shuts down by eight or nine P.M.
most weeknights, this time of year.  The woods press right against your
back door.  You could easily slip in and out unnoticed, under cover of
darkness."

His lips stretched thin and pale over his teeth.  "This is silly."

"You spent years stealing pieces of thread from Claire's clothes, her
father's, her mother's, her sister's, maybe even her ex-boyfriend's.
Buck Folette complained somebody was loosening the stitches on all his
clothes.  You often listen to the weather channel.  You know when it's
going to rain, when there's a ground fog.  You have easy access to
syringes and anti psychotics from the nurse's office at the blind
school--where you went to school, where you remain actively involved
and are always welcome.  You were seventeen, a junior at the blind
school, when Melissa D'Agostino was strangled.  The school abuts the
woods that run down to Old Mo Heppenheimer's cow pasture near the swamp
where Melissa D'Agostino's body was found.

"The woods are the key.  I couldn't figure out why the perp would drop
his victims off so close to town.  The answer is, you didn't drop them
off.  You walked them through the woods.  You've been at Winfield since
you were eight years old.  I bet you had a habit of sneaking off campus
whenever you got homesick.  You've probably wandered back and forth
between this house and Win field hundreds of times.  You know the lay
of the land by heart.  You use landmarks, reference points ... you
carve notches in trees.  Braille directions.

"Dinger Tedesco and Nicole Castillo started going together nine months
ago.  That's two months before you hired Dinger to work for you
part-time.  Dinger trusted you.  You were the only adult who
understood.  You sympathized.  He could count on you to keep a secret.
On the night Dinger and Nicole disappeared, they'd decided to meet
someplace secret, someplace where they

could be alone together.  Where else but inside this house?"  Rachel
sat forward, blood coursing through her veins.  She couldn't hold back
any longer.  "Where is she, Vaughn?"

He stood up, laughing, as if the question were absurd.

Rachel's heart beat hard and fast.  You must appear open minded about
the situation, project neutrality: "I understand how difficult it
must've been for you, Vaughn.  Children can be cruel.  Nobody gets a
prize for being different."

"Now you're an expert on the low-sighted and hearing-impaired."

"I don't pretend to know what it's like.  But I do know you were a
victim of medical malpractice.  That you suffered for someone else's
mistake.  Not only did Dr.  Castillo fail to recognize and treat a
life-threatening condition, he tried to preserve his reputation instead
of admitting any wrongdoing.  You suffered the consequences of his
misdiagnosis, yet the state medical board wouldn't think of revoking
his license.  It's so unfair.  Your parents must've been
heartbroken."

"My mother," he said quietly, "never recovered."

"What happened?  Did your parents settle out of court?"

"They hired an attorney who asked the tribunal, "What is the price for
the pain and suffering of a little boy?  "The doctor admitted no guilt,
and the lawyers decided fifteen thousand dollars should be compensation
enough for the future distress engendered by an extreme departure from
standard care."

"Fifteen thousand dollars?"

"Minus lawyers' fees of course."

Her arms and legs felt weighted by rocks; she had his full attention
now and didn't want to lose him.  "I saw a picture of a little boy
recently," she said, carefully choosing her words.  "He looked about
eight years old.  Blond hair, green eyes.  Small scar on his forehead.
Two crooked bottom teeth."

Vaughn was breathing heavily through his mouth, studying her closely.

"In this picture, he wore a blue T-shirt with red sleeves, blue

shorts and red high top sneakers.  And he had on those thick glasses
other kids make fun of.  And he looked ... hungry ... and lost... and
very sad."

He wiped away the sweat from his upper lip.

"And I sensed something about him ... that he'd been ... I don't know
how to put this ..."

Vaughn smiled sourly.  "Routinely beaten for minor infractions?  Held
to a standard of cold perfection?"

She paused a heart-stopping moment.  "Your father beat you, didn't he?
All those trips to the emergency room.  They said you were
accident-prone."

"Accident-prone?"  She could feel the groundswell of his long
suppressed rage as his face reddened and his voice grew tight.  "He
turned the savageness of his contempt on me.  Beat me with a belt
buckle, with a mop handle, slugged me in the eye, twisted my arms,
choked me to unconsciousness."  He paused, and everything became very
quiet.  "You can't see it from way over there, Detective, but I'm just
so horribly damaged."

Rachel pushed her coat open so her shoulder holster was exposed.  "I
need your help, Vaughn.  We need to bring Nicole home."

His face went flat, expressionless.  He inched along the wall to her
right where the door to the office remained open.

She drew her weapon.  "Don't move!"

"Am I under arrest?"

"All I want is Nicole.  Tell me where she is."

His hand groped for the doorway.

"Don't move!"

"What are you going to do, shoot me?  You come into my place of
business, and now you're going to shoot me in cold blood?"

"Stay right where you are!"

He stopped about a foot from the door and smiled at her.  "Did you know
Helen Keller was a poet?"

"Please don't move," Rachel said, fear crawling up her spine.

"They took away what should have been my eyes, but I

remembered Milton's Paradise,"" Vaughn reeited in a deep, lilting
baritone.  "They took away what should have been my ears, then
Beethoven came and wiped away my tears.  They took away what should
have been my tongue, but I had talked with God when I was young.  He
would not let them take away my soul-possessing that, I still possess
the whole."" He flipped the light switch and everything went black.

The drawn velvet curtains were supremely effective in shutting out all
light.  She stood in total darkness, heart knocking in her chest.
Frantically, she felt her way toward the wall, bumping into furniture,
and finally found the light switch, but just as she flicked the lights
back on, there was a blue flash and the room went dark again.  The air
chilled.  Sweat poured from her body.  He must've gotten to the fuse
box.

"Nicole!"  she screamed, skin around her eyes pulling tight.  "Where
are you!"

No answer.  Just a lot of thumping and bumping in the dark and suddenly
a hand groping past her head, and something heavy landing on the back
of her skull.  The bone-crushing blow sent her careening across the
carpeted floor, gun flying out of her hand.  She lay sprawled across
the carpet in the lobby, a low insect like hum filling her brain.

Groaning, she swore her way through the pain.  She'd bitten her tongue
and could taste blood.  Now a pair of rough hands grabbed her ankles.
"No!"  Vaughn Kellum was dragging her across the carpeted floor, her
clothes bunching underneath her.  Her eyes bulged in the
all-encompassing darkness.  She scratched at the rug, kicked her legs,
flailed her arms, and suddenly, miraculously, her outstretched hand
touched something cold and metallic, and her fingers closed around the
barrel of her Smith & Wesson.

She aimed the gun in Vaughn's direction and fired.  The shot lit up the
night.  She saw for an instant his startled face as he dropped her legs
and clutched his arm, just a fraction of a second--his shocked lace,
his clasped hand ... then nothing.

Scrambling to her feet, she aimed her weapon at any stray sound.  The
rusty clang of the radiator pipes.  Wind whistling through the rafters.
She felt him behind her, beside her, goose bumps popping out on her
flesh.  She wildly clawed at empty space until she hit a wall, then
groped along it until her hand clutched velvet.  Yanking open the
curtain, she found the lift cord for the Venetian blinds and tugged,
and the distant street lamp flung its steely gray light into the house,
just enough for her to see.  She spotted him as he threw open the back
door and disappeared into the rain.

"Nicole!"  Her lungs were raw.  She made a quick search of the shop,
then found the basement door.  Kicking it open, she took the creaking
stairs down into darkness.

"Nicole?"

Feeling along the wall for the fuse box, she steadied the gun before
her, worried he might come back and lock them both in the basement.

"Nicole!"

She found the fuse box, powered up.  Light flooded the cavernous space,
piled high with firewood and old dressmaker's forms laced with cobwebs.
Near the thrumming furnace was a workbench, to the right of the
workbench a width of cork board covered with power tools.  Once she'd
satisfied herself that Nicole wasn't in the basement, she headed back
upstairs.

"Nicole!"  She took the stairs to Vaughn's private residence two at a
time.  The banister was burnished mahogany.  The door at the top was
locked.  She shot out the lock, wood splintering, and searched through
the large empty rooms in the upstairs residence.  The dark woodwork
cast an aura of gloom.  Yellow-tinted pictures hung on the walls,
exquisite plaster rosettes and moldings adorned the twelve-foot
ceilings.  The bedrooms were empty.  The bathroom with its
old-fashioned claw-footed porcelain tub was empty.  "Nicole!"

Finding the door to the attic, she heard a muffled cry, the

sound of it producing a shock like a dash of cold water.  She jiggled
the doorknob, then called out, "Step away from the door!"  She fired
off a round and tugged until the door burst open.  She hurried up the
narrow attic stairs, her throat so dry, it was difficult to breathe.
"Nicole?"

At the northern end of the attic was a small enclosed room with a
padlocked door.  Somebody was making an awful racket on the other
side.

"Help!  Get me out of here!"

"Stand back.  Stand back!  I have to shoot the lock."

It took several rounds, splintering the wood, before the lock gave way
and Rachel bolstered her gun.  From inside a narrow, dark, smelly space
leapt a ragged, trembling figure, and suddenly Nicole Castillo was in
her arms, clinging like a child who'd just awakened from a nightmare.
"Thank you, thank you," she whispered in Rachel's ear, "thank you,
thank God, oh thank God ..."

RACHEL CHECKED NICOLE'S VITAL SIGNS, WRAPPED HER IN A

blanket, called an ambulance, called for backup.  She locked Nicole
inside her car with the cell phone and car keys and grabbed a
flashlight out of the glove compartment.

"Where are you going?"  Nicole clutched her arm.

"I can't let him get away."

"No!  Please don't leave me!"

"They'll be here soon, I promise."

Her shoes crackled against the gritty asphalt as she took off across
the street.  The cold ate into her bones as she moved around behind the
house.  An eight-foot chain link fence surrounded the backyard.  She
headed up an incline into the piney

woods, eyes straining for any sign of him, hand flexing on the
checkerboard handle of her gun.  There was no movement in the woods
ahead.  She was afraid she'd lost him.

Looking back, she noted the street was shrouded in fog, the nearest
street lamp a distant halo.  Her breath made cottony plumes.  The sky
suddenly opened up and the slishing sound of rain surrounded her.

Rachel moved into the woods, past gold birches and evergreen trees,
their branches weighted with rain.  The ground fog thickened as the
woods closed in around her.  Her throat constricted, throttling a
rising panic.  She fought to keep her wits about her, fought the urge
to run as she slogged through the glistening sword ferns.

A bird shrilled, and she spun at the frantic fluttering of wings.  It
streaked past her head and was gone, swallowed into the mist.  She
stood rock steady as tendrils of fog circled the space where the bird
had just been.

The ground was soggy underfoot.  She couldn't see very far in front of
her, perhaps ten feet.  She scaled a stone wall, the soles of her shoes
slipping on wet rock, then crashed through a knee-deep bed of ferns.
Her clothes felt heavy, the frozen fabric scuffing together.  Her legs
ached, her blood dragging through her veins.

"Oh God," came shivering out of her, and she suddenly recalled
something McKissack had once told her.  The first thing the victim said
was "Oh God."  The last thing she said was "Oh shit."

Frightened now, but still not admitting it to herself, Rachel trudged
through a pine grove, soggy needles crunching underfoot, then paused to
listen--arteries throbbing, ears straining past the thick sibilance of
rain falling on leaves.  She aimed her flashlight at a dense maze of
swaying conifers--larch, fir, spruce.  Fat droplets collected on the
purplish cones and white needles until they became too full and
dropped, pelting her like water balloons.

Now she heard a rustling sound and, locating its source, moved swiftly
toward it, out of the pine grove and into a stand of birch trees.
White, gold, silver, majestic, magnificent.  She slid between

trees growing too closely together and heard it distinctly now-the
crisp snap of a twig, the rustle of undergrowth.  He was close.

A dog leapt out of the wet tangle like a menacing growl with teeth.
Rain streaked across her flashlight beam, making everything seem as
scratchy and distant as an old home movie.

"Good dog.  Heel!"  she commanded, but the dog stood its ground,
collarless and malnourished.  She could see the ribbed skeleton beneath
its matted fur as it gave a weakened bark.

Holding herself tightly reined, she moved on.  Her breathing was
labored, despair and exhaustion about to set in.  Her bones felt
brittle.  Petrified.  She wanted to lie down for a moment, right here,
right now, to catch her breath, but she was somehow able to draw on an
unfathomable font of strength and keep moving.  Keep slogging through
these black wet woods.

She no longer knew where she was.  The cold damp air burned her lungs,
and her flashlight danced over trees--bunchberry, tamarack, flowering
dogwood.  Dogwood leaves with their curved, parallel veins and delicate
pink flowers bearing ruby red fruit in the spring.  She leaned against
the dense compact bark of the dogwood and thought she'd rest awhile.
Just for a moment.  She snitched off her flashlight and lifted her face
to the rain, a steady sprinkling downpour that caulked even' crevice.
She recalled what they said about drowning, how it was supposed to be
painless.  We started out in water; in the womb, we had gills.  Perhaps
death was a mercy?  She listened to herself breathing, in and out.  In
and out.

The hand came out of nowhere.  A quick grope, and then a hammer punch
to the head.  Her knees noodled and she went sprawling.  Gun and
flashlight flying out of her hands.  She tried to force her arms and
legs to move, then everything rocketed away.  She saw a blinding light,
the kind projected onto a movie screen after a piece of film has
broken.  A purifying, white light.

And then, clotted darkness.  Hissing silence.

When she opened her eyes, she wasn't sure how long she'd been out.
Seconds?  Minutes?  Her eyes slowly focused and she could see him
through the fog.  Condensation clinging to his glasses.  He loomed over
her with his hundred-year stare, then started kicking--heavy, hateful
blows landing against her abdomen and ribs.

She barrel-rolled to avoid the next kick, tumbled through the wet
leaves.  Now he was gone, lost in the fog.  Visibility zero.  Lurching
to her feet, she circled the small clearing, heart racing, eyes
darting.  An arm flung out and caught her on the chin.  She stumbled
away.  Roaring, he charged after her.  She squatted on the ground,
thrust one shoulder forward and, bracing for impact, caught him on the
knees.  He grabbed her on the way down, knocking them both to the wet
earth.

Now she was at a distinct disadvantage as he climbed on top of her and
wrapped his hands around her throat.  He was going to choke the life
out of her.  His rage was deep, he drew strength from it.  Even in the
darkness she could see the cold contempt in his eyes.  The eyes of an
eight-year-old boy whose mother saw him beaten, saw him hungry, saw him
tormented, but never intervened.

Her insides burned.  She felt tiny and breakable.  She'd forgotten to
eat her spinach, and now Bluto was going to stretch her limbs apart
like strings of taffy.  He slung her about like a mouse.  Not about to
let this happen, she leaned bravely into the chaos she was about to
create.

Adrenaline jump-started her body and, snaking her arms through his, she
broke his grip.  They tumbled down an incline together, bumping over
rotten logs.  She caught a sharp rock with her hip and the pain of it
shot up her spine.  At the bottom of the incline, her head hit
something metallic and tube like and her hand closed around her
flashlight.

As he lunged forward, she threw a punch with blinding speed, flashlight
connecting with his chin.  A wet sound.  Before he could react, she
started beating him on the head with the

flashlight, its impact like a metallic sneeze.  There were fireflies
behind his head, sparks going off in the sky.  What was that?  She
squinted.  Tiny distant flashlight beams scanned the woods and
illuminated the canopy of branches above their heads.  She'd never seen
anything so beautiful in her entire life.  Beams of light sparkling on
wet leaves.

"McKissack!"  she screamed.  "Over here!"

"Rachel?"  came a distant male voice.  McKissack's voice.

Enraged, Vaughn started throwing punches so fast his arms blurred.  He
scooped up a fistful of dirt and plunged it into her mouth.  Wet earth
gritted her teeth and clogged the back of her throat, making her choke.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she couldn't see.  Gagging, she blindly
thrust her palm directly upward into his chin, knocking his glasses off
his face, and he reeled backward and clutched his nose, blood spurting
through his splayed fingers.

She struggled to her feet, gagging on matted clumps of earth, her stiff
overcoat slowing her progress.  He hurtled forward, bloody hands
outstretched.  Exploded like a popcorn kernel.  He groped the air for
the shape of her and let out a bloodcurdling shriek, his breath making
cloudlike bursts.

She ducked and ran behind him while he flailed and groped for her.  She
searched for her gun, found it, leapt for it like a lioness, fingers
clamping gratefully around its checkerboard grip.  She grew instantly
calm.  Amazingly calm.  Aiming her semiautomatic at Vaughn Kellum,
using the Weaver stance, she said, "Police!  Don't move!"

He turned toward the sound of her voice, his hearing aids secure.  His
glasses were gone, though, lost in the fallen leaves.

"It's over, Vaughn," she said.  "Put your hands on your head!"

The flashlight beams were closer now, jogging and circling. McKissack's
voice, a little louder.  "Rachel!  Where are you?"

"Over here!"

Vaughn Kellum started to walk directly toward her, guided by the sound
of her voice.

"Don't you move a muscle!  Stay where you are!"

He paused for an imperceptible moment, then smiled defiantly in her
direction.  This icy, contemptuous smile was meant for her.

"I never really cared anyway," he said.

"Stay where you are, Vaughn!"

He tugged both hearing aids out of his ears.  With a simple flick of
his wrists, he flung them in different directions far into the woods.
Now he was both profoundly deaf and blind as he continued in her
direction.  His pace increased.

He was moving steadily toward her, arms flailing, torso twisting and
shrinking to less than half its width with each antagonistic body
movement.  She couldn't get a bead.  She didn't want to kill him.  He
was unarmed and she had no business shooting him.  She tried to find a
nonfatal target--pelvis, leg--but the dark and the rain and the limited
illumination from her flashlight only added to her confusion.

"Stop!"

If you lose your cool, you lose the fight.  Her life was in danger. She
had to hit the target in order to stop the threat.  All her training
had concentrated on staid, static range drills.  McKissack was the only
one who'd explained to her that perfect shot placement might not
suffice in real life, might not stop the threat.

"Freeze!  Don't move!"

Her arms trembled as she tried to hold the gun steady, but he continued
moving swiftly toward her, arms thrashing, fingers groping, a feral
look on his face.  He swung at the air, vicious and determined.  She
backed away.  "McKissack!  Over here!"

Vaughn Kellum lashed angrily at the space in front of him, and she took
a step backward.  Another.  Another.  To her right and left, dense
woods.  She was boxed in.  She couldn't swallow.  Her heart raced.  He
was forcing her hand, moving relentlessly toward her.

"McKissack!"  she screamed, taking another step backward.

Legs braced.  Distant flashlight beams revolved in the canopy,
circling as though they were lost.

"I'm over here!  Hurry!"

She took another step back and her heel hit something hard, and she
flattened against a dogwood tree, its smooth, dense bark supporting her
spine.

"McKissack!"

Gasping for breath.

Vaughn's arms swung like scythes, his eyes roamed aimlessly.  He swiped
at the air, inches from her gun.  She took another eighth of a second
to make sure of target acquisition, sight picture, backstop ... fuck
it... she pointed the gun at his head.

He grabbed the barrel.

"Oh shit!"

She fired.

The bullet penetrated his skull and blew out the back of his head, and
he rag-dolled in front of her.  Sprawled dead on the ground at her
feet.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, THE SUN PEEKED OUT FROM BEhind cumulus clouds
like great gray brains exploding across the sky.  Rachel met privately
with Dr.  Castillo in his office to explain the unexplainable.

He eyed her solicitously.  "How are you feeling, Detective?"

"Bruised.  Some cuts.  A few broken ribs."  She fingered a marble sized
lump over her right eye.  "But I'll live."

"My wife and I are extremely grateful," he said.  "Words can't express
how indebted we are."

"How's Nicoler"

"Recovering."

She leaned forward in her seat.  This little meeting had been her idea.
She wanted to tell him in person, let the words fall like a cold rain
upon his head.

"Vaughn Kellum's been planning this for years," she began.  "We've
traced one of the threads all the way back to Claire's ex boyfriend,
three years ago.  Three years, Vaughn Kellum's been collecting thread
from Claire's clothes, Nicole's clothes, yours, your wife's.  The
ex-boyfriend's, like I said."

Yale's hands lay flat and lifeless on his desk.  "But why would anyone
do such a terrible thing?"

Rachel didn't answer right away, filled with an aggressive fury she
didn't quite know what to do with.  "Claire left the diner at eight
o'clock on Wednesday night and walked through the fog to Kellum
Kleaners," she said.  "According to Nicole's own experience, they
probably had tea together and talked about the charity dance.  Claire
liked Vaughn.  He was her friend.  She never suspected he'd laced her
tea with chloral hydrate."

"The knockout drug."

"The attic room was well insulated, like a recording studio.  Nobody
could hear you scream.  There was a mattress on the floor, an overhead
light, a portable toilet.  We found books, reading matter.  He kept
Claire drugged, bound at the wrists and ankles for long periods of
time, same as Nicole.  But at night, after the shop closed, they'd eat
dinner together and talk.  I'm sure he told her everything."

"Everything?"  He seemed confused.

"I've seen his school transcripts.  Doctor.  His IQ was in the superior
range, above 130.  He came from a dysfunctional home, both parents were
alcoholics.  He suffered physical and emotional abuse at his father's
hands.  His mother apparently blamed you for their troubles."

"Blamed me?"

"He was torn away from home at the age of eight, and his

mother died shortly thereafter.  He lost much of his sight, most of
his hearing, couldn't run like the other boys, couldn't play ball
anymore ."  She detected the rapid pulse beating in her own throat and
swallowed hard, sitting on a deep desire to hurt him.  "Claire went
over there to innocently pick up a blouse, and three weeks later found
herself walking through the woods, where Vaughn knew every tree, every
stone, every grove, every ravine.  He took her to a place he knew she
would instinctively crawl out of, toward the traffic sounds, and
injected her with an antipsychotic.  He injected it between her toes so
it wouldn't be immediately detected."

Anger flared in Yale's eyes.  "Yes, well... thank you for stopping by,
Detective.  I'm sure you're very busy, and I've got patients to attend
to--"

"I'm not finished, Doctor," she said.  She couldn't help herself, she'd
lost her professional distance.  Her hands were trembling.  "I read the
files.  Throughout the years, you've been accused of gross negligence,
misdiagnosis, extreme departure from standard care, failure to realize
the seriousness of an illness, administration of incorrect dosages,
administration of incorrect blood type, failure to summon help from
another physic an because you didn't want to admit you'd misjudged the
patient's condition, caring more about your reputation and ego than the
health of the patient.  At least four of your patients suffered
permanent, irreversible damage as a result, while an elderly woman died
of dehydration in your care.  Of the sixteen charges of
malpractice--"

"Alleged medical negligence," he coldly corrected her.

"Three were settled and the rest were thrown out by the tribunal.
Vaughn Kellum's case was settled.  Fifteen thousand dollars minus
lawyers' fees In misdiagnosinga little boy's symptoms twenty-seven
years ago, you affected the course of his life, and in doing so, you
affected the course of your own life."

"I tried my best to help that child."  He sat rigid in his seat,
breathing hard.  "May I remind you, Detective, that death in the
emergency room is not uncommon ..."

"You've been charged with malpractice sixteen times, Doctor, How did
you manage to keep your license?"

"It was never my intent to harm that child.  I'm sure you can
understand what it's like to make a judgment call, or a series of
judgment calls.  They alleged medical negligence, well I've got news
for you, Detective.  Medicine is not an exact science."

"Oh come on, Doctor.  You botched it big-time.  I read the file. Vaughn
Kellum's parents brought him into the emergency room twice, and each
time you denied that the child was seriously ill.  Each time, you
misjudged his condition.  You only consulted with another physician
after his parents insisted, and even then you misled Dr.  Selby and
tried to cover up your mistakes in a three page addendum inserted into
the child's medical records."

He stood, red-faced with indignation.  "You can't possibly blame me for
what happened to Claire!"

"Do you understand the depth of his hatred?"  she asked, out of breath
and agitated.  She'd lost control.  She'd lost her head.  This was no
good.  "Don't you get it?  It took him years to collect all those
pieces of thread.  Years to construct the room in the attic.  Years to
befriend Claire and Dinger.  He was exceedingly patient.  Brilliantly
patient.  Fanatical in his desire for revenge."

"But this has nothing to do with me.  Nothing!"

"Your daughter died because of mistakes you made almost three decades
ago.  The least you can do is accept partial responsibility for her
pain and suffering."

He gazed at her helplessly, his face a twisted slab.  He reminded her
of a photograph she'd once seen in a museum, a black-and-white
photograph of a Nazi guard in a concentration camp who'd been forced to
dig up the dead.

"Three weeks, she lived in that room.  I was there.  It's the size of a
walk-in closet.  The walls are padded, there's no way out, it stinks of
urine and fear.  She lay on that mattress for twenty-one days, scared
out of her wits.  Not knowing whether she'd be dead tomorrow, or
whether he'd rape her tonight.  This man she had

once called her friend.  Then one night, he unlocks the door and walks
into the room with some pills, a needle and thread.  I can't imagine
what was going through her mind."

"I did nothing wrong.  Anyone could've made the same mistake.  I was
vindicated.  We settled without an admission of guilt."

"He sewed her up," Rachel continued without mercy, "and escorted her
through the woods in the middle of the night in the pouring rain.  He
injected her with Thorazine and left her there to die, she probably
thought.  But no, he saved that little task for you.  He knew you'd
misdiagnose her symptoms.  He knew you'd make another mistake, and that
it would be lethal."

Yale's shoulders spasmed.  He choked back the tears, and she suddenly
felt like a criminal.

"He knew your schedule.  He knew you were in the middle of a
fourteen-hour shift.  And he'd just sewn thread from your Brooks
Brothers suit into your daughter's face."

He groaned and dropped his head in his hands, and her heart froze.  Her
gut seized up.  She'd been incalculably cruel.  He'd lost his daughter.
That was enough.  Punishment for a lifetime.

"He knew you would misdiagnose your daughter's symptoms," she said
softly, "just as you'd misdiagnosed his.  He was a sick man, bent on
revenge."

"Please," he begged, "no more ..."

"There isn't any more."  She stood up.  "Vaughn Kellum is dead.  It's
over."

"Thank God for that."  He slouched in his seat, mouth an anguished
gash.  "Thank God ... thank Christ..."

She felt dirty.  She hated herself for lashing out at this defenseless
man, this bereft father.  The window behind his desk revealed a sky
sharpening to crystal blue.

She opened the door to his office, then turned for one last thought.
"Three weeks she lived in abject terror, knowing she was there because
of you.  And you know what?  I bet she forgave you."

She shut the door in his stricken face.

MCKISSACK FIT IN SO PERFECTLY WITH THE SMOKY ATMOSPHERE

of the bar, she felt certain she must have conjured him up out of the
red vinyl booths, the spilt beer, the sticky wooden floor.  He was
wearing his civvies--plaid flannel shirt, jeans, cracked leather biker
jacket--and his eyes were full of bitters.  "I'm behind you a hundred
percent, Rachel.  I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

"I shot an unarmed suspect at point-blank range," she said, finishing
her wine.  "A blind man.  The department's being sued."

"By some distant cousin who probably didn't give two shits until this
happened."  McKissack signaled the waitress for another round.  "Let's
drink to your first unpleasant brush with bureaucracy.  Unfortunately,
it won't be your last.  Remember those bank robbers in L.A. who
terrorized an entire community with their arsenal of automatic weapons?
They sprayed buildings and houses with armor-piercing bullets, but when
the cops shot one of them and he lay dying on the ground, the press
raised holy hell because an ambulance wasn't called fast enough."

"I shot a defenseless man, McKissack."

He fell into lecturing mode.  "A person in a rage with the perceived
intent of attacking an officer and failing to respond to said officer's
orders to stop--"

"He was profoundly deaf without his hearing aids," she reminded him.

"--creates a clear situation in which the officer must act quickly to
stop the attacker.  An officer may use deadly force to protect himself
against deadly force."  He sighed.  "Vaughn Kellum grabbed your gun.
His prints are on the barrel."

"I failed to properly Mirandize him.  The D.A. wants to get
reelected."

"The guy was guilty as sin.  Nobody's arguing with that.  He deserves
to spend eternity in the lowest levels of Dante's hell."

She tried to let these words soothe her but knew that, ultimately,
McKissack couldn't save her.  She'd surrendered her gun and shield, was
on temporary leave from the department.  Once an internal investigation
was completed, and assuming she was exonerated, she would get her badge
and weapon back.  But the nightmares that had started shortly after the
shooting hadn't let up.  It wasn't a nice feeling, killing another
human being.

Now she let her gaze wander over McKissack's face.  "Have you ever been
in front of a jury, Jim?"

"Yeah, way back when Moby-Dick was a minnow.  Just remember, stay calm,
speak in a deliberate voice, and give your lawyer plenty of time to
object."

She wanted to get drunk, really drunk for a change.  She wanted to lose
control.  She'd never felt so damaged.  "You know, I get the shakes.
I'll be sitting there, and something will trigger it."

His eyes were kind.  "Just get ahold of yourself."

"How?"

He shrugged.  "Stop tormenting yourself.  It's not like you'll ever get
used to it."  McKissack tilted his head to drink, then looked at her,
jaw muscles bunching.  "I'm just glad you're okay.  The guy was six
two, one-ninety.  That's some fierce struggle.  I'm proud of you,
Rachel."  He stroked her bruised cheek.  "You okay?"

"It only hurts when I cry."

He smiled but his eyes were sad.  "You had my heart going."

"Serves you right for all the times you've had mine going."

They both fell silent.  It was difficult, letting go.  Her ribs were
tender, the back of her head was still sore, and every aching joint in
her body reminded her of Vaughn Kellum.  She couldn't get away from
him.

"He won, McKissack," she said softly.  "Even in death, he won."

He gave her a skeptical look.  "What?"

"I was his last victim."

"Bullshit.  You're no victim."

"Maybe not, but somehow he managed to destroy my career, not to mention
my peace of mind."

"It was suicide by cop.  Nothing more.  Nothing less."  He stroked her
hair, but she drew back slightly, and he rested his hands on the
tabletop, one over the other.  "We're looking more closely at Melissa
D'Agostino.  It might've been a crime of opportunity, his first,
perhaps.  One of his wanderings through the woods.  There's a couple
Unsolveds we're checking out."

"According to his social worker, his father once held a pillow over his
face and only stopped when Vaughn pretended to be dead."

"Lots of people have miserable childhoods, that doesn't mean they all
turn into psychopaths.  The guy was sadistic and monumentally
self-indulgent.  It makes you want to handcuff your kids to your wrist
and never let them out of your sight."  Leaning forward, he kissed her.
"I love you, Rachel.  I always will."

She opened her mouth to protest, but he rested his finger against her
lips.  "Shhh.  I know.  Just keep this on the back burner.  I'll always
be there for you."

She slid out of the booth and stood on unsteady legs, drunker than she
expected.  "Me, too, McKissack," she said.  "I'll always love you,
too."

THE D.A. "S OFFICE LIKED TO CLAIM A HIGH CONVICTION RATE.

As aggressive as he was, however, District Attorney Hubert Blum failed
to make the charges against Detective Third Grade Rachel Storrow stick
after her counsel proved, through a legal defense

called justification, that she was allowed to use deadly force.
Subsequently exonerated, she was reinstated to her post.

On the Saturday following the verdict, Rachel drove to her brother's
house to say good-bye.  Billy's U-Haul was packed.  They stood on the
front lawn in the crisp February air, assessing one another's feelings.
She gazed into his frost-colored eyes, reminded of all the good things
from her childhood.

"Well," he said, "I left you some stuff in the front hall.  Microwave.
Blender.  It's all packed.  Mom's good silverware.  Dad's old army
blanket.  Remember that?"

"Yeah."  She smiled.  "He made us tuck in the corners so tight you
could bounce a quarter off the bed."

Billy laughed, the sound of it lifting her spirits.

"I love you, Billy," she said, wrapping her arms around him, and they
held each other for a while.  She would miss his laugh, his smile, his
voice, the reassuring length of him.  She could hear his heartbeat
through layers of wool.  With great reluctance, she let him go.

"I'm glad you got your job back," he said.

"I'm not so sure I want it back."

His eyebrows lifted in surprise.  "What'll you do?"

She glanced around, uncertain.  Blackbirds circled the power lines that
ran down behind the house.  A neighbor's dog barked at its own shadow.
"I majored in psychology," she said.  "The world could use a little
therapy, don't you think?"

He smiled at her.  His hair was clean and shiny and their childhood
seemed a million miles away.

She couldn't keep the sadness from creeping into her voice.  "Billy,
I'm sorry about what happened."

"Forget it."  He shrugged as if it were nothing, then tweaked her nose.
"Who's my little pipsqueak?"

"I am."  The corners of her mouth curled up.  "I'm going to miss you,
big brother."

"I'll call when I get to Seattle."  He'd found a new job working

with blind adults.  He couldn't stay at Winfield, he told her.  It
reminded him too much of Claire.  "Don't worry about the rest of the
junk inside.  Landlord's gonna take care of it."

"Okay."  She didn't want him to leave.  Regret boiled up around her.
She needed more time.  Needed to prove how much she loved him.  How
much she trusted him.

"Well ..."  He had a winning smile.  "Guess this is it."

She clung to him, not wanting to let go.  His grip was muscular from
lifting weights.  He'd always protected her.  He'd always been there
for her.  Now what was she going to do?  Her family was gone.  There
was nothing left but memories.

He kissed her good-bye and got in his car.  He waved as he pulled out
onto the road, gravel crunching under his tires.  She stood for a long
while on the ice-slick driveway and followed the U-Haul's progress into
the dazzling landscape.  Then the milky woods absorbed him and he was
gone.

Inside, four large cardboard boxes waited by the front door.  The
cavernous rooms were empty except for a carpet rolled into a corner of
the living room, a broken broom, rejected paperbacks, a few moldering
pieces of furniture.

Rachel took the boxes home and unpacked them in the living room as the
setting sun streaked the sky pink through the windows.  Besides the
silverware and army blanket, he'd left his old baby clothes, a teething
ring, a lock of golden hair.  He'd left the family photographs, letters
and birthday cards she and her mother had written to him at various
addresses--Albuquerque, New Orleans, Nebraska ... Tucked inside the
microwave was a book of poems by William Blake, a yellow Post-it stuck
to the front cover.  The note, in Billy's scrawling handwriting, read:
"Rachel, Remember what Dad used to say about keeping a light heart? 
There's also a line from Blake: "A truth that's told with bad intent
beats all the lies you can invent."  Don't ever forget me, Billy."

The book fell open in her hands, and pressed between two

pages like a flower was Melissa D'Agostino's friendship bracelet.
Yellow and red yarn woven together in a diamond pattern.

Rachel's feet turned to stone.  How could she have been so stupid?  A
shriveling wind whistled through the rafters, but the blood rushing in
her head drowned out all sound.  Yellow and red flashed before her
eyes.  Her brain felt broken.  Her eyes scanned down the page, pausing
on a single highlighted passage:

"Father!  father!  where are you going?

do not walk so fast.  Speak, father, speak to your little boy.  Or else
I shall be lost."

She could feel him in her arms, her big brother, tall and strong, could
smell his warm breath against her cheek, and she wanted him back. 
Bring him back.  She wanted her brother back, but it was too late.

The truth was curled like a caterpillar in her palm.

BY MID-MARCH, RACHEL WAS READY TO GO.  EVERYTHING WAS

packed.  She was leaving Flowering Dogwood for good, driving down the
coast to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a friend needed a third
roommate.  McKissack had expressed shock and disappointment at her
decision to leave the department, but it was too late.  She'd made up
her mind.

Billy had evaporated into thin air.  There were no phone calls.  There
was no forwarding address.  No job with blind adults.  Alone in the
house, she took her gold shield out of her pocket and hefted it in her
hand.  McKissack knew nothing about her

real reasons for leaving.  He hadn't a clue what rested in the
balance.  The price she'd have to pay in order to stay.

The floorboards creaked as she walked through the empty rooms, memories
reaching out at every turn.  There, she broke one of her front baby
teeth running.  There, she and Billy had played monster that time, and
he'd scared her so much she couldn't stop hiccuping.  There was where
they set up the Christmas tree every year.  She inhaled deeply, the
house filling momentarily with laughter.  Birthdays, Easter egg hunts,
family reunions, her parents' anniversaries ... that was enough.  She
could block out the rest.  She wasn't going to drag all the bitterness
and grief out the door with her.

At the front door, she turned to take one last look at the kitchen
where they'd shared their meals.  She wouldn't be back.

Outside she picked up her pace, striding briskly past the For Sale sign
on the front lawn.  Ice and snow glittered like crushed glass in the
moonlight.  She walked past the barbecue pit, the ici cled hammock, the
woodshed ... down to the back field.  In the spring, the wild turkey
would mate when the redbud trees bloomed, and the buck moth would
hatch, and she'd miss them all.  Green ash, spruce, fir, white birch.
She scaled the barbed wire fence, then stood in the crusted snow and
faced the swamp.

This valley was called Wuchowsem after the spirit of the benign night
winds.  She gazed at the bog with its stunted, spindly trees, its sheep
laurel and dwarf huckleberry--a web of branches and brittle dead leaves
coated with a fur of snow, now twinkling in the moonlight.  The seasons
changed swiftly here, dramatically, from soft to tempestuous. 
Northerly winds blew needlepoint frost across this great land, and the
winter snows soon followed, burying everything beneath a thick icy
crust.

Rachel held her shield to the moonlight.  Breath clouds crackled from
her lungs and the yarn bracelet danced in the biting wind.  It wasn't
too late to turn her brother in.  Either way, she knew she'd be haunted
for the rest of her life.

Her eyes blurred with tears.  Her head beat with the sound of a
thousand drums.  The immensity of the sky floored her.  She could
almost feel ice crystals forming in the black air high above her head,
and the cold stung her nostrils.  She had never felt so all alone.  She
was alone on the planet.

Father!  father!  where are you going?

Fingers raw and numb, she tied the friendship bracelet around the
shield, making several stiff knots.  It was up to fate, she decided. 
If some stranger happened to stumble across this definitive proof of
her family's guilt, so be it.

Her heart roared.  The ground was made of paper.  The fields were blue
in the moonlight.  The swamp was salt-dusted, foam flecked, its pools
covered with a skin of ice.  With the passage of time, the elements
would rinse the earth of evil.

Frozen weeds crunched underfoot as she shifted her weight.  With a
grunt, she pitched the shield as far as she could into the swamp.  It
hurtled through the cold night like a final thought and landed in the
thickets where, unknown to her, it fell through wrinkles of snow and
came to rest upon a clump of huckleberry roots embedded in fissures,
roots like congealed veins growing in and around the decades-old cat
bell.  Rust had crept like frost around the circumference of the tiny
silver bell, rust blossomed on metal, and the sleeping roots whispered
of long-ago glaciers.

Heartfelt thanks to my agent, Wendy Weil, and my editor, Beverly
Lewis, for their great wisdom and support; to Irwyn Applebaum for his
enthusiasm and generosity; to my teachers Chris Leland, Peter LaSalle
and Mameve Medwed for their love of writing; to Doris Jackson, whose
dedication to the truth once turned my life around; to The Group (Lori,
Helen, Jane, Nancy and All) for its irreplaceable fellowship; to Mamie
Mueller for her writer's eye; to Elon Dershowitz, Kevin Brodbin and my
talented brother, Carter Blanchard, for their invaluable input; to all
my friends for their encouragement when times were tough; to the good
people of CRC; and last but not least, to my husband, Doug Dowling, for
his brilliance, his inspiration and unshakable faith.

Alice Blanchard won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction for
her book of stories.  The Stuntman's Daughter.  She has received a PEN
Syndicated Fiction Award, a New Letters Literary Award and a Centrum
Artists in Residence Fellowship.  Her fiction has appeared in such
quarterlies as Turnstile, The Alaska Quarterly and The William & Mary
RevieW, among others, and has been broadcast on National Public Radio's
"The Sound of Writing."  She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.