Storm

Copyright 2009 by William Badke

William Badke

Storm

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CHAPTER ONE Esma Hale dropped two bags of her special blend into the teapot and put the lid back on, imagining the water swirling with streaks of red-brown until the color became uniform. She added milk to her china cup, waiting patiently after that, because a good pot of tea was always worth the time it took to prepare it. Two cookies on a side plate, and everything was ready for her precious daily ritual, the ceremony that announced to all dissenting voices that civilization was not yet dead. With as much dignity as eighty-five years of living in the same body would allow her, she sat down and poured for herself. Sipping, she stared out the window across the fields, now barren except for the brown fragments of stubble that stood out like the surviving tufts of hair on a bald man. She relished the flatness of this rich river delta full of farms and surrounded by the mountains of the Coast Range and the Cascades. Cold today. Maybe snow by nightfall. Carefully, she sipped from her cup, pleased that the temperature of the tea was just right. Her kitchen was looking fine now that Walter had painted the cabinets - beige with yellow trim and Alice had added a border of small blue flowers. She suspected the new decor was the reason why her tea time gave her such pleasure today. Eating her cookies, she hurried slightly, knowing that Alice would be calling at 4:15, more of a bother than a help really. Esma knew she was old, but not aged, not doddering. Her mind was sound, and her body, despite not being twenty anymore, seemed to work just fine. Why did everyone assume...She paused in mid-thought as a few snowflakes began falling outside. "I knew it was too cold for rain," she murmured.

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The farm looked stark now, and she shivered at memories of working out there in winters long gone. At least she had no animals to bed down anymore. She'd sold the last cow years ago, and the non-resident tenants were only interested in growing corn. She finished her tea and got up to wash the dishes, drying each one carefully and putting it away so that the kitchen would stay looking like a picture in Home & Garden. Let Alice or Walter utter a word, and she'd show them her kitchen - every part of it spotless, without a swarm of cats roaming through it or food going bad on the counter. The phone rang. She answered, listening until her patience faltered. "Yes, dear, I am fully aware that it is snowing. Don't you worry, I have lots of food, and the furnace is fine." She usually tried to hear Alice out, but it was a trial sometimes. "No, it's not a good idea. I've weathered more storms than you have, young lady, so you just stay there and take care of the children. I'm perfectly fine here by myself." Eventually the conversation ended, and Esma went to the living room to watch the five o'clock early news. She always turned it up more than Walter or Alice could stand, but a person has to be able to hear things. She was grateful to Walter for installing the amplifier on her phone. As she sat there in her big flowered chair, observing the day's record of sorrows, it seemed like the world was drifting farther from her all the time, like the circus when she was young - her father could only afford the cheapest seats at the top, the ones they called the nosebleed seats now, and the clowns seemed to her like little more than dancing specks, so far away that she could only vaguely understand why the people down there were laughing. She didn't mind, because she was afraid of clowns. Certainly there were robberies in her day, the occasional murder, even other things. But the world was not so alien, so...She almost wanted to use the word "nasty," but it wasn't a perfect fit.

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So distant and alien it all seemed to her, like the clowns of her childhood running around far below, and one could only hope that they wouldn't take it into their heads to run up into the audience, wreaking havoc. At 5:15, a weather bulletin interrupted the newscaster. Snow was expected, perhaps three or four inches, and Esma smiled, still surprised at the way these coastal people made such a fuss over a little winter weather. On the prairies, no one even mentioned a storm unless most of the roads were closed. For awhile she picked up her knitting, amusing herself with the picture she must have made - sweet little old lady making sweaters for the grandkids. Being old was nothing like she thought it would be. Inside, where it counted, she still felt like twenty and still longed to run another milelong race as she had so many times when she was young. Only the body is old, she told herself. Her living room was pleasantly warm, not just because of the temperature but because of the gently patterned rug, the light brown panelling, the rose-colored drapes. All of these enveloped her like a hug. On the TV now there was one of those new hip comedies, people with dirty mouths and sly looks. She thought of changing the channel, but the TV was really only background anyway. To look at her sitting there, you'd imagine she had nothing on her horizon except the prospect of dying in her bed, but she had far more to occupy her life than merely waiting for death. Every day was a new world created just for her to inhabit. No one could accuse her of a loss of purpose. Esma had led a rip of a life - miler athlete, pilot doing mail runs, even a rodeo rider one summer. Then a long career editing a small-town paper in Saskatchewan. Frank, her husband (rest in peace), had tried to harness her, but he'd always failed. She suspected that if she'd let him turn

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her into a domesticated woman, he'd have lost interest in her. Frank was big on bombast and short on depth, though she'd loved him passionately. She realised now that she should have done a better job of preparing her character for approaching old age. She was too outspoken to garner much sympathy even when she needed it. Any Boy Scout who dared offer her help across a street would soon regret it, as well-intentioned as he might have been, the tough little granny raging against the coming darkness until she drew her last breath, and all her critics could simply hold their peace, because she wasn't going to change. About eight, she turned off the living room light and looked out, amazed to see the snow was eight inches deep and falling heavily still. So much for weather forecasting. There seemed to be quite a wind too, with drifts piling against a fence nearby. She went back to the television and turned the channels until she found one that had local weather conditions. At first she was startled and wondered if she were reading old news of some previous disaster, but the date was right January 17. The words "major snowstorm" and "blizzard conditions" gave her a pang despite the reality that she had nowhere to go and plenty of food. Even if the power went out, her gas fireplace would keep her warm. She'd just pull the sofa nearby, get a few blankets... No need for any of that, of course. Just a storm, and she'd seen plenty of those. Still, she checked the phone to see if it was working. Then she watched a crime drama for an hour, listening to the wind, a low moaning sound rising occasionally to shrieks of icy pain. Pity the poor soul lost out in that tonight. By nine, she was ready for bed. She prepared slowly, methodically, having no need for hurry and taking pleasure in each stage. Whatever else might have been lost, her enjoyment of

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sleep was still intact, and she got ready for it with all the precision of preparing for a two week vacation. On nights like this, with nature at her worst, she felt like the last living person on earth, though there was no loneliness to it. More like comfort, because most of the troubles in this world came from the way people banged into each other on their aimless journeys through life. Better to have a clear path. It was at that moment that she heard several loud thumps on her front door. The knocking caught her totally by surprise, in mid-thought, a monstrous intrusion made even more shocking by the fact that she was so sure she'd been alone. She drew in a gasping breath, hoping she'd imagined it. Then it came again. "Who's there?" she called. There was no answer, just another knock. "Who's out there? Answer me. I have a gun." She had no gun, but the threat seemed as good as the reality. A muffled voice called out, apparently male, his words indistinguishable. She moved closer to the door. "What do you want? I'm not receiving visitors." "You have to help me. I'm freezing!" A man's voice. No mistake about the urgency of it. "I can't let you in." "Please, whoever you are. I’ll die out here." "Go away or I'll call the police," she said. "Let me in. What kind of a person are you? I’ll freeze to death." "Go away." "I'll die on your doorstep. Do you want that?"

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She paused, methodically working through the situation, still too overwhelmed by the sudden disturbance to feel kindly toward the cause of it. There was a storm, a severe storm. Some honest citizen, a man, had been caught in it with car problems and only needed somewhere warm, a phone...Or maybe it was a prison escapee with murder on his mind. Or maybe someone worse… "Get off my land," she said. "There's another farm half a mile north of here." "I can't walk that far. I'll die. Please." The man outside spoke more softly this time. Then she could hear nothing but the wind. "Are you there?" she called. "Mister?" No answer. Noiselessly she opened the deadbolt and turned the door handle. The cold stung her instantly. No one was there. How could that be when she'd spoken to him and he'd answered? Then she saw out of the corner of her eye a movement to the left of her. There was a man lying in the flowerbed next to the shallow steps, limbs moving as he struggled to rise, and she took his arm and did what little she could to help him up. Took him inside. He wasn't really dressed for this, and she could feel him trembling. She led him to an armchair, and he sank into it, then looked up at her so that she saw his face for the first time. In an instant she knew that one of the clowns had broken free from center ring.

The man from outside finished the preliminary work as quickly as he could. Later, after he'd eaten some food and surveyed the scene, still certain that something must have been missed, he looked outside. The snow continued to fall but the wind was dropping, and it was certain that the

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storm would end soon. Time to go but much work still to be done. He was slightly surprised that his mind was so clear despite the circumstances, almost as if he'd entered a bubble of rationality. He was feeling tired though, and his mind balked at what he had left to do. He told himself, the irony not lost on him, that murder can be a complicated business.

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CHAPTER TWO By 9:00, Casey Stendahl knew he was in trouble. It was bad enough navigating a bread van over narrow country roads in the dark without having to cope with the blowing snow that turned the landscape into something like the Tibetan wilderness. Silently he cursed his co-worker Frank for caving in to the flu just when Pete went off on some fool ski trip. This was a strange time of day to be delivering bread. The usual milk run among the back road mini marts of the Fraser Valley wasn't a glamor job at the best of times, but when one man was left to cover three routes, one of them at night, it was murder. He shifted the gears down as the van nosed through a drift, shuddering, then grabbing traction. The wind was blowing flat out, and visibility was almost gone. He'd finished the deliveries, but the bakery was still five miles away. He'd thought of diverting to the freeway, but the radio said it was closed. Besides, someone had put a big saw horse across the closest access road Normally the valley was a sleepy paradise, gentle hills full of farms and berry patches, the only excitement being the occasional yahoo in a muscle car or a burst of rain too heavy for the wipers to keep up. Now it had become a place of eerie menace. Behind him he thought he could see the headlights of a car, but they were too dim. Must have been some kind of optical illusion, because no one would be running on daytime lights on a night like this. The snow began creating a hypnotic sensation, making it appear that his vehicle had stopped and the whole world was rushing by it. Another big drift, and he almost stalled before he could get clear. Ahead the snow was piled high to the left up an embankment, and a lot had slid onto the road, leaving a track no more than three feet wide.

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He geared down again and gunned the engine, the left wheels riding over the drift. But there was too much snow even for the van's powerful engine. Shaking and bucking, Casey felt the van edging to the right, almost past the worst part, and then the far wheels dropped into the shallow ditch and hung him up, still spinning but finding no purchase at all. He shut off the engine, hearing nothing now but the wind. For a few seconds he sat there, his mind a blank, unable to accept the magnitude of the problem. Then he got out of the van and surveyed the situation, pulling his coat around him as the wind tried to lick the skin off his face. It was a tow job for sure unless he could rig something. Stupid of him to have left his cell phone at home. Opening the back of the van, he dismantled one of the shelf units that had held the cases of bread and emerged with a good sized plank and the jack. Gloveless, feeling more numb by the second, he jacked the van, put the plank at an angle under the right front wheel, then let the jack down again. Climbing back in, he started the engine and put it in drive, steering slightly to the left. The drive tire started spinning on the plank, so he backed off on the gas, feeling the van shuddering toward a stall. More gas, and the front wheel came off the plank, dropping the van deeper into the ditch and clearly beyond the power of the jack to lift it again. Slowly he got out, not wanting to look. This time he was well and truly in it. He cursed Frank and Pete out loud. With a storm as nasty as this one, nobody would be through here for hours, and the company had been too cheap to provide him with a cell phone. Getting back in, he put the heater on full and ran the engine a few minutes, then shut it off, worried that snow might be building up in the tail pipe. He fumbled for the big emergency kit, his

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fingers defying him as he struggled to open it. Inside he found, among other things, a foil blanket and a candle, sufficient for survival through a very cold night, or so the enclosed brochure boasted. But he wasn't prepared to shiver for hours if he didn't have to. There were farms every half mile or so along this stretch. Turning on the wipers, he stared through the storm until he thought he saw a light - though he had no way of confirming whether or not his eyes were performing some treachery. He worked it out in his mind. The temperature wasn't much below freezing, but the wind chill would cut him to the bone. He had hiking boots on, jeans, a longish lined coat, no hat. It could be up to half a mile to the nearest house. He knew he'd be all right on the road because the ditch was still visible on the right, with most of the snow piling to the left. Once he reached a driveway, the light from the house would be visible and he could stumble his way to it. Refusing to think any more, he got out of the van and started to walk, leaning into the wind, the cold bite of it slashing into his face like the teeth of an animal. After ten minutes or so, he was feeling as if he wanted to lie down and let the snow cover him. Funny, he hadn't had an urge like that since he'd been a pup teenager. This was something he hadn't put into the mix, the thin barrier between fight and capitulation that always caught him by surprise for reasons that baffled him. Pushing himself now, he hunched forward, looking at the ground, not ahead, willing himself to walk as if he planned never to stop. So bitterly cold, the wind so vicious. He remembered later that he slipped and fell, cursing his lot. He remembered getting up, walking further. There may have been a house light, much closer now. Then, without any warning to it, Casey lost his way. *

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Shaking, bumping, he felt as if he were upside down, the cold like a pain in his bones, noise, confusion, someone or something seizing him roughly, then a scream, maybe his own, maybe near or far away, he couldn't tell, maybe the wind. Then there was a long time when he sensed that he was lying on the ground, lying there conscious but he couldn't move and his feet were cold. Finally a floating sensation as if he were in a boat. He slept, dreamless for awhile, and then something shocking burst into his psyche, anger and screaming and "You filthy piece of dirt, what did you do?" A harsh voice next to his ear, fury, and then rough hands pulled him out and flung him into the snow hard, sprawling him on his face, with his left arm thrown behind him, almost breaking. "What?" he said, struggling as hands pulled his arms together behind him. "What?" "Don't you move! Don't you dare move!" A boot stomped down on the middle of his back, and he found himself gasping because of the weight of it, so he started squirming with terror at being pinned to the snow, and he didn't know here he was or who "Get him up!" They grabbed him by his arms and hoisted him to his feet. Cops. Four of them, and the bread van just over there, still tilted into the ditch the way he'd left it. "What?" "Shut up," one of the cops said, a big guy with a moustache the size of Hoover Dam. "Get him something to put on his feet." Casey looked down and saw he was standing there in his socks. It was daylight. "What are you -"

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"Shut up," the cop said. "What's going on? How did I get here?" It was daylight, and it should have been dark, and he should have been in a house up the road. He was back at the van, and they'd dragged him out of it, and he'd been sleeping in the van "Casey Stendahl," the big cop said, "it's my duty to inform you that you are under arrest for the murder of Esmerelda Hale. You may call a lawyer if you wish, but anything you say can be used as evidence." "The what? Murder? Who?" "You're denying this?" "I don't know -" "The murder of Esma Hale, the old lady you butchered last night." "I don't -" "That's her blood all over your clothes." The big cop motioned to two of the others. "Get this monkey out of here. I have to go over the van." "Blood?" He looked down and saw that his jeans, his coat were covered with spattered red, as if somebody had thrown paint on him and it had frozen. "Where are my boots?" "We have them for evidence. Get in the car over there. Somebody get him some footwear." The cops took him by the arms and started leading him toward the police car. "What's happening? What do you think I did?" They bundled him into the back seat and got in the front. Tires spinning only slightly, the car pulled out into the road, and Casey noticed for the first time that a plow had been through. "What time is it?" he asked. "Nine-thirty," the driver said.

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"What's happening? Tell me what -" "Shut up. You have the right to say nothing, and I don't want to take a statement here in the car." "I didn't kill anybody. How did I get this blood on me?" "Shut up." "What's wrong with you people?" The car slewed to a stop and the cop on the passenger side turned and stared at Casey. "Shut your mouth or you can finish the ride unconscious. Neither of us wants to share the same air with you." The car started moving again. Casey stared across the white landscape, thinking how much he would have enjoyed the scene in other circumstances. He’d been walking, thought he saw a light There was a vague memory of sudden pain, then something horrific - screaming or something - then lying freezing on dirt, not snow, freezing...floating…then waking up back in the van with cops shouting at him. But the van didn’t seem to be where he’d left it, or maybe it was. Who could tell with all that snow? What have you done, Casey? Her blood's all over you and you don't have a clue what happened after you got thirty yards from her house. He struggled with the confused fragments of memory, but it was all a mess, like the last bender he'd been on, nearly two years before. After that one, he'd sworn off demon rum forever. But this was no booze blackout, not when some poor woman lay dead in a farmhouse back there. They reached Kenderville, "Hick City" as he'd always called it, but now it seemed hostile to him, as if everybody knew and no one wanted to look at him. The police station had an underground garage in back of it - he remembered it vaguely from the last time. The cops parked

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the car near the elevator as a steel door closed behind them at the entrance to the garage, then they got out, and one of them opened a back door and hauled Casey out, none too gently, and shoved him toward the elevator, which was just opening. He sensed that once they got him inside, his life would be over. They’d left him in handcuffs, clasped in front, but inside the station they added shackles heavy enough to hunch him forward, then led him, hobbled, into an interview room and bolted him to a ring in the wall. "Phone's on the desk," one of them said. "Make a call." "I don't have a lawyer." He could have called a wife or parents or even close friends if he'd had any. "Legal Aid number's taped on the phone." They left and the door slammed behind them. For a few seconds Casey stared at the phone, suddenly lonely. He'd thought he'd gotten past being lonely. Then he reached for the receiver and dialled. "Legal Aid." "They say I killed somebody." "Where are you?" the voice on the phone said. "Kenderville police station." "Don't tell them anything. Let them book you, and we'll send somebody down. How much money do you make?" He told her. "Sounds like your boss should be up on charges. Hang tight and say nothing, OK?" "I don't think I did it," he said. "Doesn't matter. Don't tell them anything."

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"OK." He hung up and waited. The room was cement, painted some sort of teal or turquoise or something; the floor was gray lino in a diamond pattern. The table was some wooden thing that looked like it had been used for torture scenes in old movies. The chairs - four of them were just as battered. This was obviously a place where pain and anger ruled, where people confessed horrible things or just kept silent while other people shouted and threatened. Places like this shouldn't have existed. In a sane world, they wouldn't, but who'd ever heard of a sane world? Ten minutes later, the cops came for him, fingerprinted him, took photos, made him strip and gave him another set of clothes. Then the big one asked him if he wanted to make a statement. "No," he said. They went through their predictable routine for awhile, telling him how much better it would go for him if he told the truth, but he said nothing, sensing that they had no interest in his story anyway. Then they took the shackles off, and the handcuffs, and put him in a cell, eight by ten, mostly gray-blue painted cement except for the bars in front. He sat down on the narrow bunk and put his face in his hands. Casey Stendahl, twenty-two years old, messy history, recovering alcoholic, bread man. Nothing else interesting about him at all except for his boyhood history and the assault charge which they'd soon find out about, and the blackouts back then when he'd been drinking. They'd assume what people like them inevitably assumed. He willed himself to remember, cursing his malfunctioning thoughts. Why couldn't his stupid mind pull it out? Walking in a blizzard, and the rest of it just a nasty collage of images, mostly emotion - confusion, horror, fear, not anger, more like being in the grip of some monstrosity against his will. Pain too. Sharp and penetrating into his shoulder or arm, maybe when he fell, because he remembered lying on the dirt, freezing, dying.

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Frustrated, he lay down on the cot, shut his eyes and a few moments later somehow drifted off. Maybe subconsciously he hoped he'd dream the memory that would make sense of the thing. Or maybe he hoped he'd never wake up. He opened his eyes a few minutes later and stared at the ceiling, feeling the gray-blue of the cell devouring him, sucking energy out of him. A place like this was so utterly sterile that he couldn't conceive of getting anything from it, whether pleasure or just consolation. A place like this could only take. "Mr. Stendahl?" Casey turned his head and saw a large man in a parka, small beard, suspenders visible through the open front of the coat. "Who are you?" "Legal Aid. Jay Simon. You Casey Stendahl?" "Yeah." He got up and approached the bars. Simon, despite his size, backed up a step. "I won't hurt you," Casey said. "They've denied us an interview room," the lawyer said. "Something about risk to my person if they put us in the same spot." "Can you explain to me what's going on?" "Look, you sit on that bunk and I'll pull a chair up near the bars." "OK." Casey sat on his bunk, and Simon lowered himself into a flimsy looking chair. "Do you understand the charge against you, Mr. Stendahl?" Jay Simon asked. "My name’s Casey. They say I killed a woman last night. I think her blood was all over my clothes." "What did you tell them?" "Nothing. There's nothing to tell because I don't remember."

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"Tell me what you do remember. It's privileged." Simon leaned back in the chair, a notebook on his knee. He must have weighed 270 pounds, and for a second Casey got a ridiculous mental image of the chair exploding under the man. They'd probably blame him for that too. Casey went through the details, stumbling over the fuzzy parts. Simon wrote rapidly, flipping pages with fat fingers. "You didn't go into a house?" he asked. "I don't remember." "You ever have blackouts?" "I was a drunk until two years ago when I linked up with AA. Some nights were a blank, but I haven't had anything like that since I stopped drinking." "Problems with anger?" "When I was drinking. I got picked up for assaulting a guy in a bar, but he dropped the charges a couple of days later." "When was this?" "Couple of days before I decided to stop drinking." "Any other charges or convictions?" Casey stared past the lawyer. He willed himself safe passage through these cement walls. He willed himself a fast car and plenty of open road. "Casey?" "When I was fifteen..." "Yes?"

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"My father. My bastard of a father… I mean he was the worst monster, beat everybody up. Rubber hose on my mom, fists on my little brother. You want to see the scars?" He got up, turned around and lifted up the back of his shirt. He heard Simon exhale and then he sat down again. "What did you do about it?" "I dreamed of shooting him, maybe put twenty, thirty holes in him before he died. I dreamed all kinds of things. Then one day..." He felt hollow, as if he’d replayed the story so many times that it had emptied him of emotion. "I was just in the kitchen, like, and he rushed me and I had a knife in my hand because I was cutting some slices off a roast, and I turned around because he was coming at me and he ran onto the knife. I didn't even move my hand. I didn't even have a single thought in my mind about using my knife on him, it was just that the knife happened to be in my hand then it was in him. Made a sucking sound like sticking a fresh loaf of bread." "What happened to him?" "He died. I got three years." "Not a murder charge?" "Manslaughter." Simon ran a big hand over his face. "Your record isn't going to help you a bit," he said. "Look, the victim here was an eighty-five year old woman cut up bad with a kitchen knife. The snow was falling when the killer arrived, so his tracks were covered, but it stopped snowing before the he left. There's a clear trail back to your van, and the trail was made by the boots you were wearing when the cops found you. It's not rocket science to guess that the blood on your clothes is hers." "Anything else?"

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"Don't you do a tough guy routine on me, Casey. Yes, there's more. Your hands had blood on them when they found you. Not much, because some of it had washed off when you opened the door of the van. But there are fingerprints in the blood at Mrs. Hale's house. They're probably yours." "I was in the house?" "Appears so." "What can you do for me, then?" Casey asked. "Any hankering to plead insanity?" Simon asked. "No, why?" "We don't have anything else."

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CHAPTER THREE "What's eating you, Horse?" Scott Horsley looked up from his desk and saw Ray Lammers' frame filling the doorway. "After what we saw this morning?" Scott asked him. "Are you made out of granite? And stop calling me 'Horse.'" "When did you get back from the Hale place?" "Half an hour ago." "Talk to our little perp yet?" Lammers had something that looked like a half smile on his face. "Soon. Why the grin - does the guy have two heads or something?" "No. Are those the photos?" Lammers walked to Scott's desk. "Go find something else to gnaw on, Ray. This hasn't been a good day and having you salivating over crime scene pictures isn't my idea of the best way to finish it." "What's your problem exactly?" Lammers asked, watching Scott's forehead, right at the top of his nose where he knew the fold would come together when Scott was really ticked. It didn't. "I met her once, liked her. Don't you ever feel a thing, Ray?" Scott stared at him with disgust. "Soon as you start feeling, the job slips out from under you. We're in a dirty enough business without going soppy over it. So when are you going to see him?" "He's nicely lawyered up now. I have to call legal aid." "The perp can't hurt you, so why don't you just drop in on him?"

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The skin in the middle of Scott's forehead suddenly folded, and Ray backed out the way he'd come and headed down the hall before the wrath of Horse fell on him. Forget the fact that they'd trained together. When Horse decided to pull rank, the troops had better be someplace else. Scott picked up one of the photos on his desk, the messiest one with the big spatter mark across half a wall and part of a cupboard. He was feeling almost boundless fury, and he cautioned himself about it, but the warning made little difference. This clearly wasn't a good time to be questioning a perp. He tossed the pictures in a drawer, reached for the phone and called legal aid. "It’s Scott Horsley,” he said. “I'm back at the station. Who did this Casey Stendahl pull?" He frowned. "I know I can ask somebody here. I'm asking you." The secretary went to look it up. Scott sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. The secretary came back on the line and gave him his information. "Thanks. Put him on, will you?" She told Scott that Jay Simon was at lunch and had given strict orders, etc., but Scott was far from being in the mood. "Give me his cell number or I'll hang a traffic cop like an albatross around your neck and …” Scott stopped himself. "Sorry. This hasn’t been a terrific morning. I'd just appreciate reaching him fast so we can get onto this case before Mr. Stendahl forgets any more of what he did last night." He wrote down the number and hung up, then went over to the window and raised the blind. The snow was melting fast as a light rain took over from last night's storm. It was usually this way. They were too near the coast for even a nasty snowfall to have much of an expectancy of survival. By the next day it could just as easily be raining. A boy about ten ran across the street, clearly AWOL from elementary school, slush flying off his boots. On the other side the kid bent down and formed a snowball, then threw it back at the

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station. Scott flinched as the wet projectile hit the wall next to his window. Then the boy was gone. The uniformed people had called him in fast when they'd found out what they were dealing with. He'd known it would be bad, but that's what investigators like him were for. Only he hadn't expected what this monster had done to Esma. A tour of a slaughterhouse would have been tamer. Scott had carried out the normal routine, and he'd have to go back later, but it was like an out of body experience, because no breathing human being could stay in that house for long without screaming. He'd taken photos and had found fingerprints there in her blood. The murder weapon was lying beside her and the bloody footprints around the body went from there out the kitchen door and across the field to a bread van, where a man was asleep, wearing the boots that made them. Scott had let the uniforms handle the arrest, Ray Lammers leading, while he got the area sealed off. The daughter had been led away earlier. She'd found the body about eight, so she was hysterical, of course. The press were there, hungry - three TV stations, a bunch of radio people, a few from print media. He'd issued a brief statement, indicating that a woman had died here under suspicious circumstances, no more. But he could feel their greed, and he knew that if he'd let them into the house they would have trampled on each other to get the best shots. They begged him to tell them more, but he gave them nothing and ordered them not to release a name, as if they didn't already know their business. Forensics people came from a neighboring city, but they didn't stay long, since it was plain what had happened and an arrest had already been made. After the medical examiner was done, he’d left the place in the hands of a couple of uniforms who would guard it through the night.

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Scott knew he should have been way past the emotions he was feeling, would have been too if he hadn't been living with a truth that most other people simply ignored - that evil and goodness cannot tolerate one another as long as there is a universe with a God in it. And so the scene of what was left of Esma Hale lying in her own blood carried a horror beyond the revulsion of realizing that another human being had bought it while you were blessedly still alive. Wearily, he went back to the phone and dialled Jay Simon's cell number. "You better have a good reason for depriving a man of a Cajun chicken Caesar," Simon said. "Scott Horsely calling. I need to talk to your friend in our lockup." "My lunch hour's twelve to one. Meet you one-fifteen." "What's the score on your client, Jay?" Scott asked him. "Search me. They'll arraign him tomorrow morning. Doesn't seem like a homicidal maniac to me, but then neither did Ted Bundy." "Are you going to give me some room to question him?" "At this stage, Scott, my client's a deer in headlights. We're going to need a psychiatric, maybe a medical specialist." "Why so free with your strategy?" Scott asked him. "You usually play your cases close." "I usually don't have a client whose fingerprints are in the victim's blood and who's been tracked through the snow by his footprints. Whatever happened in that house was either pure devilry, or something went snapped in the man's head. I want to find out what happened as much as you do." "See you at one-fifteen." Scott hung up the phone and went back to the window. He should have been eating lunch himself but his interest in food was minimal. For a few seconds he thought of calling Bess, but he didn't. A snow plow went by, covered with mud and bits of coarse sand, a

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battle-scarred old veteran making the streets safe for ordinary folks. With the rain falling now, the snow didn't have a hope. Of course, if it had never fallen, maybe Casey Stendahl wouldn't have thought of taking a side trip. The phone rang, but he didn't notice it until it began to irritate him. Absently, he picked it up. "Yes?" "This is Trudy Salter." "We gave you people a statement at the crime scene." "So you know who I am." "Sure, and I don't have anything more to say at this point." "You know, you could make my career if you'd just loosen up a bit." He could hear strain in her voice. "You're a small town newspaper reporter," he said. "What career?" "Ouch," she said. "Look, Trudy." Scott rubbed his eyes with his free hand. "I'm really bushed. If I had more that I could tell you, you would have heard it when I did the press conference. It's really early days." "What do you know about the suspect?" she asked "I haven't met him yet." "Is it true that Esma Hale was mutilated?" "No comment,” Scott told her, “and it's not really a bright idea to irritate the investigating cop in a case like this." "Did you find a murder weapon?" He hung up without answering.

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It was twelve-thirty when Scott got into his unmarked car and drove to the Highland Bakery, two blocks from the police station. He didn't recognize the girl at the till. "Is Jack here?" he asked her. "In the back." He walked past her without explaining himself and found the bakery owner cleaning some equipment. They knew each other slightly. Jack looked up, his face showing the strain. "So I suppose this thing is going to jam me up for weeks," he said. "Casey Stendahl came out of one of your trucks, Jack." "Doesn't make it anything to do with me," the baker said. "I hired him in good faith, and the only thing I told him to do was make deliveries." "What kind of a person is he?" Scott asked. "Casey? Casey's nothing. I mean, you talk to him, he talks back, but there's nothing there. He's never happy or sad or anything much at all, polite but nothing else. I don't know a thing about him except he did time in jail for the death of his dad. Only personal thing he ever told me was that his dad ran onto a knife. Casey got blamed for it." "How were his work habits?" Jack put his rag down and ran a hand over his balding scalp. "Always did the job. I never had any complaints about him. Always came back on time except last night." "You ever see any signs that he was capable of murdering somebody? Quirks? Maybe some aggressiveness or an outburst?" "Not a one. You could live with this guy twenty years and you still wouldn't know him. He walks and talks but there's nothing inside there but gears and a motor. I took him out to a restaurant

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one night, and the only subject he’d talk about was maintenance problems on our vans. He clammed up when I asked him about his family." Scott left the bakery, feeling uneasy. This could be the profile of a sociopath, or his past alcoholism had left him with some psychotic twist that didn't show unless it was provoked. Maybe something in his past had triggered him. At one-fifteen he met Jay Simon at the station entrance. Scott was pleased to see that the lawyer had a spot of salad dressing on his tie. "Ground rules are that he gets the nod from me before he answers anything, and he doesn’t have to answer anything even if I let him," Simon told him. "I know the drill, Jay." "Just so you're really careful on this one. Neither of us has a clue what we're dealing with, so take it easy until we do." Without asking, Simon led the way and Scott followed his bulky form down to the cells. Casey was lying on his bunk, seemingly asleep, but he sat up when they approached. "What's going on?" he asked Simon. "The police want to interview you. I'm here to protect your rights." "Then tell this cop to go away." "I'm advising you to cooperate," Jay Simon said. "Why, because you think I'm guilty?" Casey's tone wasn't as angry as his words. "Think they might take it easier on me if I tell all?" "We've got long way to go on this, and people need to hear your story. You don't have to incriminate yourself. I'll let you know when the questioning gets dangerous."

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Scott stared through the bars at this man, amazed again how ordinary these monsters could look. Casey was skinny, a bit scruffy, nothing distinctive about his face or build, dirty blonde hair touching his shoulders - he could have been anybody walking by you in the mall. Right now his face showed no emotion, neither did his voice. "All right," Casey said. Simon turned to Scott. "Can we get a room to do this in?" "If he's shackled and bolted down." "Come on, Horse." "Don't call me Horse. Look, I don't relish him coming unglued and trying to pull my brain out through an eye socket." "So what’s your alternative?" "I'll bring up a chair and talk to him through the bars." Simon gave Scott a look of disgust. "OK, get a chair, and one for me. I need to confer." "I'll bet you do," Scott muttered, surprised that he felt so much rage even being in proximity to this killer. He went off to find chairs and took his time getting back. When he did, it was clear that Stendahl had been instructed. "Tell me what happened last night," Scott began, sitting down. Jay Simon sat beside him on a second chair. "I was doing somebody else's bread run for him." Casey had been perched on the edge of the bunk, but now he lying on his back, a hand under his head. "I'd rather be able to talk to you face to face," Scott said. "Take what you can get," Casey said mildly. "It was dark and the snow came, and I got bogged down. I looked around and thought I saw a light. I walked a bit, then..." He paused.

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"Then what?" "I don't know. It's all confused and I found myself back in the van with cops shouting at me." "You don't remember anything after you started walking?" "Not much. A pain in my neck or shoulder, a floating feeling, and I think I was laying on some dirt and feeling like something awful was happening." Casey shut his eyes. "It's all confused. I don't know what I did. Maybe I ki-" "That's enough," Simon told him. "Were you about to say you think you might have killed Esma Hale?" Scott asked. Casey sat up and looked at his lawyer, who shook his head. "I’m not going to say that I did." "Will you say that you didn't?" Simon put a hand on Scott's shoulder. "Over the line, Horse. Interview's done." "Come on, Jay, I just got started." "That's all. Get going." Scott shrugged, stood and walked out of the area, letting the door slam behind him with more force than was required. When he was gone, Jay Simon got up and moved to the front of the cell. "So I go before the judge, and what am I supposed to tell him?" Casey asked Jay. "You want to enter a plea?" "What are my choices?" "I'd like you to get a psychiatric exam. My impression is that something maybe snapped." "So you think I did it?"

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"You didn’t?" Simon asked, his voice soft. "Lawyers aren't supposed to ask questions like that. You're supposed to defend me." "I have to tell you," Simon said, "that I've got little or nothing to work on except the psychiatric angle so if you've got anything else you can give me I'd love to hear it." Casey jumped to his feet and Simon backed off hurriedly. "I don't know what I did," he said, his voice harsh. "I don't remember." "Then don't enter a plea. Sit down, Casey. We need to work our way through this a bit more. If you're going to get all excited we're not going to get it right." For a second or two, Casey stood there, both hands clawed at his sides, then he shook his head and sat down again. "This thing's going to swallow me whole." "Calm down. We need decide what to do tomorrow when you see the judge." "Ask for a shrink if you want. I won't make a plea." "You know they won't even think of offering you bail," Simon told him. "I know." For a while Simon had seen something like a spark in the face of his client. Now there was only a hollow look again. "Do you need anything, Casey?" "Could you get me a pen and a pad of paper?" "What do you want to write?" "I don't know - maybe the story of my life." "That could be a problem.” Simon frowned. “The police could use it against you." "I want to write some things. You going to help or not?"

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"I'll see what I can do, but you have to promise not to give anything to the cops. Write the thing as if it's a letter to me. Then it's privileged and they can't use it." Casey flashed him the hint of a smile. For an instant he looked like a schoolboy.

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CHAPTER FOUR This is for you, Mr. Jay Simon, not that I’m sure I’ll let you near it because it's really for me, to help me understand. Want to know a dark secret about me, Jay? I make sense of the things I do by writing them down. Then I wait a few days, read what I wrote, and burn the pages so there's no trace, except that the words I've written are torched into my brain, and that's what's true from then on. They think I'm a blank. I know they're saying about me because I've looked at myself in the mirror and I don't see anything either, not a trace of any kind of emotion or personality even. It must be what comes from spending your whole childhood hiding. I could hide so well not even the monster could reach me. So it comes down to this, Casey, you sick, lost soul. You were just starting to think your journey had come around to something halfway sane, and then some beast inside you broke loose and did things. Let's forget hoping that this must have been a fancy frame-up because I was inside that house and the police saw my fingerprints in her blood. Which makes me understand that I've been fooling myself. I really believed was stating to figure out who I am. Be careful, Casey, because I feel that old self-pity creeping in again, and I hate self-pity because it sucks up the progress and makes me have to build myself back up, but I don't have the strength to do that anymore. I don't care if this makes sense to you, Jay, or to some nosey cop who happens to find his curiosity bugging him one day, and steals my stuff and tries to use it on me. These words make sense to me. Plenty sense. Sense enough for three or four people.

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You have to understand that I'm only little Casey Stendahl, the bread man. Nobody pays attention to Casey. The idea that I could do something really big, something that might be on everybody's TV right across the country, is plain impossible. It could not be happening. My father used to say that - "This is not happening!" It was a signal, we knew he'd be blowing up once more and people were going to suffer for having put him in a spot like that, where he couldn't face whatever it was. We shouldn't have done it to him, whatever it was this time, and we knew it was only right that we should pay, but it terrified us because he took so long to get his mind back again, and so many things could happen in just a few seconds. I had one friend from age 7 to about 12, one friend - Martin Gold - who wanted me for a buddy for who knows what reason. He lived across the street and two doors down, and we spent most afternoons together once school was through for the day. I know something like this is really shallow to most people because it happens so often - two boys making an unbreakable bond - but it was different with Martin. Martin knew. He came from this really stable family with a loving mother and father, but he knew my secret, the one that smart kids never tell. I never told him, but he talked about it anyway, even urged me to run away - as if I had anywhere to go. I've taught myself all my life not to feel anything. If you let yourself get happy, the down side is just too painful. If you live on the down side, you lose the power to fight. I fought him, all right, the monster, my so-called Father. I fought him and I killed him. They put me away for it, so whatever I must have reasoned about how and why I did it is pretty much off track. I am guilty of killing my father - why should I wonder now that I've killed a stranger, even if I can't remember? Anybody who's dared to read this far will say I'm rambling, a sure sign of a twisted sick mind, because you want - OF COURSE - to prove that only sick people kill little old ladies. If I'm

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sick, I still don’t know what happened at that farm, and I won't accept your saying I’m crazy. It's already plain that I'm evil. You don’t need to call me sick to boot. You want to know who I am? Let me tell you a few things… Casey broke off writing as Jay Simon appeared in the corridor. "You planning to publish that?" Simon asked, pointing at the papers in his hand. "There's a law here in Canada that nobody can profit from his crimes." "I thought you wanted to help me," Casey said. "I'm not about to confess, because I didn’t do anything." He sat up on his bunk, stashing his writing behind him. It was strange that this tiny room had so easily become his entire world. "Why are you back here so soon?" "I just wanted to confirm that we're going to ask for a psychiatric report before we consider making a plea. You're supposed to appear before a judge tomorrow morning." "You could have confirmed that with me when we talked about it this morning." "I thought you'd appreciate some company." "And I thought you'd find somebody like me completely revolting." Casey got up and walked to the bars. Simon backed up out of reach of him. "What do you really want?" Simon looked hesitant. "What I told you." "And what else?" "Maybe to understand..." "Understand what? How an ordinary jerk like me could carve up some sweet old lady he'd never even met before? You and me both." "You don't remember at all?" "I don't remember." Casey sensed the desperation leaking out of his voice. "What are the alternatives? If you didn't do it - "

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"Then I've been royally framed. By who? Nobody could have known I'd arrive on the lady's doorstep at that moment. I sure wasn't being followed. There's only one set of tracks leading out of there." "The storm was blowing hard when you arrived. Any tracks you made would have disappeared fast. Somebody could have been waiting for you or just waiting to kill Esma. Their tracks, from wherever they'd come, would be blown away too, because the storm didn’t end for an hour after that. You came along..." "This is stupid," Casey said, shaking his head. "Too many guesses in a story like that. I must have done it." "Are you prepared to sacrifice yourself to a guilty plea? If you don't remember anything, there's at least a ghost of a chance that something else happened at Esma's farm." "Like what? She was way old. How many enemies does an old lady have? Anything stolen?" "Not as far as her family can determine." "She have any skeletons in her closet? Maybe she was a vampire in her spare time." "The only thing I've heard that’s unusual,” Jay said, “is that she was a big fan of the Internet up until a week or two ago. Had a state of the art computer." "Internet? Somebody that old?" "A week ago she told her daughter Alice she was tired of it. Wanted Alice to take the computer away, but it was still there when she was killed." "Which gives you didly. You're supposed to be my lawyer, but you've got nothing to work with, do you?" "No."

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"I'll plead guilty tomorrow." "No you won't. We're going to get you a psychiatric exam." "I'd rather be evil than crazy." Simon smiled. "Would you?" he said.

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CHAPTER FIVE Scott Horsley wanted a quiet ride home, but some idiot passed him going like Batman, so he lost fifteen minutes writing a ticket. By the time he reached the small acreage on a hillside five miles from town, he could feel the pressure in him just longing to burst and do damage. He parked, took a bunch of deep breaths, and went into the house through the garage door. His place was as simple as it could be without degenerating into slum conditions. Not that he couldn't afford better, but he and Bess had never seen the need. Life was too complicated as it was. Better to have a ten year old sofa and a bargain basement DVD than to be worrying that some goof would walk off with everything precious to you, an event that happened regularly, even to cops. He went to the kitchen and looked in the fridge, seeing nothing that inspired him. Bess wasn't particularly imaginative in the culinary arts, but then she had little enough time to spend in the house to concern herself about things like that. Scott went out on the back porch and called her. He noticed that the rain had stopped. "It's only three o'clock," she answered him from the doorway of the chicken coop. "What are you doing sneaking up on me this early?" He walked along a track of compacted melting snow over to the coop, marvelling that they'd ever found each other. The best computer dating service in the world couldn't have come close to making a match like theirs despite the fact that she was currently dressed in grubby farm clothes. "I've already solved a murder today," he said, kissing her. "What have you done?" "Run this whole place for you for fifteen years,” she said. “Every chicken, every goat, both cows, all the planting and reaping."

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"It's supposed to be a hobby farm. Lately I get the feeling you've decided to make it into a career." "Five thousand a year in revenue and a break on taxes. I thought you'd be pleased." She made a mock frown. "Sure I'm pleased." "So what's wrong?" she asked. He sat down on a rough bench nearby after knocking the snow off it with his hand, and she sat beside him, twining her fingers with his. "You ever meet her?" he asked. "This Esma person who was killed? No." "I did once after she had a break-in. About five years ago." "What happened to her?” she asked. “I mean, how bad..." "You don't want to hear things like that." "But you found him, the guy who did it, so it’s pretty much routine from here on." She was trying to read him. He seemed uneasy. "When have I ever done anything on the job that was routine? We've got a perp who fits the bill right down the line, but he claims he doesn't remember, and I'm not positive he's lying." "Not remembering isn't a defence,” she said. “Who's his lawyer?" "Jay Simon," he said, noticing that she’d made a face. "Whether the suspect remembers or not really doesn't matter. I just need to know he wasn't set up." "How easy would that be to do?" she asked. "Well nigh impossible." "So the suspect did the crime. You do what you have to do, and they'll convict him and send him away forever." She took his hand. "You're beating yourself up too much lately, Scotty."

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"I want to get it right. So many years of coasting, now that I've got some answers for my life, I want to be better than average, you know?" "You still have to pace yourself." "I can see that." "Was it really bad?” she asked. “I mean there at the farm?" "As bad as it gets. I almost threw up when I saw her, and I've seen some pretty nasty things." "Why would some stranger do that to her?" "It happens." He got up. "I missed lunch, so I think I'll pick up something at the corner store and go back to the farm, look around some more." "You think there’s something wrong with this case, don't you?" "If I do, I should have my head read." *

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Scott arrived at the farm about four-thirty. There were two uniforms still hanging around, but they hadn't gone inside. With the snow melting in the rain, which had started again, the place had a forlorn look that could not be offset by the fact that the house had been recently painted a pastel yellow. He wondered who had done the work and made a mental note to find out. He must have been daydreaming on the ride over, because he hadn't noticed the car following him. As he got out, a door slammed behind him and he saw a woman climbing out of a white Honda. Trudy Salter, star newspaper reporter. She walked over and pushed his car door shut behind him. "Thanks," he said. "I usually have to do that all by myself." "No problem." She grinned in a way his mother would have called "cheeky."

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"So what am I dealing with - a beleaguered reporter trying to write her ticket to the big city, or a stalker?" "Definitely a stalker. You don't like me very much, do you?" She frowned. "Doesn't matter. Nobody else does either." "Is that supposed to win my sympathy?" "No." She sat back against his car, red-haired, perky, not a raving beauty but carrying a presence. "It's just that I have to make a living and that means working with you people. If I've done anything to spoil that relationship -" "Like asking inappropriate questions and following me around like a puppy?" "The public has a right to be informed," she said. "Why?" he asked. "Because secrets are the weapons of oppressors." Scott laughed out loud. "You sound like a peace march. Seems to me your motive is pure and simple ambition." "And ambition's bad for a woman, right? Guys hate it." "What do you want, Trudy?" "Since you've clamped the lid on the Esma Hale case, I'm wondering if you might open up about other things." "Like what? We're not talking trade-offs." "How about if I did a piece on you? 'Life as a homicide cop' or something." He walked over to her car and opened her driver's door. She stared at him a few seconds, then she got into the car, pulled the door shut, and drove away, spraying his legs with gravel.

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Scott waited until her car disappeared, then opened the front door of the house. Since the fingerprint team had already been there, he didn't bother about what he handled as he went inside and started roaming through the rooms, getting a feel for the character of the place, something which had been difficult that morning, with the presence of the massacred body drowning out every other voice. Esma Hale had lived simply. She had a minimum of furniture and none of it was expensive. The pictures on the walls were all department store quality prints or family photos. Her carpet was worn, and the food in her fridge and cupboards was nutritious but Spartan. In the bedroom he found no jewellery except for a gold-plated necklace with a locket, and a couple of pairs of earrings. The locket had a picture of a woman in her forties, her daughter Alice. On his way back through the living room, Scott glanced at the computer in the corner. What was that he'd heard about her interest in the Internet? She'd been very involved with it until a couple of weeks ago when she'd given it up. Wanted Alice to sell the computer. Not that it mattered much now, because he doubted that the killing had anything to do with modern technology. Still, it might give him a better picture if he knew what she was working on. He turned on the computer and waited for Windows to pop up, surprised to see that Esma had installed the latest version, which had only been on the market for a couple of months. He went to her word processing files first. Esma had been into a lot of things - current politics, crime statistics, weather patterns. Most of the files looked like manuscripts for newspaper columns expressing conservative views on the state of the world. It was anybody's guess whether she had published them. Scott had never seen her by-line in the local paper. He made a mental

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note to come back with a portable hard drive and download what he could. Her writing might have some bearing on the case, though he had no idea what. He decided to look at her Internet use. There were no addresses in her favorites file, something which surprised him, because everybody developed favorites. Then he moved to her history file, and he found a world of darkness. The history read like a Who’s Who of child pornography, man-boy entry points. He opened a few of them, finding only harmless shots of children at play, knowing that the chat rooms for which there were links would lead a trusted user deeper into the darker, more hidden parts where the real evil lived. You would need to live in these sites for a long time before someone would initiate you into their evil world through a provided user name and password. Sitting back in his chair, Scott pondered the contrast between this simple lady with simple tastes, and the nasty world she'd launched herself into on the Net. Maybe she'd just been working on a theme for another column. Her history file only went back to about ten sites and three weeks, so this could have been a short-term project. He couldn’t conceive of how a little old lady could have had a long-term obsession with little boys. Coincidence was a funny thing because most often it turned out to have a good explanation. But sometimes events as disparate as a granny surfing child port and a bread man doing the unspeakable could have an integral connection. The trick was to discern the difference. In this case, there was every reason not to do so. They had a suspect and the evidence was enough for a conviction. Opening locked doors might do a lot of harm and no good at all. Still, accessing child porn was a serious crime, and they would have to investigate it.

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Putting on his coat, Scott left the house. It was getting colder, and the rain had slushy chunks in it. He didn't mind that the two duty cops had retreated to their car. Anyone could see that this wasn't a friendly environment.

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CHAPTER SIX Trying to think around here is like water skiing in January. I mean, I can do it – everybody thinks – but sometimes it's not worth the effort. Like last night. Twenty-four hours since it happened, and I'm staring at the ceiling, because nobody could sleep in a place like this. So I decide to think about it, really work it all through, maybe remember whatever my mind is hiding. But I couldn't get my brain to work. A whole night lying awake, and only now at 6 a.m I've figured out that I have to write it or nothing will come out of me at all. You understand what I'm saying, Jay? I've got two hours or so before they haul me off to the courthouse, and that's all the time I have to decide whether to plead or to let you get me sent off to the shrink. Only one big question now: Is there any chance at all that some other goon murdered the old lady? If I sell out too soon, they could send me away for thirty years while the head case that did it is laughing in his beer. So I have to work on it real hard, move way down in this tricky brain of mine, see if anything comes back to me. I was raging mad when the van got stuck, mad at my people at the bakery who should have been doing the job I was doing. But I was scared too, because I didn't look forward to a night without heat. When I started walking, it wasn't with any plan to hurt anybody. Not mad at any old lady. I remember a pain in my neck or shoulder, lying down on dirt, floating, not sure what order, but it means that at least something’s still there in my memory. Maybe more will come back. Or maybe, Casey, you're an idiot for thinking there's the slightest chance you didn't do it. Man who kills his father has no right to demand that there be some other explanation when a second person dies. It's in your genes, that's what the shrink said who examined me before I went

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on trial for doing good old dad. Said I was a sociopath. Talked to me fifteen minutes and said I was a monster. Monster like my dad. I think there might be an answer coming out of when I was a kid, the years I have so much trouble remembering. Lost memory there, lost memory here - maybe there's a connection. I don't think I started out evil. Seems to me there must have been some prospect for me at the beginning, because I wasn't stupid, and I had a lot of feelings about wanting to help people. I'd see those bigbellied kids on TV, and I'd want Mom to bring them all home. But so much of it's shadowy and disturbing, right up until I was about ten, little fragments of memory but nothing like a life story. I do know now that Dad was the monster of the house from day one, and I think he did terrible things to me even then, but all of that's buried somewhere far too deep to find now. When I was ten, he put me in the hospital, my younger brother too. The social services people threw him out of our house, and he was gone a long time, maybe two years. I'd think about my dad all the time. He was a chubby guy, brown hair hanging down over his ears and his forehead, as if he might just let himself get so overgrown that eventually he wouldn't be able to see or hear at all. Sometimes he was a jokester, and there was no way you could help yourself laughing when he imitated The King (Elvis to you, Jay) or did his own stand-up routine. But we knew better than to trouble him in any way, because he didn't need much of an excuse. All of this must have been happening all my life, but it took three broken ribs and two black eyes when I was ten to wake me up. I didn't hate him, even when my brother Russell's body got better but he lost his will to face the world. Russell's in a care home now, but he doesn't talk to anybody. I didn't hate him - my father - and when he ran on the knife he did it himself. I didn't help him.

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My mother left while I was in jail. She didn't have much else to stay for, what with Russell being out of it, me in prison, and her man in the grave. She hooked up with some guy passing through town, and I don't know where she is to this day. I think it was when I found out she'd dumped me that I finally knew t evil had found me young and had taken up a home. I killed my father, maybe not meaning to on the outside, but wanting to inside and maybe turning my body just at that moment, knowing full well the knife was in my hand. Which tells me that any psych exam is going to be a waste of time. The evil's been there since the day I must have decided to kill my father. It's been waiting for another chance, and now it's taken one, and the only choice for me is to "Casey?" "What?" he said, looking up and seeing his lawyer. Jay Simon was dressed like he was headed for a fancy dinner party, but not even the best suit would look good on the big man. "They're coming. We're leaving for court in ten minutes. So what's the decision?" Casey got off the cot and moved to the front of the cell. Simon backed up a few steps. "I'm a sick, evil person who killed his father," Casey said. "No shrink can cure that." "What you think of yourself doesn't matter here, boy. If you put in a plea, I can't help you. They'll give you the maximum, and I can bluster all I want about it." "I'm entering a plea," Casey said. "Why, so you can punish yourself? You did your time for the death of your father. As far as I can see, you've got no idea whether or not you killed Esma Hale, so there's absolutely no point in confessing to it." "If you were on a jury," Casey said, "would you convict me?"

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Simon hesitated. "Probably. Which is why a shrink can help us. If something snapped inside you, if -" "If I'm nuts, you mean. So then they put me in a hospital and keep me zonked on drugs for the rest of my days. Some life." "Casey, listen to me, because they're coming any minute. Are you listening?" "Yes," he said. "If you did this, don't you want to know why? You enter a plea, and you'll never get an answer." "I did it because I'm evil." "You don't know what you did, and I don't think you're evil. What's it going to be?" Casey sat down on his bunk and said nothing for about a minute. "You think a shrink might be able to find out why I killed her?" he said finally. "If you did it, sure, why not? That's what shrinks do. So what's it going to be? We're out of time." Casey didn’t answer him. A key turned in the cell door lock *

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The court room was small and crowded. Watchers of lawyer shows on TV would be amazed to see the confusion, even the informality, of a real court, with people coming and going, big stacks of files everywhere, tired lawyers conferring with desperate defendants who hadn't had nearly enough time to feel comfortable that the person representing them knew what she was doing. Jay Simon sat on a chair facing the judge's bench, between him and the judge a host of minor functionaries who ran things. No bold D.A. here, not like the States. Here in Canada, they were called Crown Counsel, and they tended to be mousy and soft-spoken, prone to neither

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eloquence nor passion. The general disarray of the place, and the cool staring eyes of the Queen of England surveying the scene from the wall behind the judge's chair, were the distinguishing features that made this place seem like an episode out of The Twilight Zone. But Jay knew that no one was here for entertainment. This was a place of pain and horror, a little patch of hell created for the unwary who'd fallen into it, even for the pitiful souls who tried to manage the proceedings. No glamour here, no place in the sun for anybody. Jay waited, wondering why he'd chosen legal aid as a profession, especially when it meant representing the Casey Stendahl's of the world. How many clearly innocent people had he defended in the past year? One? Two? The rest had all been framed, or their mother never loved them, or they didn't mean the situation to go as far as it did and they wished they could have the moment back. Legal aid didn't lend itself to heroics or even to mysteries. Jay Simon's task was simply the drudgery of making sure every criminal in the place got due process and maybe, if everything went well, a reduced sentence. Three first appearances came up before Casey was called. Then the bailiff brought him out of the holding cell in shackles and bolted him down in the box reserved for the most dangerous of accused. Casey stood there, as if the judge's bench had been transformed into a firing squad. Jay got to his feet as Crown Counsel began reading the charge. "How do you plead?" the judge asked Casey. Jay cursed his luck because they'd gotten Jimmy Brackton, "Old Cuddly" as most lawyers called him, a man who would have frozen solid the fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel. "If it please the court," Jay began. Brackton turned his head and stared down at Jay. "No, it does not please the court," he said. "I was asking this man a question." He turned back to Casey. "How do you plead?"

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"Your honor," Jay attempted again. Brackton continued looking at Casey. "Is this your lawyer?" "Yes," Casey said. "Have you conferred with him?" "Yes." "Did he tell you what he wanted you to say?" "He wants me to get my head read," Casey said. Brackton turned back to Jay. "You want a psychiatric on this?" "Yes, your honor." "Your client has agreed?" "You could order it without his agreement," Jay said. "If I suspected he wasn't fit to stand trial. Is that what you suspect, Mr. Simon?" "He claims not to remember the events surrounding the murder, Your Honor." "Because he doesn't want to remember or because he wants his freedom or because he really doesn't remember?" Brackton asked. "I don't know," Jay said. "I'm not qualified to judge that." "Do you agree to a psychiatric examination or do you want to plead?" Brackton asked Casey. "I don’t know. How am I supposed…” Casey looked down for a few seconds, then said softly, "OK, if you really think it will do any good, bring on the shrink. Personally, I think you should just nuke me." "What was that, Mr. Stendahl?" "My client's depressed, Your Honor," Jay said. "He's making no admissions at this point."

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Brackton stared at Casey without expression for almost twenty seconds, an eternity. "So ordered," he said. From the judge's tone, Jay knew that he'd have to watch his back if this thing went to trial and Brackton was drawn. Somehow Jay had earned the judge's wrath, and Brackton never forgot an enemy.

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CHAPTER SEVEN Walter Scolari was a friendly man, the kind of person who could put you at ease the instant you met him. He led Scott Horsely into his living room, apologizing for the disarray, then motioned him to an armchair and sat on the sofa. Scott studied Walter for a few seconds, noting the red hair and pudgy body that went well with the smile and the warmth in the man's eyes. Then he asked, "Is your wife available to talk to me?" "You wouldn't get much sense out of her right now," Walter said. "She's upstairs sedated. You'd be too if you found your mother murdered on her kitchen floor." "I don't want to lay a lot on burdens on you folks," Scott said, "but I'll need to talk to her when she's up to it." "You like a coke or something?" "I...sure, OK." Scott normally refrained, but he felt strange in this room, as if he'd put on a suit that was one size too small. He wanted a few seconds to get acclimatized. Walter got up and went to the kitchen. The living room was impressive - lots of cabinets with figurines in them, a few good paintings, rich looking carpet. If the rest of the house showed similar taste, the Scolaris were people of style, not to mention money. Walter came back with a couple of cokes poured into glasses - no sign of a can or bottle and ice floating on top. "As long as my wife is unavailable, is there anything I can help you with?" he asked Scott. "Maybe,” Scott said. “You've heard we have a suspect, and the evidence against him is good. Did your mother-in-law ever mention a Casey Stendahl?" "Not that I remember. He worked for the bakery, right?"

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"Did she buy bread there?" "I never saw anything in her cupboard except supermarket bread." "Were there people in her life who might have been angry at her?" Scott asked. "You thinking this killing was personal? Someone evening a score?" "Probably not." Scott took a long sip on his coke. "Mind telling me how your own relationship was with her?" Walter frowned. "With Esma? Why does it matter?" "Just tying up loose ends. Did you get along with her? Sometimes mothers-in-law can wear on a man." "She was great. Maybe a bit severe, pretty right wing about a lot of things, but for an old dame she was really...I don't know - really alive. She'd done everything you could imagine, and her brain was as sharp as it had ever been." "When did you see her last?" "About three weeks ago. She asked me to paint her kitchen while she went on a bus tour south with some other seniors. She was gone about a week and I talked her when I got back. My wife talked to her on the phone a few hours before she died." "Did she like the paint job?" "Everybody likes my work. That's what I do - home renovations. Never had an unhappy customer." Scott put his empty glass back on the tray. "I'm really sorry for your loss," he said, getting up. "I met her a few years ago when she had that burglary, and she seemed like a fine person." Walter showed him to the door. "You need anything, you just call me. I'll let you know as soon as my wife's ready to talk to you."

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Scott hesitated. "Maybe you could help me with something else," he said. "She had a computer. I'd like to download a few files from it." "Why? That was her personal stuff." "I had a look while I was going over the house. She'd been researching some unusual sites on the Internet. I'd like to see if there's an indication of some kind of threat against her." "Esma was always researching something." "But a week or two ago she apparently asked your wife to take the computer away," Scott said. "Any idea why?" "Her eyes. She just couldn't handle spending hours in front of a screen anymore. I guess we all get past it sooner or later." "I'd like to see her files." "Her place is a murder scene. You could just take them." "Wouldn’t be right,” Scott said, “considering the fact that this is just a fishing expedition. I'm not sure there's anything relevant in the computer, so I'd rather have your permission." "Sure, if you think it will do any good. Just seems to me like kind of a violation." Walter looked concerned but not upset. "I'll treat the data carefully," Scott said, opening the door. When he got outside, he took a few deep breaths before he walked to his car. *

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Back at the station, the receptionist told Scott that the boss wanted to see him. Chief Olivier, a French Canadian transferred in only two months before, seemed to have his head on straight. Probably just a conference to go over evidence. Scott grabbed a cup of coffee - black and knocked on Olivier's door.

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Ray Lammers was there with a file full of reports and a bunch of plaster casts. Olivier got up from behind his desk and picked up one of the casts of a footprint, handing it to Scott. "We've got as good a case as I've ever seen," he said, his accent obvious. "Suppose so," Scott said. "Are you having second thoughts, Scott?" "Not particularly. Evidence is good all around. We found the guy and he had her blood on his boots and clothes." "Ray here thinks you're not ready to close the case." Scott glanced at Ray, who had a familiar sly-dog look on his face. "I want to make sure he wasn't hired by somebody," Scott said. "Yeah right," Lammers said. "So Stendahl, the hit man, lets himself get stuck in the snow and then after the murder he goes back to the van to sleep with blood all over him." "He doesn't have to be a smart hit man, Ray," Scott said evenly. "It wasn't like he had much of a choice where to go with all that snow falling. If he couldn't get the van out, maybe he hoped he'd be able to move it by daylight." "He could have used the snow washed most of the blood off himself, but he didn't," Ray answered. “I think he’s a whack job.” "How long do you wish to pursue this investigation?" Olivier asked Scott. "Few days. Just to see if there are any rabbits scurrying for the briar patch." "Do you have anything definite, Scott?" Ray asked, "Because the taxpayers don't care much for the self-indulgence in investigations." He said it with a grin, but Scott knew there was a nasty edge there.

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"Esma Hale had child porn sites in her Internet history. Suddenly a week or two ago, she told her daughter she was tired of her computer and wanted it taken away. She's got a son-in-law who's as friendly as they come, but he can't muster up any convincing sympathy or even anger for what happened to Esma. Meanwhile we've got a suspect who doesn't match the profile of a monster. Either he's a good actor or he did it for money, or somehow he's been set up." Lammers laughed. "Set up? How? The guy's wallowing in evidence against him. You need a reality check, Scotty." "Don't push me, Ray." "I'd appreciate," Olivier said, "if you would take any personal disputes you have elsewhere." "Can I have some time to put this case to bed properly?" Scott asked. "You have a week." The look on Olivier's face precluded the chance for an extension. Outside in the hall, Scott turned to Ray and said, "Talk to you?" Normally, he would have been livid about the politics that had just been played out, but these days politics didn't seem nearly as important as they once had. Still, the situation needed a certain level of understanding if he was going to function in his job. Lammers shrugged and let Scott lead him into the men's room. "I know what you're going to say." "No, you don't," Scott said, surprised that his voice was as mild as his mood. "You think I'm going to warn you never to go over my head again. What I actually want is for you to show me a way to get the burr out from under your saddle." "What burr? It looked to me like you were off on a tangent so I called in the Chief." "Sticks in your craw, doesn't it? First chance at a really big case, and you have to watch me take the lead." Scott waited for a reaction from Lammers and saw what he expected.

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"We started out together," Ray said. "Don't you forget that, Mr. high and mighty." "And I've never given you reason to think I was keeping my thumb on you. Come on, Ray, we're both working for the same goal." Scott put out his hand. Lammers looked at it and laughed. "What's the joke?" Scott asked. "You are." "When you go to the Chief it only puts you in a bad spot, Ray. Stop embarrassing yourself and let's work together." Ray's look was as close to a sneer as he dared. "Going through the change, Horse, it's made you a wuss," he said. "I'll watch my step and you watch yours." He pushed his way out of the room, the hydraulics on the door only just preventing him from slamming it behind him. "Wuss?" Scott said to himself. *

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Casey Stendahl looked around his new quarters with distaste. Sure, it was only the pretrial center, but it had all the trappings of big time jail, a nice little foreshadowing for all the guilty souls who knew where they'd be spending the next few years after they lost in court. At least they'd given him a pen to write with - some sort of rubber felt-tipped thing so he wouldn't hurt himself and some paper. Curling up on his bunk into an approximation of a fetal position, he started to write. Martin and I, we both felt hollow and that must have been what bonded us. But there wasn't anything sick about it, not like some people were saying. I was thirteen the year dad came back home after promising to be a good boy, or whatever he told them, and once school was done for the day, Martin and I would head for the park or take our bikes up into the hills east of town, anyplace that gave us some freedom. Martin knew how

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much I needed freedom, so we'd gasp all the way up the road into the hills, knowing it would be worth it coasting down later. Then we'd find adventure, fishing sometimes at the lake, or exploring deer trails. We were lying on the grass one day in late spring, near the lake, just watching clouds, and he said to me, "I know how you can get away from him." "How?" I asked, thinking that whatever his plan was, we'd never pull it off. "Our house is real old." "So?" "So the builders back then didn't care much when they put together a big house. Sometimes they'd block off whole room's worth of space just to save the design of the place. I've got an extra room off mine, and I'm the only person who knows how to get into it." "Yeah, right," I said. "There's wood panelling in my closet,” he told me. It pops off on one side and there's a room. It's even wired for a light bulb." "Why would anyone do that?" "Somebody must have thought it would make a great store room. I only found it by accident." "And I'm supposed to live in there? Never go out, never look out a window? What do I do when I have to eat or go to the bathroom?" We dropped the idea. It had never been much of anything anyway, but I used to dream about it - the secret room in Martin's house and the mysteries that must have lurked in there. Now I wish I'd taken him up on it. I wish I could go back to the lake and lie in the grass and talk about foolishness with Martin. But that's not possible anymore.

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Nor is it possible, Jay, to go on with this situation. I killed Esma. I must have. Everybody knows that. Everybody can see there aren't any other candidates. Why does my stupid mind refuse to accept what everybody understands? Casey Stendahl killed an old lady for no other reason than that she wanted to give him shelter. My dad soon found out about Martin, and he started taunting me about him, about how I'd fallen in love with a "Jew-boy" - those words still wrench my gut - and how I'd be some pansy devoting his life to looking for love. I remember the way he'd laugh, as if he were some famous genius comedian who'd just told the best joke of his life. I'd get angry, and half the time he'd lay an egg on the side of my head, and I'd spend the next day on a double dose of Tylenol. Maybe it was my dad who did Martin. They never found a suspect, but right now I don't want to think about things like that. Martin and I were soul mates in every way, and I found myself telling him all about my home life, which was why he hatched that scheme about the hidden room, but we never followed up on it. If I had, maybe I could have protected Martin better. *

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Scott Horsely went back to Esma's house late in the afternoon. He'd planned to go over her computer some, but he found himself drawn to the kitchen again, the blood a solid brown now. By the end of the week, they'd release the house to Esma's daughter, and she'd probably hire somebody who wasn't too squeamish to clean it up. Fingerprint teams had been through and everything had been searched half a dozen times. What the police didn't know about this house and all the other buildings on the property probably wasn't worth knowing. For a few minutes, Scott's eyes roved through the room, trying to picture the course of events, trying to read into the scene the remote possibility that somebody else had done this and Casey Stendahl had simply walked into the nightmare. But nothing would play. There was only

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one set of footprints through the blood - Casey's. Only one person's fingerprints in the blood. For anyone else to have been there and left no trace, he'd have to have been able to fly through walls. Strangely frustrated for someone who should have been rejoicing at a case easily solved, Scott went back into the living room and booted up Esma's computer. He'd already checked the history files in her Internet browser, so now he went into her word processor. There were seventyeight files. Rather than taking the time to open every one of them, he downloaded them all onto the memory stick he'd brought with him. The house was mournfully still, and he wondered what it might have been like when Esma was alive. She probably had the TV on quite a bit of the time when she wasn't using the computer. There would be a rattle of dishes at mealtime, the click of knitting needles in the evenings, maybe accompanied by humming. All of that was stifled now, brutalized into silence, and Scott still after all this time couldn't get over the finality that lurked in homes like this one. The dead have a special kind of silence.

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CHAPTER EIGHT When Bess came in from the barn and saw him reading the newspaper, she had a mocking note in her smile. "What?" he said. "Domestic bliss." She arched an eyebrow. "You've seen me kick back and read a newspaper before." "A year ago, Scott, when you had that bad case of the flu. Just don't get all the sections separated, because I want it later." She was spattered with mud and other things Scott didn't want to identify. "Just a quick shower, then you can take me out for supper on the way to the study." He put the paper down. "Is that tonight?" "Every Thursday," she said, noticing his frown. "Come on, Scott, don't do this." "I'm not feeling up to it tonight." "It’s the second week in a row you haven't felt up to it. Let me get cleaned up and we'll get going. It's the only thing I can think of that will get you out of your mood." "You go." "What's the problem exactly? You're not backing out, are you?" He could see the worry on her face. "No," he said. "We're committed, and I don't want to go back." "It's Esma Hale, isn't it?" She sat gingerly on a chair and started pulling off her stained socks. "Could be." "Seeing her there in that condition?"

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"When I walked into that house, I swear I could feel pure evil. That's never happened to me before, and I'm having trouble shaking it. "No murders for years, and this is the first time you've handled a violent crime in more than six months.” she said. "And it was six months ago -" "I know." "But you still can't really talk about it, not even to me." "We talk." "Look, Scotty, six months ago our marriage was just so much roadkill, and you..." She paused. "We were right at the end of things, and that's why we found a church." "I know that, Bess." "We gave our lives to him, but you still can't put it into words. What is it, afraid your tough guy image will suffer?" "People show their faith in different ways. I'm not backing out on it, not after the way both of us have changed." "We've changed," she said, “but you’re not seeing it right.” She studied his gray eyes, his long jaw, the hard set of his upper body. "Well, Scotty, I guess you'll owe me a dinner some other time." She got up, squeezed his shoulder, and went into the bathroom. He smacked the arm of his chair, feeling an urge to curse, which he resisted. His anger confused him, because it was so unprofessional, and he knew that ungoverned emotions could ruin a man in his line of work. He wasn't angry at her, not at Bess. The anger came from a farmhouse with blood on the floor. The anger came from within him, because he was confused and he shouldn't have been. *

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So the shrink says to me, "Do you understand what murder is?" I mean, what kind of barrel did they drag this guy out of? I said to him, "Yes, I understand what murder is." He said, "Explain it to me." I felt like a school kid on a very bad day. God only knows what I told him, because I can't remember. He seemed satisfied. "What friends did you have when you were younger?" he asked me later on. So I told him about Martin, about the bond we had. "Where is he now? Does he know what's happened to you?" the shrink asked me, and I could feel his scalpel probing my guts, so to speak, and this time I didn't have an answer. "Mr. Stendahl?" "What?" I said. “Where’s Martin now?” "Nowhere." “I don’t understand.” “He died. He’s dead,” I told him. "Dead?" I could tell this shrink was going to be a first class winner. "I think my dad killed him. He fell down a ravine, and it must have been my dad, because he hated Martin." "When was this?" "Year before I went to jail," I said. "To jail for the death of your father?"

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"That wasn't my fault. He ran at me and the knife cut him." The psychiatrist wasn't taking any notes, so I knew he had a tape recorder going somewhere. "Where were you when Martin died?" "You're not going to blame that on me," I said. What was with this guy? "You cared about Martin, didn't you?" "Yes. Tore me up when they told me he'd died. He was missing for about a day, and I spent most of the time wandering the town looking for him, crying because I knew something awful must have happened. Cops found me and told me they’d located his body." "Had you ever quarrelled with him?" "Who? Martin? I don't remember any fights at all. We just saw things the same way." "What makes you think your father killed him? Maybe it was just an accident." "I don't know," I said. What else could I have told him? "Was it ruled an accident?" "Yeah," I said, but I couldn't cover up the anger in time, and he picked up on it, I'm sure he did. So I changed the subject on him. "Aren't you going to ask me about the night of the murder?" He sat back in his chair and stared at me, and I swear, Jay, that I knew exactly what he was going to ask me. "Which murder, Casey?" he said. *

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Scott began working through the data from Esma's computer the next morning, loading files, reading selected portions, occasionally doing some printing. Esma certainly had a wide range of causes, from the pros and cons of feeding birds in the winter, to the dark worlds of international conspiracies.

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Overall, she seemed pretty sane, letting common sense rule most of her opinions. True, she was old fashioned, coming up far too often with traditional and simplistic answers to complicated issues. But she had a good feel for the spirit of the times even if she didn't pay much attention to its intricacies. She was very afraid of totalitarian movements, everything from local gangs to the nastier of the world's governments. Most of her interest, however, was devoted to racist groups - Aryan Nations, Charles Scott's strange little movement in the British Columbia interior, the hatred coming out of websites. She'd put together several columns that viewed extreme racism as the first sign of the anticipated demise of western civilization. Scott didn't notice anything in her material that wasn't pretty much public knowledge. There was no sign that Esma had been murdered to cover up some dark secret, though anything on the computer could have been erased by the murderer. Nor was there much of an indication that the recent columns Esma had written would ever be published anywhere. At noon, Scott got up from his computer, frustrated because he still had no idea what he was looking for, no sense of whether or not the computer held anything that could tell him more about the murder. What was it that kept making him uneasy? They had a killer and as much evidence as anybody would need for a conviction. Nobody really cared about motive, and even if Casey had an accomplice or two, proving it would be well nigh impossible. Outside, the last of the snow was dying a miserable death, ground to brown sludge by the sanding trucks that had fought it. He felt a bit of regret despite the fact that lingering snow usually meant accidents. Somehow the alien landscape after a blizzard seemed more his element than the ordinary greens and earth tones that graced most of the winter in this moderate climate.

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For awhile he stared at the traffic going by, and then, with no antecedent, the reason for his uneasiness came to him. He grabbed his coat, got in his car and drove out to Esma Hale's farm. The cops he'd earlier left to guard the place had been pulled off, but Scott still had a key. Going in, he turned on the computer, frustrated at how long it took to get the Internet up. He went into Esma's history file and called up the site on the list. Laughing children mocking him. It looked so innocent, idyllic even. And on the upper right was the thing that had been bothering him. In a small box were the words, "Greetings, Esma." How had they obtained her name, which would have been invisible to them if she'd simply been surfing into the site? Normally, identification like that came when you registered with a site to buy something or become a member. Below the greeting to Esma was a place to type in your password for access. Scott stared at the password box for a few seconds, then called up the second site, and the third, and finally all eleven of them. Each one required a password. Some of them greeted Esma by name. There was no way, Scott said to himself, that Esma would be calling up these sites just to stare at a password box. The pictures of kids playing were too banal to call up much sustained interest. She'd returned to several of them four or five times in the weeks before she'd stopped using her computer. Esma had to have had passwords. There was no other explanation. But she was aging, maybe prone to forgetting things. The computer desk was empty except for the computer, the keyboard and the mouse. He turned the keyboard over - nothing - then the mouse. Nothing there. He looked at her bookshelf, mainly hardcovers with a few paperbacks. One of the hardcovers was read and stood out from the others. He went over and got it, thumbing through. There, on blank page 147 someone had written in pencil a number one, then two short pieces of code, separated by a space. Under it was a two with more code, and so on up to eleven.

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He wrote everything down in his notebook, then pulled up the first Internet site again and started typing in the passwords one at a time. The site rejected the first six. On the seventh one, the "wait" sign stayed on, and in a few seconds he was in. He stared at the page that appeared on the screen, then got up and wandered slowly through the house for awhile, feeling the silence of the place, the pall that came from the knowledge that once this had been the shelter in which a living soul had flourished. Such a simple home, so far from the obscenity that was on her computer. The screen was filled with graphic, often violent, images, and video boxes just waiting to click. Scott couldn’t bring himself to do so. Her deposit account was almost empty, the site announced, and they'd have to revoke her password if it ever got to zero. What did people like her think they were playing at? Any undercover operative with a few smarts could have earned the right to a password, probably had. Did they think they were above being busted? Feeling weary, Scott printed off a few salient pages and stuck them in a file folder before moving to the next site and playing password roulette once again. In two hours, he'd gotten into every site. For each, Esma had filled out a registration. Several showed signs that she had bought material from them. All this just for research? To what end? Even having this stuff on her drive was illegal, though most sites just kept it there, without need of a download. More importantly, what did any of this have to do with her murder? She may have been eighty-five, but she was a trained journalist. Had she learned something that made her a risk? Had she infiltrated one too many child porn sites? Scott knew better than to see an immediate link between what he’d found on her computer and the death of Esma Hale. All too often, the people who had the best motives ended up being innocent, and some guy who scarcely figured in the victim's life was the guilty party. But he felt a

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buzz as he turned the machine off, because he had something at least to explain why he'd been so uneasy about this case. Not that it was likely the he could do anything for Casey Stendahl.

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CHAPTER NINE A whole day devoted to me. Who would have thought it, Jay, a day for Casey Stendahl with everybody swarming around me like bugs on a manure pile. What do they call it - symbiosis or something. Morning was a battery of tests to measure everything my psyche could offer up. They probed my mind, my feelings, my secret desires, turning old Casey into an open book without giving me a ghost of a choice about it. Then came the shrink. What a piece of work this guy was, smarmy little smile like I was dirt on his shoe but important dirt that needed to be studied before he scraped it off. He asked me about everything. He found out about Martin, and I had to give him credit there. I thought I could keep Martin out of it, but he got me to cough up the fact that Martin died a year before I went to jail. He wanted me to think about whether I had anything to do with it, with Martin dying in the ravine, but I've got too much on my plate to think about things like that. He asked me about my dad and whether I'd really convinced myself that I didn't mean for him to die. But I can see the wheels turning, now that I've given him Martin, he’ll start thinking of Esma Hale as my victim number three. Now when I think about whatever I said or did today, I'm hard pressed to know whether it's better to be insane or to be toast. Tell me, Jay, should I let them declare me incompetent or criminally irresponsible or whatever they call it, so that everybody sees me through a filter? Or do I make them understand that I'm as sane as the next guy only there's no evidence that I didn't hack the stuffings out of some poor old lady? Oh, I feel hyped up today for sure.

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I don't remember whether I killed her or not, Jay. Really, I don't. I could be the sickest, baddest monster that ever breathed, creature from some dark swamp who murders women for pleasure. Or I could be Casey the bread man in the middle of a very bad time. When it comes down to it, other people are going to decide what I am, and I'm going to have to live with the verdict. But maybe I'll never know what's true, so maybe I won't want to live much longer anyway, always carrying thing on my back. Then the shrink got into whether or not I understood the difference between right and wrong. For instance - you witness a car accident, and the guy who caused it comes to your house and offers you a thousand to fudge on the testimony, not to say exactly that the other guy caused it, just to claim you couldn't be sure. Would you take the thousand? As if he doesn't know that I understand what he wants me to say. So I told him that right and wrong were relative. That's the word I used. You give me the situation and I'll tell you what I'd do, but don't go from there to telling me what my own code is supposed to be, because it changes with the situation. Suppose then, he says, suppose that you were in real need and you went to somebody for help and maybe she told you to go away, and you were afraid you were going to die if she didn't help you, would it make you mad? Mad enough that something might snap and you'd do things to her that you'd never have dreamed of, given other circumstances? I told him I didn't know. Far as I can remember, it's never happened before. I know I used to black out and do bad things. Blacking out, sure when I was drinking, but I never did anything to hurt anybody, and I'm not drinking now. Then he asked me once more if I'd ever been angry at Martin. So what's with bringing up Martin again? Martin died and I grieved over him. I didn't kill him. Maybe my dad did him in

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because he sure didn't like Martin. I told the shrink that hashing up old stories wasn't getting us anywhere. He kept rambling around for another hour or so, from one event in my life to another, never in the order they happened, probably trying to get me to contradict myself. I don't think I did. One thing is sure, Jay, he had to know that whatever happened to this Esma dame, I don't remember a thing. He had to know that. *

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Jay Simon finished lunch late and found himself running from his car to the courtroom for his 1:30. His client was some kid who'd stolen a tractor and couldn't talk his way through juvenile court anymore because now he was nineteen. To Jay, they were all becoming pretty faceless, as if it were the same perpetrator every day, different crime. Tony somebody, and he only hoped he'd recognize the client before the bailiff called for order. They were going to plead - he looked at his notebook - guilty, and Jay would ask for a presentence report because the fellow was young and he didn't have any friends or something. Tony. Tony Esplanade. That was the name. Dirty blonde hair, long. What did he want with a tractor? A Mustang, maybe, might have been worth stealing, but a tractor must have been just so much dead weight. That afternoon, Jay hardly noticed how badly he stumbled his way through Tony's case, because every other legal aid lawyer was stumbling just the same with their own clients, and it was expected because, try as you might, there were too many Tonys and not enough Jays to make it much more than a formality, a sop to citizens who believed in justice for all.

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He got the pre-sentence report ordered, and Tony on the way out started to gush at him the way some of them do - "Thank you, Mr. Simon, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there, I'm so bummed out right now, do you think they'll put me in jail, or what?" - and he felt his flesh crawl because he knew it wasn't gratitude speaking, only terror like that of a drowning man making love to a plank too rotten to hold his weight. Come to think of it, Tony probably was a drowning man. Jay had no illusions about the kid’s future. So he told him it would probably be probation or at most a light sentence, since the tractor was recovered intact and Tony only had it fifteen minutes. Jay was very tempted to ask why a tractor had been such an attractive target, but he suspected that he didn't want to know the answer. Life was depressing enough without hearing about some tractor fetish or a deep longing to be a real farmer. Chances are Tony had no idea why he took it. The tractor had been there and opportunity had knocked. Lugging his briefcase, too full as usual, Jay left the building and went to his car, thinking all the while that his future years as a legal aid lawyer could probably be counted on half a hand, if that. Even the law itself, as precious as it had been to him all these years, was becoming tarnished under the corrupting work of practicing it in dubious circumstances day after day. The courthouse behind him was a vale of tears, and he found himself breathing deeply with relief as he got into his car. He looked at his watch and saw that he had only enough time for fast food before he was due to see Casey Stendahl at the pretrial center. Fast food and Casey looked to be a lethal combination and he wondered about skipping lunch. *

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Trudy Salter hesitated the next morning before dialling, despite the fact that she normally thought nothing of butting her head into anybody's business she fancied knowing something about. This had to be played right or the fish would spurn the bait and be too wary to get caught a second time. "Horsely," Scott answered on the third ring. He'd been out most of the morning trying to track down any of Casey's Stendahl's friends. Casey didn't appear to have any, not even the people he worked with. "Start of the fourth day," Trudy said. "I thought maybe the dust would have settled enough for you to release some details." "To you and nobody else?" Scott asked. "I'm just a local gal trying to do good, Officer," she said. "When it comes to investigative reporters in this town, I'm pretty much it." "We've got a suspect in custody. He's undergoing a psychiatric examination." "Well thank you so much, Officer Horsely," she said. "Why if you'd left all that the fact finding to little old me, I'd never had found out anything." "Sarcasm is not wit, Trudy." Scott sighed audibly. "I'm really busy, so why don't you investigate someplace else?" "Did I tell you I was interested in doing a piece on you, separate from this case?" "Maybe. I wasn't paying much attention." "Sure you weren’t. Could you maybe spare a coffee break to chat with me a bit? I promise not to ask you anything about the Esma Hale case." "I haven't had a coffee break in three years," he said. "That's why you're so grouchy. Although..."

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"What?" He could hear the snap in his voice now. "Little bird told me you got religion or something." "My private life is private." "Not to a reporter. Picture this headline: Local Detective Gets His Clues from God." "Do you have a special reason for bothering me today, Trudy?" he said. "Or is this just your usual pattern when you're cooking a story out of meagre ingredients?" "One coffee break is all I'm asking." "I'm a married man and this is a small town. People start seeing me meeting you at restaurants..." "Blatant sexism too. I'll make sure I write that in. Come on, Officer." "Call me Scott. OK, I'll give you half an hour. Meet you at Sarah's Tea House in ten." "Tea House? You?" she said, but he'd already hung up. She knew he'd chosen the place because none of his cop friends would have been caught dead there. *

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"Casey?" Jay Simon said softly. He was curled in his blankets on his bed in the pretrial center despite the fact that it was only just an hour past noon. "What?" Casey's voice was dopey, as if he'd smoked a few joints. "How's it going?" Casey sat up slowly, then stood and walked to the bars. Jay didn't back up. "You ever have some monster drill in your head for a day and a half, Jay? How'd you think it was going?" "I'm sorry, really. This is the only way to make a case." "Don't hold your breath,” Casey said. “I think I'm coming across as sane as a parson." "Did they tell you how much longer it was going to take?"

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"Said I was done as of lunch today," Casey said. His face was very pale, and his voice revealed a loss of confidence. "The shrink had to be someplace else, so he seems to have done a rush job." "He give you any indication?" "Told me he'd see me in court. Said he hoped I'd have a nice trial." Jay exhaled, the air whistling through one of his teeth that had a chip in it. "He's going to rule you sane, Casey." "So we're done for?" "Not if we find a second opinion, some other shrink who's willing to call you a fruitcake." "And go through all of that again?" For a second, Casey showed anger, and Jay marvelled again at how seldom he'd ever seen a sign of emotion in the man. "You want a hope of getting out of this, Casey, you'll have to do the routine until we have an expert in our pockets." "I'm not going through it again, I'm not, Jay." His eyes looked a bit watery, not enough to call it tears, but pretty close. "We don't have a case otherwise," Jay said. "What if I didn't do it, or somebody programmed me or something?" "Sure, Casey, believe what you want. Just remember this." "What?" "The law doesn't care whether you did it or not. The law cares only what's most believable. It cares about burden of proof. Hardly anybody ever finds out what actually happened, so the truth doesn't matter anyway."

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"It does to me," Casey said, his voice soft. "You want to carry this thing on your own back for awhile, Jay, maybe give me a break from it for a few minutes or an hour? How about overnight or a week? You want this monster I'm carrying with me?" "No." "Then don't tell me the truth doesn't matter."

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CHAPTER TEN "Why did you come?" Trudy asked him. They were sitting across from one another a street window table, coffee and Danish unnoticed in front of them. For the past ten minutes, Scott had been dodging most of her questions, either pleading that the case was before the courts or that his private life was his own. "Before you ask me to spill my guts," he said finally, "it would help me to know what kind of a story you're working on - public interest, true crime, tabloid dirt?" "You're the closest thing this town has to a homicide detective," she said. "I just want my readers to see what makes you tick." "If Esma Hale hadn't been such an open and shut case, we would have had Vancouver sending us their finest to take over the investigation," he said, staring into her frank blue eyes that spoke either of supreme innocence or pure danger. "So you think it's open and shut," she said, smiling for the first time. "Oops, did I say that?” He pointed at her cup. “Did you notice your coffee’s getting cold?" "I noticed that neither of us is here for coffee and goodies. Why did you agree to meet me anyway?" "Because sometimes it's better to have a hand in the story than let the reporter make it up out of thin air." "Now you've offended me." She didn't look offended. "I’m just working for the public good, Scott, I thought you knew that." "Your entire goal in life is to give 'em what they want, even if it’s twisted." "Not me. Some people don't believe in truth anymore, but I do." "So you want me to tell my story to thousands of readers. For what purpose?"

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"So people can get to know you. Look, let's do this another way." She paused for a moment, staring at him. "Right now, I'm sitting across from Scott Horsely, police investigator, tough guy by everyone's estimation, and believe me I've talked to a lot of your colleagues." Scott wondered what Ray Lammers had said about him. "So?" "So, are you driven by the quest for justice, or do you get a rush from being in the thick of crime and degradation, or does it give you pleasure to lock up bad guys and clean the streets, maybe something anal -" "What are you talking about?" He looked at her as if she were a space alien. "I want to know who you are, Scott, plain and simple." "Who cares?" "The public, the people out there." "News is mostly just entertainment at the best of times.” Scott said. “What good would it do for Joe Citizen to see into my soul?" "Because you're Joe Citizen's defender." "Thin blue line and all that?" He poured some cream into his coffee and gulped it, somehow pleased that it was lukewarm. "Why did you become a cop?" "It seemed like a good idea at the time." She scowled at him. "You don't like me, do you?" "Ordinarily I'd probably see you as a very nice person," he said, "but when you wear your reporter's hat, you're like a horsefly buzzing around my head." He saw she hadn't missed the

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allusion to his name. "It's got nothing to do with liking you, and I doubt you care what I think of you personally." "I'm trying very hard to break into your story somewhere," she said. "And I'm telling you there's no story. I'm a boring guy and nobody cares what's going on inside my head." "What about this religion kick I heard about?" she asked. "What religion kick?" Scott was sure she'd seen him almost wince. "Do you think he did it?" "Who?" "Casey Stendahl." "I shouldn’t imagine there’d be much debate about that," he said. "I talked to Jay Simon. He thinks you're having doubts." "Jay Simon's the man's defence attorney,” Scott said. “He'd stand on his head naked to win a case." "There's a thought." She grimaced. "So you don't have any questions. Casey's guilty as sin and he's going down." "Sorry to disappoint you, but not every case has a mystery attached." "What about the computer?" He'd taken a last gulp of the oily coffee, and he almost choked on it. "Computer?" "You downloaded files off her machine," she said "Who told you that?" "Walter, her son-in-law. Did you find something interesting, maybe enough to cast doubt on Casey as the killer?"

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"What I found, if anything, is privileged," he said, standing up and throwing his napkin down on the table. "I'd better go." "You just got here." Her face showed little concern, and that worried him. He sat down again. "Either you're a very skilled interrogator, or you don't have a clue what you're doing," he said. "How so?" "This flipping from topic to topic. I still don't know what you want out of me." "If it's bothering you, there’s the door. I don't need you much, but I thought there might be a chance to get a human angle." There was a hint of anger in her tone. "And now you'll tell your readers that Scott Horsely's a pig and maybe we backwoods cops should have called in the experts from Vancouver after all." "Me? I'd never do something like that." She grinned. "You know, Officer Horsely, I think I might be developing a bit of a crush on you." "You're too much of your own person to have a crush on anyone, let alone a cop," he said. "Scared?" she asked. With that, she got up and walked out, leaving him with the tab. *

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Casey Stendahl paced in his cell at the remand center, trying to get a handle on the dream that had left him lying awake half the night. Dreams aren't meant to be exposed to conscious thought. In the daylight they grow elusive, flitting in and out of sight in whatever order they please, leaving behind traces of strong emotions but little that can be known to a thinking mind. Somebody long ago, maybe Martin, had told him that - don't try to remember dreams. They'll hurt you more than help you.

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What he remembered was a hand holding another hand, not in love nor romance, but with a painful grip, the hand underneath being forced to extend its fingers and touch a wall that was painted some strange color, or maybe the paint had just been splashed on there in that place so that the hand in bondage could muck it up. There was a voice with the hand, soothing, comforting, saying to him, "It's better to know, man, better to know than to worry about it." "Worry?" he'd answered, "worry about what?" "Look down, Casey," the voice said. He'd looked down, but there was nothing to see except some sort of low-lying fog. "What?" he said, panic coming now. "Tell me what to see, and I'll see it." "Look at your hands then," the voice told him. He looked, and they were covered with blood. "Look at your clothes." Blood. Blood everywhere. "What have you done, man?" The hand moved off his own hand and shoved him forward toward a door. He opened it and felt a chill. Then he felt nothing at all. Now in his cell he tried every alternative, but nothing made sense. It couldn't have just been a dream with nothing behind it. This was a memory or else something, somebody had fed him a memory, or maybe it was a memory his own mind had made up. But it told him that someone else had been with him in the room, the Hale woman's room. He hadn't seen the body, nor had he seen anything more than the other man's hand, but he knew that memory or a close facsimile had visited him. Even that pitiful little scrap of hope gave him a rush. *

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Scott Horsely stared at the statement from the credit card company, unable to reconcile it with the things everyone had told him about Esma Hale. The credit statement told him that she'd

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spent a grand total of five hundred and twenty-seven dollars on website access services over the past month. While the companies listed gave nothing away, the costs were clearly for access to password protected porn. The record didn't lie. He phoned Ray at the station and gave him the details. He’d be able to get confirmation that it was her card and track down the names on the statement. *

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Jay Simon looks at me funny. You do, Jay, like I'm a specimen in a lab jar. Welcome to the freak show. You planning to boost your retirement fund by selling tickets? Why not bring the whole world past my cell so they can see the real thing - a killer with a heart of ice and a soul so fit for hell that he can already feel his toes burning. They're putting me on trial in six months. The shrink said I was perfectly sane, and there’s no way I’m going all through this again for a second opinion. So all the probing ends right here, and I‘ll just stay with the rest of these of doomed creatures. Remand’s only a holding tank until society can have its revenge on us. Some just society this is - they don't care who really did it. All they care is someone needs to take the fall so they can be happy that the lid is still tight on the monsters that roam around in their world. I'm thinking about Martin these days. About how they found him in the park and how I wasn't angry, couldn't be angry that the only human contact I'd ever had was snatched away from me. I should have been in a rage or weeping or plotting some kind of revenge. Instead I was relieved, and I didn't know why, still don't know why, even though I was certain my father had done it and I never wanted Martin to die. Now that I'm a space alien or whatever you want to call me, Jay, you don't have to believe that I used to have real human feelings. But when Martin left me, I couldn't even grieve for him.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN Noah's Book Ark was on a side street. It occupied half of the space of a retail building among detached houses, and the miniscule sign painted on the window made its owner a cinch for careless retailer of the year. Scott opened the front door slowly, but the bells attached to it still tinkled. There were three rows of bookshelves in the middle and a few racks of cassettes and CD's on the walls. The cash register was in the back. For a few seconds Scott surveyed the books, noticing that most were religious bestsellers with presumably shallow contents. "Hello. Can I help you?" Alice Scolari stepped out of a back room, her hands clasped loosely in front of her, the pain of her mother's death still lining her face. "I didn't realize you had a bookstore." "You're..." She paused. "Officer Horsely, of course. I'm sorry, it's been a bit hard for me to concentrate since..." "That's not surprising," he said. "I really don't want to add to your problems, coming here, but the powers that be have given me a limited time frame to pull all the threads together." "You wanted to ask me something?" "I wanted to ask you about your mom and the computer." "Walter got it for her about a year ago. Mainly so she could e-mail her friends and write columns. Not that she was publishing anything these days." "I’m wondering if there’s any possible connection between her computer use and what happened to her." Scott paused. “Could she have been writing about something that people didn’t want public?” "But Casey Stendahl murdered my mother. His fingerprints..." Here eyes teared up.

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"I know. Sorry, but I have to check into everything. Did your mom seem upset or worried lately? Did she tell you about anything she was investigating?" "She was an old lady." Alice was beginning to sound testy. “She never investigated anything. And the computer wasn’t much help to her. Walter was over there all the time cleaning up viruses or re-installing her e-mail. She hardly knew how to use that Google thing.” “So she wasn’t a skilled user?” “She got frustrated easily. A couple of weeks ago she asked us to take the computer away. She said she just didn’t want it anymore.” “No other reason?” Alice frowned. “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything. This Casey person went to my mother’s house and killed – “ She broke off, turned away. Scott waited, then said,"Ever since we arrested Casey Stendahl, Mrs. Scolari, I've been uneasy about this case. Our suspect has no motive. The physical evidence seems overwhelming, but I've seen the most amazing things fabricated to appear as if they were one thing when the truth was actually another." "And you think your suspicions can explain Casey Stendahl away?" Her face showed bewilderment now, almost shock. “He killed my mother.” "Most of the physical evidence can be explained simply because he happened upon the scene of the crime." "And so a bystander felt it necessary to wallow in my mother's blood?" "Or try to help her. All I can do is track down every lead I can find, which is why I have to ask these questions."

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She opened the door for him and held it. "Maybe the taxpayers need to know how their chief investigator spends his time and their money," she said, her lips set. "If we don't meet again, I won't have a single regret." *

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Martin, Martin, why do you hang in my mind so much, almost like a lover, though we were never into anything like that. They said your body was all broken up from your fall, you never had a chance, must have died within minutes. But I wish I'd been with you, because now you're haunting me something fierce. The shrink was sure I'd killed you. I could tell I made him sick, probably put it in his report that I'm a serial killer with three notches in my belt. The food here is just as bad as I remember it from the slammer. When I was growing up, I'd stick my plate back in the oven because the grub was never hot enough to kill the taste. We never had a microwave, they were too middle class or something. For lunch they give you some kind of stew that's gray. Even the carrots are gray. And by the time you find a place to sit where some other con isn't going to do you, the gravy is starting to gell, and you have to remember that it was hot once and maybe you can imagine that it still is. Jay came to see me this morning, didn't you, Jay, all gussied in your phoney I’m-a-lawyerand-you’re-not suit. You’ve got the freedom to walk in, walk out, share only as much of my pain as you feel will ease your conscience. Do you think I did it? You certainly make it pretty obvious you believe everything they told you. Did you think I'll go psycho on you and stab you to death with my soft-soled shoe? Is that why you won’t come near me? What was it you told me? The shrink's not going to be any help at all. So since I won't accept a second opinion, we'll go to trial, probably in six months or so, no bail because they're terrified that one of their grandmas will be next. Frankenstein's monster would have gotten better

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press, you said. I know what you're doing, trying to get me an insanity plea. The explanation is something you don't want to think about. I said to Martin, "You don't want to get involved with my people,” and he said, "If they're your people, they're my people." That's the sort of stupid stuff that comes out of a kid before he's had the edges knocked off and his face ground in the dirt a few times, that kind of "No problem, man" thinking that's about as realistic as the world wrestling championship down at the memorial arena. I warned him about my dad, but he didn't hear it. He wanted to meet him, get to know him. As if anybody got to know my dad. Even my mother was utterly confused by my father and his strange ways, especially when he was drinking. So I brought Martin home one day, and dad turned into this witty man of the world I almost never saw anymore. He absolutely put Martin in stitches. Afterward Martin said, "You're dad's the best," and I told him he was nuts, that what he'd seen was all for show, because I knew what dad was doing, how much he hated the fact that I had a normal friend who might find out the truth one day and despise him for it. I wanted to warn Martin to stay away or at least watch his back, but I didn't know how I could do that and have him take me seriously. There was no way I could have known what dad would do to him in the end, otherwise I never would have let Martin come over. The funeral was big and very Jewish, so of course my dad wouldn't let me go. Far be it from him to be a caring human being. That's probably when I started hating him in earnest. Even the beating when I was ten hadn't made me angry enough to despise the man, but denying me the chance to see Martin off... Don't you understand, Jay, I cared about Martin. He was important to me, more important than anyone I've ever met. To kill him would have hurt me, and I had no plans to hurt me. It must

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have been my dad, because I could see the fear in his eyes when Martin came over, like a deer in the woods that never imagined a cougar existed until he discovered one of them stalking him. So now I've got six months of this before I can face my peers in a court of justice. Sorry, Jay, just feeling a little sarcastic today. As if I have any peers or ever did. As if a trial was actually about justice instead of being about who's smarter or who looks guiltier or who's got a prettier smile. Take this case. They've got all the physical stuff they need - blood, fingerprints, a suspect who's "killed before." Claims he can't remember, what kind of a defence is that? The shrink says he's OK, so he must be as guilty as he looks. Besides, he doesn't seem like the kind of person people would ever consider having for a friend. World's better off without scum like that. So you can argue your guts out, Jay, for all the good it will do. When that jury goes out to make its decision, the decision will already be made, and Casey Stendahl will go down. What's truth got to do with anything? *

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"Ray said you wanted to see me." Scott stood awkwardly in the doorway of the chief's office, knowing before Olivier spoke that this was the end of his investigation. "Come in. Sit down." Chief Olivier said, his accent showing in the way he turned "sit" into "sid." Scott sat on a wooden armchair, some relic from the old days when cops were men and felons were put away. He stared at Olivier, who said nothing as he sat down behind his desk. "Do you want a progress report?" Scott asked. "Actually, we need to speak about a telephone call I received from Walter Scolari. He made the accusation that you harassed his wife."

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"Esma Hale, our sweet little old lady, was buying child porn. I didn’t tell her that, but I did want to know about Esma’s computer use." "She just found her mother’s mutilated body," Olivier said. “I have an investigation to complete.” "What has this to do with the death of Esma Hale?" Olivier asked. "I don't know, maybe nothing, maybe everything." "Casey Stendahl was hired to kill her because of what was on her computer?" "I don't know." "In other words, you've used up your week, found some nasty skeletons, and contributed nothing concrete to this case." Scott didn't answer. "The only reason I gave you this week is that you are a respected officer and my predecessor told me to trust your instincts. But I can't let you go on when we have a suspect in custody and it's almost certain he acted alone." "So maybe somebody did hire him." "Doubtful. We have the psychiatric report now. There's evidence that Mr. Stendahl has killed twice before. One victim was his father, and he served time for that, as you already know. The other was a boyhood friend, Martin Gold." "Casey Stendahl is a serial killer?" "Not in the typical sense. Each death was distinct, and probably carried out for distinct reasons." "But Casey did all three? Why didn't we have anything on this Gold kid?" "No charges. Ruled accidental, but the psychiatrist is confident that Mr. Stendahl had some connection with Martin Gold’s death."

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Scott rubbed an eye that had started to itch - probably as a result of the enormous fern his boss was cultivating in one corner of the room. "So where does this leave us?" he said. "Esma Hale had some bad associations that could have gotten her killed. I think another week would -" "Crown Council has suggested that we get the Martin Gold case reopened. I'd rather have you work on that." Olivier gave him a look that made it a lot more than a suggestion. "It's a dead issue," Scott said. "Never even was a case. It happened in Corbin, and that’s fifty miles from here." "I've notified the chief there," Olivier said, "and he indicated that they've got a good motel near the station. You have a week to clarify what happened to Martin Gold.” *

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Trudy Salter took the call at eleven-thirty the next morning. She listened for a few seconds, then broke in. "Why are you calling me? Things like that are supposed to be confidential." "None of your business," the voice on the other end said. "Maybe it's just a public service." "It could be a scoop for me, but if you've got any connection with the police or the Crown, you're cutting your own throat telling me." "That's my worry," the voice said, then he hung up. Tips like this one were nothing new, but Trudy knew how easy it was to get suckered into being at the wrong place at the wrong time. She dialled the police station and asked for Scott Horsely. "He's not on duty at the moment." "When does he come on? It's very important that I relay some information to him." "Maybe one of our other officers could help you." "Horsely or nothing. Where is he?"

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"Out of town. Try him in a week or so," the dispatcher said. Fat chance, Trudy thought, hanging up quickly. So you've been sent off on a hunt, have you, Scott? Must be quite a prey to get Scott Horsely out of town.

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CHAPTER TWELVE "Your Uncle Fred could do it," Scott said to Bess. "He's always hankering to get back on the farm, and he's only half an hour from here." Nobody says ‘hankering’ anymore,” she said. "And a couple of the goats are sick," "You'd give up a week with me for a couple of goats?" "Maybe I'd rather spend the week brooding and depressed," she said, putting her coffee cup down and staring at him across the table. "Why would you do that?" "That's how I'm feeling." "Because of a couple of sick goats? "Because we made a commitment, Scott. We found a new life, and now I don't hear you saying a word about it unless I drag it out of you." Her stare was more intense. "I didn't change my mind, Bess," he said. "I wouldn't do that even if I could. It's just hard to find a way to talk about something that deep." "Hard to stop being so macho and acknowledge that you came to the end of yourself? You gave your life to God, Scott. Is that so hard to express? Are you afraid somebody's going to call you a wuss?" "There's a reporter who's probing about my private life. She heard I got religion and now she wants to splash it all over the newspaper. Then what happens when I don't measure up to whatever image people have of me? Scott Horsely's got religion so why's he this or why's he that? You think I want to put on some macho thing. It's really the opposite - I'm not strong enough yet."

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She shook her head. "You wait until you're strong enough and you'll never be strong enough, Scotty. Most of the world out there thinks a commitment like ours is insane. They'll write you off no matter what you do, so you might as well walk through this with your head high." "Like John Wayne." "Sure like John Wayne. Like saying, 'I've got Jesus, Pilgrim. What have you got?'" He grinned at her. "Now that you've made your point you can call your Uncle Fred." "You need the week to think about this." She got up and started stacking the dirty dishes in the sink. "You don't want to come?" "Sure I want to come,” she said, “but I'll only distract you. You need to spend some time. Get it all straight in your head. Some things are more important than sparing me a week of loneliness." "You'll still have the goats," he said. *

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I want them to stop looking at me. It was bad enough the first time with dad - guy who killed his father, what kind of a creep do you think he is? But this is far worse, and I'm sure they know more than they're telling, only I wish I knew it too because it's driving me crazy. Or maybe not, since being crazy is the one thing I can't convince them of. So every guard, every janitor, every nurse or social worker looks at me like I'm Attila in person or Hitler or Stalin, except the look I get is more like I'm vermin to be stamped out. I was Martin's friend. We never had words even once and we always shared everything, and he wanted me to live in his secret room where my dad would never find me. But my dad found

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Martin, and Martin died, and now the shrink thinks I did it myself, as if I ever would. As if I ever could. This is a terrible place, with everybody here just waiting to stand trial and then go off to a nasty meeting with fate. They all claim they're innocent, but we know the truth, Jay, don't we? Most of them are guilty. Even Casey Stendahl could be guilty. If I could remember, then I'd know what I am. *

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Scott pushed his car hard up the Fraser Canyon highway now that he'd left the river delta behind and had started encountering real mountains. He felt a sense of relief to be out of the smog and among the evergreens. Thirty miles more and he'd have to go on duty, so this was a good time to do some mulling. He was used to seeming coincidences in cases - things that looked for all the world like they belonged together even though they didn't, and the smart cop remembered that pulling threads together into premature conclusions was a sure way to create injustices. Esma Hale's link with child porn was just the sort of thread some people might seize on - obviously she'd earned the wrath of somebody, and that person had hired Casey Stendahl to finish her off. But the things Esma had done didn't necessarily have any connection with why Esma died. He had no idea what made him so uneasy about Casey Stendahl as the main suspect, but he felt like it had something to do with the topic of his conversation with Bess that morning. Felt. He was in some kind of deep feeling mode now, Inspector Horsely going all intuitive on his way down the slippery slope to cop oblivion, where they hauled you out of the case and sent you out to pasture because it was clear that you couldn't think anymore.

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Bess had accused him of walking away from his commitment, but that was dead wrong. Nobody who had come to understand a new life, the change, could walk away from it, from the freedom of being released into a fresh start far from the dark shadows of the things he'd done but couldn't forget. There might be grace for Scott Horsely. Or maybe not, if his past ever fully caught up with him. No grace at all for a Casey Stendahl who kept piling on more of the same baggage without ever having a hope of coming out from under its weight. Maybe it was that pathetic look in Casey's eyes, not a cry for help but a tragic recognition that there was no help, no grace. Ultimately, it wouldn't matter whether he'd done it or not. There was so much circumstantial evidence that a conviction was certain. Jay Simon knew that. So did Casey. What did grace ever have to do with people like Casey? If there'd been even a hint that the evidence was cooked or that he was missing something, Scott would have been all over the case and nobody would have challenged what he was doing. He'd long ago forsaken tactics of investigators of the past who focused on getting convictions, not on finding justice. But with Casey there was nothing to work with, no sign at all that he'd been somebody else's pawn. The fact that Esma was looking like a racist merely pointed to the possibility that she could have attracted enemies. Casey, as far as Scott knew, had no history of racist activity. But he had been in that room at the right time for a conviction. And so an easy case with a sure-as-sunrise guilty suspect would probably unfold as everyone expected, and Casey would be sent away for next to forever. Protests of innocence meant nothing, because the guilty uttered such things all the time, like crying wolf in reverse, and nobody listened. Justice would be seen to have been done, and grace would never enter anybody's head. Still, despite whatever gut feelings Scott was entertaining, he knew that there was still a ninety-nine

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percent chance Casey had done the evil deed himself out of some sickness within that had nothing to do with killer-for-hire. The town of Corbin came into view so suddenly that Scott found himself sucking in a sharp breath as he braked heavily. At the speed he'd been going, he'd have been right through the place in thirty seconds. No point in getting stopped for reckless driving. The town was built up on the hill above the river, with the road forming a boundary between them. There were maybe forty houses, a few shops, a motel, and a gas station on an access road off the highway. The police station was on the other end of the tiny business district, a small building with probably three members to handle all of what passed for crime in Corbin. He parked in front and went in, reminding himself that these people were R.C.M.P., with a slightly different culture from his own. There was a dispatcher at the desk. "Help you?" she asked. "Scott Horsely." "I think Ruell’s back now," she said. “We had some trouble with a stray dog, but I'm sure Ruell put the fear of God into the kids who were throwing rocks at it." Scott barely kept himself from smiling. Police work in Corbin must have been very entertaining the five percent of the time that it wasn’t sheer boredom. "Where can I find him?" he asked. "Second office on the right. I'll buzz you in." She released the electronic door, and he pulled it open. The station had a battered look to it, lots of history, a few tales of woe, but it looked like no one had much motivation to spruce it up. The building spoke of the kind of neglect that comes from a loss of purpose and an easy comfort in routine, an environment that would swallow a man

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with ambition and leave him either jaded or catatonic. Scott hoped, as he knocked on the office door, that he'd never snooze out his career in a place like this. The staff sergeant had an easy way to him, casual handshake and soft voice. "Scott Horsely," he said. "Any relation to the Horsely's from Chilliwack?" "No," Scott said. "I'm Ruell Janzen." "Any relation to the Mennonites of Abbotsford?" Janzen looked at him with a hint of suspicion, then saw Scott's smile. "If you go by the name, somebody must have been a Mennonite somewhere back in the family tree," he said, "but I couldn't tell you who it was." "You know why I'm here?" Scott asked. "You want to look at the Martin Gold case,” Janzen said. “Not that it ever was much of a case. Accidental death. He fell into a ravine in a park just south of here." "No possibility he was pushed?" Janzen motioned. "Have a seat. You want some coffee?" "Sure." A short conversation through the intercom, then Janzen went on. "There was a full inquest, but nobody could find anything definite." "Suspicions?" "He was a teenager. Teenagers get messed up in things. But Martin didn't have any real enemies except for Casey Stendahl." Scott leaned forward sharply. "Casey was an enemy? I understood they were the best of friends."

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"Who told you that?" "Casey told his lawyer. His lawyer told me." "Casey always was a lying piece of garbage. No, they hated each other with a passion you don't see much in a town like Corbin." The coffee came then, giving Scott a few seconds to collect his thoughts. "What was the reason for the conflict?" Scott asked Janzen. "Martin's family was the only Jewish one in town. Casey started baiting him. They came to blows a couple of times, then Martin told the school principal, and I got brought in, and we almost laid a charge, only Casey scared Martin off and he dropped it." "So this thing was racial?" "Pure and simple. Casey was into 'the Jews killed Jesus and want to rule the world' nonsense. Got it from his dad who was as nasty a piece of work as you could find this side of maximum security." "Casey and Martin were never friends?" "Not by the time they came to my attention." "Where was Casey when Martin died?" "Said he was at home listening to rock music by himself. Funny thing about Casey - you could never tell what he was thinking. It was like he had a veil over him. I didn't have a clue whether he was lying or not, still don't. "Did you question him on Martin's death?" "Three hours. We went over everything, and I never heard so much racist talk out of one foul mouth in my life. Told me he was sorry Martin was dead because he'd been thinking of doing it himself. Only thing was that we had no physical evidence that it had been murder and no

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witnesses saw the two boys anywhere near each other that day. In the end, we had to leave the cause of death as accidental." "If you'd known Casey was later going to kill his own father, would you have pursued Martin Gold's fate a little more vigorously?" Janzen bristled. "Hindsight's a wonderful thing, you know. We didn't have anything to go on, still don't. You re-opening this isn't going to get us any further either." "Probably not." Scott put his coffee cup down. "Do you have current names and addresses of people who knew Casey Stendahl or Martin Gold?" Janzen reached into a desk drawer and pulled out three or four sheets of paper stapled in the top left corner. "Figured you'd need a crib to work from. These are all the people we questioned who are still in town: names, addresses, phone numbers and places of occupation." Scott raised an eyebrow. "I'm impressed." "And I'm no hick town cop, despite appearances," Janzen said slowly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to give that impression. I'm sure you're real thorough." "This," Janzen said, reaching for an inch thick file on his desk, "is all we have on the Martin Gold case. Hope you enjoy the read." "Can I take it with me?" "Long as you sign for it and be sure you bring it back." *

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Trudy Salter finished checking in to the motel and went looking for a restaurant. She found one a block from the motel, maybe the only place where it was safe to eat in the whole area. She hated towns like this, isolated, insular, arrogant in their own sense of inferiority. You moved to a place like Corbin, and it would take ten years before the regulars stopped dropping their

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conversations to whispers until you were out of range of them. Corbin would have its own peculiar ethos, like the Code of the West, and woe betide anybody who challenged it. She pulled the door open, then hesitated because she hadn't expected to see Scott Horsely so soon. There he was, occupying most of a booth, slicing up the steak on his plate, acting like the real man he made himself out to be. Realizing that she was staring, she went into the restaurant and walked to his table. "Howdy pardner," she said. "How's the grub?" He almost choked on his food. "What are you doing here?" "Birdy told me you might be investigating a serial killer angle. Mind if I join you? I hate eating alone." "What birdy?" He gave no sign of wanting to move over. "I'm press, officer. We don't reveal sources." "If I see one sign of serial killer garbage in your paper, I'll be going to your publisher. Casey Stendahl is not a serial killer, all right?" "Can I sit down?" she asked. "Suit yourself." He took his foot off the seat opposite him and motioned her to sit there. "You want to order?" "Why, were you planning to hail me a waitress?" "Not now that you mention it." She got the attention of somebody and ordered a steak herself. Then she sat back, staring at him. "What?" Scott said.

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"Mind telling me why you think Casey Stendahl's no serial killer? We searched our files and came up with the story about his dad's death. Manslaughter. Then I hear that a boyhood friend of Casey's died too." "The death of his father appears to have resulted from carelessness. Martin Gold's death was accidental." "So why are you here, Scott?" she asked. He had no answer for her.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN Jay Simon got up slowly after his breakfast at the I-Hop. Strange how crepes with fruit and cream were starting to hang heavy on him, not leaving nearly the afterglow they used to. If you couldn't enjoy your food you might as well order your coffin. He usually had more than enough cases buzzing around in his head all at the same time. Right now, the client who'd gotten caught rooting through somebody's fridge in the middle of the night - jimmy tools hanging from his belt - was pretty much a lost cause. Lucky he hadn't turned violent when the householder held him at bay with a Louisville Slugger. At least that pathetic juvenile case - kid accused of dealing though he had less than a gram on him - was winnable. Then there was Casey Stendahl who seemed content to keep tossing dirt out of the enormous hole he'd dug for himself. If all the sinister suspicions were true, Esma Hale had been his third victim, though perps like Casey usually had a few other bodies stashed, just for fun. Simon had been prepared to entertain other possibilities for awhile, because it was hard for him to admit that any client was a total loss. The best scenario would be to assert that there'd been some kind of frame-up with Casey as innocent bystander. Next in line was a break-in gone wrong, with Casey having no prior intent to kill. Then the moment-of-madness defence, though the psychiatrist was going to rule in favor of sanity. After that you moved into the chump’s territory of serial killer or murderer for hire. Most of the options offered little hope of leniency and some of them guaranteed a life sentence. What bothered Simon the most was the possibility that Casey had killed to satisfy a twisted need and that defending him could put him back on the street earlier than the public interest demanded. Most defence lawyers faced this problem at some time or other - the client from hell

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who would be better to leave caged until he croaked. But even such a client deserved, and had the right to demand, the best defence that money or the legal aid coffers could offer. Simon went back to his office and started poring over the physical evidence in the Hale murder. For half an hour, he went from photo to photo, report to report, taking notes, sometimes muttering to himself. Then he paused, stared at the wall a couple of minutes, and called the Crown Counsel office. Darren Magnes was the prosecutor for the upcoming trial, and he happened to be in, a lucky stroke that needed to be celebrated because it came so seldom. "What can I do for you, Jay?" Darren asked, his tone guarded. "Esma Hale case. I don't see any blood sample reports." "The perp had no cuts on him. Blood tests would be a waste of time, since the only person bleeding was Esma Hale. We’ve got his fingerprints and footprints in her blood, so why test it?" "Anybody take samples?" "Let me check." Darren put the phone down for a couple of minutes and went through a file from the cabinet, then he picked up the phone again. "Jay?" "Still here." "They took four samples. No tests were made." "Why take samples if you're not going to do anything with them?" "I don't know. Maybe they're getting used to defence attorneys asking for useless information, so they wanted to be prepared." "Can I get tests run?" "Come on, Jay. What for?" "Maybe Esma was hopped up on something. How should I know? I just want to be thorough."

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"Grasping at straws, you mean." "You want me to contact the judge and suggest that Crown's withholding?" Simon asked. "Give me a couple of days, I'll see what I can do." "Thanks, Darren." "Just don't rattle my cage too often, Jay," Darren said. "I might bite." *

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I watched Cool Hand Luke today, the old Paul Newman flick about the con that couldn't be broken. The keepers here need their heads read letting us remand guys watch videos like that. Anyway, old Luke's supposed to be a symbol for everyman in his battle against fate, even against God. And guess who wins? God. God always wins. All I ever wanted was a little space to do a few things that seemed important, have a little pleasure, and live really simple, no hassle, with no powers-that-be stomping all over me. Drive a bread truck, watch a little TV. Everything small and undemanding so nobody would even notice me and I'd find a bit of peace. One of the cons told me today that some people will do anything to get into the papers, wink, wink, and I wanted to throttle him on the spot because there never was a single desire in me for any kind of fame. Did she make me angry? Did she try to send me back out into the storm, only I knew I'd never make it back to the truck? Was I planning to rob her but she resisted, and why would I rob her anyway because I may not make much but I didn't want any more than a roof and a few square meals. It comes down to the fact that there wasn't any motive, Jay, and that's more terrifying than anything else. I wish Martin were here. Martin would unravel the mystery in five minutes flat. I miss him more than ever, but missing him won't bring him back. The last time I saw him…

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Casey paused, thinking hard, because something dark and cold was weaving itself across the picture in his mind, like a ribbon floating in a breeze on a winter's day, covering the scene for a second, then revealing it again, then covering, and he saw two people standing on a hillside, trees and grass and a cliff just beyond them, and they seemed to be angry, both angry, shouting, arms waving, then one shoving the other, shoving, shoving. He shut his book and lay down on his cot and covered his eyes with his hand. *

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Trudy Salter, drunk though she was, felt like a cliché when she knocked on Scott Horsely's door at ten past midnight. There was dead silence for about thirty seconds, then she knocked again and a few seconds later the door opened. "Hiya," she said. He shut the door in her face, so she knocked again. He opened the door and said, "You don't want the kind of trouble I could give you, Trudy. Go sleep it off someplace." "Wouldn't be bombed," she said, "if you weren't such a snot. Where you get off killing the only story that could get me out of blessed Kenderville?" "There's no story here," he said. She saw that he was wearing a burly brown bathrobe, might as well be sackcloth. The room was actually a small suite with a sitting room and a bedroom in the back. "Please," she said, putting on her best pleading look. She knew she was still holding the bottle, but he didn't seem to have looked at it. "One call to your boss, and you won't even have a job in Kenderville, let alone the big time." "I disgust you, don't I?"

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"No, I hardly know you, so you just annoy me. Go away." Drunk as she was, she managed the dizzy spell easily, not a dead faint which would have been too theatrical, just a lot of swaying, then a drop to one knee. "I think I'm sick," she said, deliberately slurring. "I'll call somebody." "No, my boss will know. He always finds out. Let me sit in that chair a few minutes, an' I'll go." He motioned for her to come in, but she stayed where he was until he took her arm and half carried her in, depositing her none too gently in an armchair. She'd measured out the amount to drink very carefully because she knew she couldn't fake drunkenness to a cop but she didn't want to lose so much of her edge that the plan fell apart. Men were inherently stupid anyway when it came to things like this, so he probably didn't suspect much. "You want some coffee?" he asked. "This suite's got a machine." "No coffee," she said. "In that case, I need to sleep. When you're feeling up to it, go back to your room. I don't want anybody seeing you here in the morning." He went into the bedroom and shut the door. Half an hour later, she got up, swaying and berating herself for not stopping before that last glass. Opening his bedroom door as silently as she could, she slid into the bed beside him. He didn't move, and she was surprised that a cop could be such a heavy sleeper. *

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Bess awoke at dawn and reached for Scott, then remembered that he wouldn't be back for a few days. Strange to be waking with the other side of the bed cold and silent. She felt a sudden pang - no reason for it, just morning and loneliness - and she found herself praying for Scott. Why

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did he have to be such a tough guy? Other cops could unbend a bit, but not Scotty, and it was hurting any chance he had to make something of the commitment they'd taken. It was almost as if he'd programmed himself to fail. *

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Scott heard the words, "Room service," through a fog and wondered how they'd known he wanted breakfast in bed. Then he was awake as the voice spoke again: "Room service." "I didn't order anything," he said, trying to sit up and bumping into an arm. "I ordered it, darling," a woman's voice said, louder than was needed. "Please use the passkey," she called to the waiter outside the door. "We're in bed." Scott got to his feet as quickly as he could but the second his feet hit the floor the waiter entered, pushing a rolling cart. The bedroom door was open. Scott turned and saw Trudy in his bed, then looked back at the waiter, who had a conspiratorial grin on his face. "I could serve it to you in bed, sir," the waiter said. "The young lady ordered for both of you." "This isn't," Scott said. "I mean I -" He grabbed some clothes off the chair and went into the bathroom. As the door shut, he heard Trudy say to the waiter, "Sorry about that. Can't understand why he's shy. It's not as though you'd tell his wife or anything, would you?" Perfect setup. He'd let her into his suite, and she'd made sure the waiter would remember the situation. Now all that was left was the blackmail pitch, and he couldn't believe she'd snowed him so easily. He got dressed, then went out hesitantly. The waiter was gone. Trudy was in bed, munching on a piece of toast with jam. "Happy now?" he asked her.

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"Very." She grinned. "You want money?" She frowned. "Of course not. I want what I've already asked you for - an exclusive on this case." "You'd go to this kind of trouble just for an exclusive?" "There's something strange going on, and I want a ticket to ride." "Or?" "Do I have to spell it out?" she said. "No. What I should do right now is arrest you for trespassing." "You let me in. I even paid for the room service." She smiled again, still keeping the sheet up around her throat, for which he was grateful. "I'll think it over," he said. "If you call my wife before I've made up my mind and your exclusive is gone." "So what should we do now?" she asked. "Just make sure the door's locked when you leave," he said, and he walked out.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN "Was this a whole club of them or just some unofficial little mob?" Scott asked Harlan Smithers, the retired principal of Casey Stendahl's high school. If Ruell Janzen was right that Casey ran with a racist crowd, a high school principal should know something. "These kids were too young to have put a racist plot together themselves. Most of the influence came from old Ezekiel Hawke who'd gotten it from his daddy's involvement with the Clan." Smithers was a thin man, the kind who could go on being very old for a very long time without ever seeming to lose his fire. "How did you deal with it?" "How do you deal with a ghost? Hawke had kids over to his place but there was never a complaint and hardly anyone else ever saw him. There was nothing I could do. Anyway, I retired the year Martin died, because I wasn't in the loop with these kids, and I was worn out. Anything I heard was always long after the fact and mostly hearsay anyway. Probably should have tried to stop it somehow, but I didn't have the energy. Last year of my contract, and I was winding down, so anything I might have done would probably not have mattered much." "Did they operate in the school?" "No, they usually went up to Ezekiel's. Even baiting Martin was never on school grounds, and I didn't hear a thing about it until after he was dead." "Casey was involved, though. At what level?" "Not the leadership. Casey was always pretty much of a follower, a hanger-on." "But they all baited Martin, so any one of them could have killed him." Smithers fell silent, as if he were thinking deeply, the clock in his dark wood study ticking loudly, feeding Scott's impatience.

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"Mr. Smithers?" "What? Oh, Martin's death. They ruled it an accident." "But it could have been murder." "I never knew they were baiting Martin. Like I said, it never happened at school. Martin never told anybody except maybe his parents, and they didn't do anything about it. Fear probably. If I'd known..." "What kind of kid was Casey?" "A total blank. I always said to myself when I saw him, 'That kid's got nothing inside him.’ You could look at him and swear he wasn't human." "How were his grades?" Scott asked. "Dead on average. Got his work done but there certainly wasn't any genius to it." Scott leaned forward in his chair. "I'm struggling here," he said. "It's a simple question and it should have a simple answer: Who was Casey Stendahl?" "Darned if I know," Harlan said. "You think he killed Martin?" "Him and the rest of his little tribe of monsters - sure. But you'll never prove it. I'd suggest you go home and leave this thing. People in this town are shook up enough by Casey Stendahl, and you're just stirring the pot. Nothing will come of it, you'll go, and we'll have to get our equilibrium again." "Are any of the rest of his gang left in town?" Harlan frowned. "Old Ezekiel croaked a couple of winters ago. Freddy Edwards down at the Esso station's still around, but I don't think he holds the same views anymore. It’s better if you get out of town and forget about this."

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"But I'm just starting to get interested, Mr. Smithers," Scott said. *

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It's all going in circles now, Jay, so maybe this will be the last entry, because I've got nothing more to say, at least as far as I want you seeing it. All I do is repeat myself, and that's not what I intended when I started this. Maybe I thought I could unravel the story of my life, but it's not working. Did you know I had a girlfriend once? Yes, I did. Even Martin didn't know, which is really something, because my girlfriend was his younger sister. I've been hiding her from you because she was so special. We'd meet up in the park at night and go for walks when it wasn't raining or sit under the picnic pavilion when it was. I always treated her like a princess, because she was delicate, breakable if you wanted to be a tough guy, and I never was one of those. Her name was Keri, and I didn't care about the Jew thing - she was too special. She called me "Case," which made me feel strong, and we'd talk about things I've never told you, never even told Martin, about my Dad and his evil and how I'd like to have seen him in the grave, except that I was too scared to be the one to do it. Keri and I were together for a whole year, but we never did anything except kiss every once in awhile, because it was more important for us to talk, since I'd never had anybody to share my feelings with, nobody, Jay, and then Martin found out and we had to kind of cool it, not that I blamed Martin, him being my best friend and all. *

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Fred Edwards scowled when Scott told him he was a cop from Kenderville. He was hunched over the open hood of an old Dodge Shadow, his head turned sideways just enough to see

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Scott's form without making eye contact. "I got one hour to finish this or I'm in bad with the customer," he said. "Don't know nothing about nothing, so go bother somebody else." "Like you and your friends bothered Martin Gold?" Edwards straightened up. He was thin, weasely looking, a scraggly goatee scarcely distinguishable from the grease on his face. "Don't know nothing about Martin either, except he fell and croaked." "Tell me about Casey Stendahl." Edwards started to grin. "That's what this is about. I hear Casey offed some old dame in Kenderville." "You and Casey were part of a special club here in Corbin?" Scott asked. "Just kids hanging out at old Ezekiel's. He'd give us juice and cookies, show us his gun collection, things like that." "I heard Ezekiel had some strong views." If Scott's question had struck a nerve, Edwards showed no sign. "Old people have views. We never paid much attention." "He didn't like Jews." "Who does?” Edwards said. “Take the Gold family, fat cats lived in their big old house while the rest of us scrambled for a buck." "You and Casey didn't like Martin much, did you?" Edwards scowled. "Not because he was a Jew. Martin was just a jerk, you know? Class clown or whatever. Me and Casey blew him off whenever we could or he would have driven us crazy." "He wanted to be your friend?"

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"He wanted to be anybody's friend, but he was weird, always in your face." "How'd you feel when he died?" "Didn't lose much sleep. It was just like Martin to wander off and fall over a cliff. The guy was a spas." "What if it wasn't an accident?" Edwards' face turned a cold mask. "Wouldn't be smart to get spreading a story like that," he said. "This is a small town and I need to live here." "So if it wasn't an accident, people would start thinking you were involved," Scott said. "I'm not proud of the way we treated Martin. Should have lived and let live, but we were kids, you know?" "Kids can kill too," Scott told him. "Thanks for the help." He turned to go. "You're not going to ask me about Keri?" Edwards asked. "Who's that?" "Martin's sister." "Casey said Martin was an only child," Scott told him. "Casey tells people lots of things, even believes them himself sometimes. He's not always in gear, if you know what I mean." "So there was a sister. What about her?" "Casey met her when he was about eleven. She was maybe ten. Too young even for young love, but I think that's what it was. Lasted a couple of years, then Martin warned him off. That's when Casey started hanging with kids like me. Otherwise he probably wouldn't have thought about the Jew issue at all." "Did Casey just drop Keri?" Scott asked.

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"Casey? You have no idea how persistent the guy can be. Sure, he looks like nothing, like you'd pass him in the street and not notice a thing." Edwards picked up a wrench. "Gotta get this car done," he said. "So what did Casey do?" "It was stupid of me to raise it in the first place. Look, I don't really have to talk to you, and Casey's still my friend even if I haven't seen him in a long time." Scott grinned. "Want me to mention to my colleagues that you’re running a chop shop in your spare time?" he said. "What?" "There's a big room next to your repair bay but it’s got no obvious door. Looks to me like a section of that wall there might just open up enough for a stolen car to go through." Edwards' grip on his wrench tightened, then he thought better of it and put the wrench down. "You're an outsider," he said. "Why would you want to come here and bust my chops?" "I want to know what happened to Martin Gold." "OK. Casey always wanted a best friend. The guys we hung with at Ezekiel's weren't much good for being buddies. All of us were dealing with things, you know? Anyway, Casey started thinking when he was hanging with Keri that she'd be the one. When Martin told him to stay away from her, Casey got this crazy idea for awhile that Martin might take her place, be his best buddy. He was pretty young and his thing with Keri wasn't much about sex. But Martin blew him off too on account of Keri, so Casey tried to get back with Keri, but she dumped him, maybe scared of Martin or even her parents if they ever found out. Casey, well he..." Edwards paused. "What?"

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"He stalked her. For years, followed her everywhere, watched her bedroom window at night. He never went near her that I know of, but he was absolutely obsessed." "Did Martin know?" "Sure Martin knew. Keri knew. Only people didn't know were the adults, because Martin and Keri liked to play everything close, handle it themselves." "Then Casey went to jail for the death of his father." "Martin was already dead by then, and I think Casey had been asking Keri out before Casey offed his dad. She never went with him, then she went off to university just before Casey got out." "How can I contact her?" "Try a medium, man. She died in an accident, hit and run. Look, you're blowing off my day here. Can I get back to work?" "Sure," Scott said. *

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Olivier made no attempt to hide his fury when he shouted down the hallway for Ray Lammers. Lammers, big and feeling clumsy, sensed that his body was too bulky for his commander's office as Olivier let fly. "Did nobody even ask to have the blood tested?" "I made sure they took samples," Lammers said. "Scott was primary, so I trusted his judgment. Why, what's the problem?" "Animal blood. At least half of what was on the floor came from a cow." "What?" "Somebody apparently wiped up after the murder, then replaced it with cow's blood." "Why?"

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"Get me the photographs of the scene." Olivier was breathing hard, his voice still too loud. "I can't believe this. Cow's blood?" "Get me the photos now, Ray." "They're in Scott's office. I'll find them." Ray and Olivier spread the photos on a desk. The scene had been well shot - Esma where she was, then clear footprints around the body and tracking to the back door, all from the same shoes. "What strikes you about this, Ray?" Olivier said, more softly now. "Search me." "How many footprints?" Ray counted them. "Twenty-two or so. It's kind of hard because some of them overlap." "Not enough. This is a scene of intense energy and great violence, but look at how defined the footprints are, scarcely any smudging at the edges. The floor must have been slippery, but there are no signs of sliding. And this floor would have been trampled after that kind of violence. Not just twenty-two well-defined footprints." "What does it mean?" "It means someone killed Esma Hale, wiped up all the footprints, poured cow's blood on the floor, then made twenty-two new footprints." "Why would Casey do that? I could see him wiping it up, but why put down fresh blood and walk across it?" "Casey wouldn't. Somebody else would." "You're kidding me," Lammers said. "You've got to be -" "Phone Scott and get him back here right now. I have to call the prosecutor."

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN Scott knew he was driving too fast even for police standards, considering the fact that his siren and light were off and his car was unmarked. The meeting with Olivier had not gone well, and pulling this case out of the fire would probably be the only thing that could save his job. Animal blood. He should have spotted that the murder scene was too defined, not enough slips and smudges. Now everything in the case was up for grabs. This was the sort of situation most homicide cops trained themselves to avoid and remembered for the rest of their lives if it ever happened to them. Overconfidence was a fool's game in any murder, because things are rarely as cut and dried as we want them to be. Sure, he'd been uneasy, but he should have understood why, should have noticed how artificial the murder scene was, should have remembered that murder suspects are almost never just waiting for the plucking. Above all, he should have asked Olivier to invite major crime from the big city as soon as he knew what they were dealing with. The options now were almost uncountable. Even the most obvious ones had little side trails running out of them that could keep an investigator guessing forever. Casey himself could have wiped up the blood and replaced it with essence of cow, but where would he have found cow's blood and how did such a deed match with the deranged killer motive that they'd been working with? Casey would have had to have planned the whole thing, doing the cow routine to throw off the cops. The most reasonable assumption was a second person was involved, maybe even a third. Casey could have been part of the plot too, though it was hard to see why he'd consent to leaving his own deliberate evidence at the scene. Or Casey could have been a dupe, either by coincidence

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or by some plot that had brought him to Esma Hale's place without him being aware of what he was walking into. If there were others involved, what was their motive? The child thing? Inheritance? Foiled robbery? Even more baffling was the question of where they'd gone. There was only one set of footprints in the snow -Casey's. Sure, somebody could have worn Casey's boots and carried him back to the truck at the road. It was likely that Casey hadn't voluntarily made the footprints around the body. But nobody had been spotted walking out of the area, so a car would have had to pick up the murderer. Anyway you looked at it, Casey Stendahl had probably been framed. Jay Simon was already moving to get him released, and he'd almost certainly succeed. Which brought the whole investigation back to square one. Scott pulled into the driveway, mud spraying, and stopped less than a foot from the front step. Using the key, he let himself in and went to the kitchen, now cleaned up so well that no one would believe what had happened there. Bess would be at him for not checking in with her first, but he'd driven as fast as he could from Corbin when he got the call. He couldn't remember exactly how he'd convinced Olivier to let him have two hours alone in the house before the major crime squad got there from Vancouver. Once major crime started operating, Scott's role would little more than a gofor. Bess could wait. Redeeming the case couldn't. Sinking to his knees, he began looking along the edges of the room, under the base of the cupboards and sink that ran along one side, then under the fridge and stove and through the pantry that covered the other side. Somehow, at least one and possibly two people had killed Esma in this

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room and then found a way to exit it without leaving a trace. Maybe they'd used a floor mat to stand on while they changed out of their messy clothes, but even being able to get out of the kitchen cleanly didn't explain how they'd left no footprints in the snow. Having circled the room on his knees and found nothing, he sat down on a chair in one corner and tried to recreate the scene. One or two people had killed Esma and left a mess of footprints on the floor. Then they'd stepped onto something - a mat or a piece of plywood - wiped up the footprints, and poured cow's blood on the floor. Finally - and this was a big leap - they'd gotten Esma's blood onto Casey and put his fingerprints in her blood on the wall. They'd convinced him to trample around a bit, then walk out the back door and back to his truck. Alternatively, one of the killers had worn Casey's boots. But that wouldn't work unless the murderer had carried an unconscious Casey into the room, while wearing Casey's boots, then carried Casey through the snow to his truck. The blood trail had led from Esma's body to the back door and right out to the driveway, with no sign of a change of boots. So either Casey had worn his own boots and left all the footprints, or the murderer had carried Casey into the kitchen and on out to the yard and finally to the truck. In either scenario, Casey had no blood on the bottom of his boots until he went through the kitchen or he would have left marks elsewhere. Unless, of course, Casey was the one standing on the mat, wiping up footprints, pouring cow's blood, then making new footprints. Scott felt a headache creeping up on him. The only thing that was becoming clearer every second was that Casey himself had been a prop, a convenient fall guy. Whatever they'd done to him had left him unable to resist becoming part of a frame-up. Presumably the murderers thought that the graphic scene and Casey's obvious guilt would divert the police from investigating the details too closely. Beyond those simple assumptions, nothing at all was plain.

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How had they managed to leave the house? An intense search had been made of every building on the property when officers arrived. They had found no one, nor were there any physical signs of anyone having been there except Casey. Nobody could have left the area without leaving some sign. Unless, of course, they hadn't left. Scott went to the pantry cabinet and tugged on it. Though it was bulky, it wasn't attached to the wall, and he managed to pull it away a few inches, convincing himself that no hiding spot was concealed behind it. The upper kitchen cupboards were solidly built, and no adult could have hidden in them. He opened the two doors under the sink, knowing that this spot had been checked by Lammers' people when the investigation started. Nothing unusual. One side of it was dominated by plumbing, the other was bare, maybe a cubic yard in area, raised on a platform about three inches from the floor. He noticed, with a slight pang, that a thin trail of brown had trickled from the edge of the door onto the platform surface inside - blood, either Esma's or that of a cow. Whoever had done the cleaning had been careless. He made a mental note to have the blood tested, then he stopped in mid-thought. The trickle was less than a quarter inch across, but in the middle of it, maybe three inches from the edge of the platform, there was a crack in the dried blood - a straight-line crack. The platform surface was painted wood, a middle green that had grown mottled and streaky with age. Scott could see nothing that would have caused the blood trail to crack like that. A knife blade, maybe? He touched the wood surface next to the blood and rubbed his finger gently back and forth, feeling nothing of significance. Being careful not to disturb the blood trail, he climbed in under the sink, moving his big frame awkwardly, until he was sitting, his head pushed down slightly. With the cupboard door open

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there was enough light to see into the far corners. Moving his eyes slowly, he scanned the box he was in, looking for who knew what, then suddenly finding it. There was a doorbell button in the upper front corner, in the area most dimly lit. There were no wires coming from it that he could see. From its position, it was not likely a switch for a garbage disposal. Feeling strangely hesitant, maybe because of the awkward confinement of his position, he pushed the button and instantly felt himself descending. In panic he grabbed for the edge of the platform, but it was slipping away from him rapidly as the part he was sitting on sank one foot, then two, then three, and he wasn't in the kitchen anymore. He could hear a faint humming from below as if it were the sound of an elevator taking him into a mine shaft. The light faded, then something closed above him and he was thrown into total darkness. His instinct was to reach out for something solid, something that wasn't moving, but common sense told him that was how you could lose an arm. Scarcely a half minute had passed, and he felt like he'd descended twelve feet or so, when the platform came to a gentle stop and lights went on. *

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"You're free," Jay Simon said. Casey stared at the bailiff as he removed the shackles, then stood rooted, saying nothing. "The prisoner is free to go," the judge said again. "Come on, Casey," Jay said, pulling at Casey's arm, finding resistance, then Casey let himself be led out of the room, his body feeling like modelling clay, his will abandoned to whoever would give him the next order. Outside, Simon sat him down on one of the padded benches in the main waiting area. "Casey?" he said.

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"Yes?" "Your case has been stayed." "Why?" Casey asked. "Looks like you were framed." "No." "Yes. Somebody else did it." Casey stared at nothing, his face expressionless. "I did it." "What?" "Killed." "Shut up." Simon dragged him to his feet, holding onto his arm then rushing him out of the door and across the parking lot to his car. He unlocked it hurriedly and pushed Casey into the front passenger seat. As he got behind the wheel, he noticed a tear falling down Casey's left cheek. "Where do you want to go?" Simon asked him. "I killed." "Shut up. You didn't kill Esma Hale, so just tell me where you want to go, and I'll take you there, and we don't have to meet again." Simon started the car. "I don't want to hear whatever you think you need to tell me. I don't want to hear it. Where should I drive you?" "Home." "Your apartment?" Simon asked. "Corbin." "That's fifty miles from here, and you've got nobody there anymore. I called your boss, and he said you could have your job back as long as the court threw your case out." Casey turned to Jay, his blank eyes saying nothing as usual. "I killed him."

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Jay stared back, thinking hard. "And you went to jail for it. What happened between you and your father is water under the bridge now. Let it go, Casey." "Sure," he said, a smile forming on his lips. "It's gone, and I can start fresh." He turned to look out of the window as Jay pulled out of the parking lot. "You lie low for a couple of days, Casey. The press missed what just happened, but they'll be all over you soon. Don't answer the door. If I need to phone you, use your call display. Don’t just pick up. You got that?" "You'll talk to the press for me?" "I'll tell them it was a frame-up, and we know you didn't do it. I'll make sure they know the murderer did something to you so you don't remember what happened. That'll give you some sympathy in the public eye." "Who killed Esma Hale?" Casey asked. "Cops are working on it." "How'd the killer frame me?" Casey looked confused. "I don't know yet." "Stupid of the court to let me go like this." "You didn't do it," Jay said. "Sure, I know."

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN With the major crime people all over everything, there didn't seem to be much point in dogging their tracks, so Scott booked off a couple of hours in mid-afternoon and went home. He found Bess sweeping out the carport. She looked at him in surprise as he turned into the driveway rolled down the window of his car. "I thought you were going to be gone until Saturday." He noticed the pleasure on her face at seeing him, and attempted a grin. "The cat's back and your play time is over." "What's going, Scott? You look terrible." He never could hide his feelings very well. "I blew apart a perfectly good case and helped a possible serial killer get off." He got out of the car. "What serial killer?" He pulled his suitcase out of the trunk and walked toward the house, suddenly not feeling like saying another word, wanting to climb into bed and pull the covers over his face. Inside, he put the suitcase down and sat on their battered sofa, staring, his smile utterly gone. "What's going on, Scott?" she asked again, sitting next to him then rolling against his chest. He put his arm around her and held her for a few seconds. "Casey Stendahl didn't do it. I found a secret room under Esma Hale's kitchen. Leads to the barn. There's a trap door under some hay." "So, what does that mean for your case?" "It means I should have had Casey checked for drugs. He said he didn't remember what happened at the Hale place, seemed confused. Said he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder or neck. All

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we did was a blood alcohol test. How much you want to bet there was a needle mark on him? It means I blew the whole thing. "Somebody drugged him? Why would anybody go to such elaborate lengths?" "The murder was supposed to be gory. The messy scene would distract us from what was really going on in that house. With a suspect ready at hand, we might not have pursued the motives for the killing." He held her more tightly. "The room under her kitchen - it had a studio, a bed, fancy video cameras "Whose was it?" "Lammers is picking up Walter and Alice Scolari. Walter was the guy who did the carpentry work on Esma's house so he must have known about the room.

"Alice is Esma's daughter,

Scotty. She couldn't have been in on the killing." "Probably wasn't, but Walter was, I'm sure of it. If we arrest them together, some sparks might start flying." "You shouldn't be here," she said. "Go finish your case." "Major crime's doing most of the legwork. I'll go back in an hour or so and start in on the Scolaris." She stared at his face which looked tired and sad. "This case is eating you, Scotty," she said. "I should have been on this long before now. Major mistakes all over the place. Olivier's going to have my head." "You found the room." "Yipee,” he said wearily. “One good deed doesn't make up for half a dozen goof-ups." "You've done top notch work for years. Everybody has an off day.”

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"It's this crazy..." He rubbed his free hand over his red-lined eyes. "I‘ve been having trouble sleeping and I can't seem to find my feet since we made the change." "You shouldn’t call it ‘the change.’ Did you expect to get a whole new Scott Horsely handed to you?" "The old one was a mess. I just can't seem to get a handle on the new one." "That's because you don't talk to him enough." "And that will make me a better cop?" "A happier cop. Actually, I think we need a vacation. Maybe go to the cabin for a few days." "I thought you said you couldn't get away from the farm." "Not unless I really wanted to." He leaned his head back against the sofa and looked at the ceiling, hoping the words he needed to say were printed for him up there. "There's one more thing," he said finally. "What?" He told her about Trudy Salter. *

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Jay Simon sat alone in his favorite restaurant, his food untouched in front of him. Anyone who knew him well would have called an ambulance, because only a very sick Simon would have let his dinner get cold. But it was mid afternoon and he was the only customer. Quite a dilemma. How does a defence attorney, bound by a code of confidentiality, warn the world that his former client may well be a monster? Simon had enough experience to see the signs, especially the dead fish look in Casey's eyes, and the evasion whenever Martin Gold's name

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came up, not so much like hiding a deep secret, more like refusing to acknowledge that there had ever been a problem. The steak that had looked so inviting stared back at him now in accusation. The waiter who gave him a questioning look must have seen his hesitation, the product of too many deeds done against conscience, too many slimeballs let off because of glib and eloquent words. You're good, Jay Simon, really good. Too bad the rest of the world has to suffer because you know how to do your job. *

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I wasn't going to write another word, Jay, since there's not much point, right, what with me being found innocent. I'm angry, though, because somebody used me, framed me, you know what they did, and there are times when even Casey Stendahl has had enough. What right does anyone have to take a man's life and throw it in the dumpster so he can get off playing slaughterhouse, or whatever the stupid game this was? Killing Esma Hale, that was her name wasn't it, killing the old dame was part of this great sickness in the world, wasn’t it, Jay? Pure evil somebody called it. Some guard, I forget even what his name was, told me I'd done pure evil, which means, I guess, that there didn't have to be a motive or some kind of gain to it. Esma died just because some sicko wanted to do it. That sicko wasn't me, though, for which I'm relieved beyond words. I'm innocent, free and clear, just like with Martin and Keri, even my dad because I never meant to do him, despite the charges they laid on me. Being Casey Stendahl, the bread guy, is all I'm asking for. That, and a little peace, because the press have been knocking on my door all day, phoning so many times I unplugged the thing. I'm sure they've got tents and campers out there so they can record the very moment I finally have to break free of this place to get a few groceries.

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Who'd have thought, Jay, that nerdy little Casey Stendahl would get the whole population in a knot? Without doing a blessed thing except getting stuck in the snow and being used as some idiot's patsy. You said you figured they drugged me or something, made me into a walking zombie, then just walked me through the thing after they'd killed her. I've tried to remember more of it, but the thing's a complete blank, probably always will be. People die around me. Keri died up there at the university. Brakes went and she plowed into a building at forty miles an hour, some hole in the brake lining, they said, because I called them when I heard. I visited her there once, but she'd kind of moved on, you know how it is, she seemed to think I was stuck in the same space I'd always been and she'd advanced or something new ideas, new goals, probably new guy. Didn't bother me much because I'd pretty much gotten her out of my system. I just wanted to know she was OK, which she was, really OK, and I was glad for that. Then she died. It grieves me, Jay, that's something you've got to understand. It grieves me when the people I care about die. Everybody thinks I don't care because I can't show emotion much, but I feel it. I grieved for you, Keri. *

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Walter Scolari was belligerent. Scott had decided to start with him while Olivier, the less blunt of the two, worked on Alice separately. "How could you let that little creep go?" Walter's face looked puffy and red in the florescent light of the interrogation room. "The judge let him go," Scott said, keeping his voice mild. "He was set up." "By who?" "You, Mr. Scolari."

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"I didn't kill her. Give me a lie detector test. I'll show you." "Who built the room under the kitchen?" Scott, sitting across the table from Walter, leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "Don't know anything about a room. Esma must have had it built." "What was so important that you'd take that kind of risk, Walter?" "What risk? If Esma did anything, she never shared it with me. Or Alice." "I understand you did some renovating in her house." "Couple of years ago I rebuilt her cupboards. I'm sure there wasn't anything under her kitchen then. Then last month I repainted them, did a few other things." He gave Scott an angry look. "It wasn’t any more than that, so lay off trying to make out that I was in on whatever her business was." "You didn't like her much, did you?" "So that makes me a suspect?" "If we start asking around, are we going to find out that you and Mrs. Hale had arguments, that you'd said nasty things about her to your friends?" "You'd like nothing better, wouldn't you?" Walter said, menace in his voice for the first time. Scott sensed that this was not a man who tolerated being crossed. "How much does your wife know?" "About some hidden room? Nothing.” "They're fingerprinting everything down there, Walter," Scott said. "Unless you wore gloves, your prints could well come up, because I don't believe a word of what you're telling me about having no knowledge of what Esma was up to. For all I know, Esma might not have even been aware of the room you built."

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"I didn't build it, and you won't find my prints in it anywhere." "Where'd you get the cow's blood to pour on the floor? We figure it was a couple of quarts." Walter laughed, and Scott felt the interrogation slipping away from him so fast that it gave him nausea. "You've got nothing, cop," he said. On that point, Scott realized, he and Walter were in agreement.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN "There can't be a worst kind of case as far as our public image is concerned, Scott," Olivier said. "Multiple suspects, ambiguous evidence. Scott looked across at Ray Lammers, who'd left his smirk outside. Ray was staring at the floor. "There were no prints on anything at all in the secret room?" Scott asked. "How can that be?" "These people must have wiped down the original construction and always used rubber gloves after that,” Olivier said. Olivier's office was starting to look more lived-in now that he had pictures and documents on the walls, and his in-box was getting thicker than his out-box. "How did they build the room without stirring up any curiosity?" Ray asked. "At the very least, Esma would have had to know." "Except that two years ago she went on a six month trip back to her old haunts on the prairies," Olivier said, the lost "h" on "haunts" betraying his francophone heritage. "While she was gone, the farm was deserted because she sold off all her animals before she left." "It would take most of that six months for one man to do that kind of construction," Scott said. "What was Walter Scolari doing during that period?" "His invoicing shows that he was involved full time in other renovations," Olivier said. "Ray checked the jobs he did and confirmed that he had no time to build anything as elaborate as a secret room during that period." "Then he hired somebody."

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"Not locals, I wouldn't think. Probably paid outside workers to keep quiet and sent them packing when they were done," Ray said. "They could have lived at Esma's and had food brought in." "What about the elevator mechanism?" Scott asked. "It was adapted from a garage door opener," Olivier said. "I doubt we can trace the mechanism back to the point of purchase." "What did they use for building materials?" "All wood and wood panelling except for the floor which was cement. The workers probably used a portable mixer so that there wouldn't be a record of a truck being sent to Esma's farm. They likely brought all the materials in with their own vehicle. "Excavating machinery?" "Who knows?" Ray said. "I'm off to check out purchases and rentals in a fifty mile radius, but I wouldn't hold my breath." It was hard for Scott to believe that it had only been twenty-four hours since he'd been summoned back from Corbin to find his case in tatters. He felt as if he'd been in crisis mode far longer than that. They'd had to let Walter and Alice Scolari go after Scott had interviewed Alice later the previous afternoon and discovered only what appeared to be a terrified and thoroughly confused woman who could offer no explanation to anyone. So now all the suspects were back on the street, and the case showed every sign of being unsolvable. "Where do we go from here?" Scott asked.

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"Major crime is testing for possible blood marks on the floor of the secret room," Olivier said, "but they think it was scrubbed after the murder. Ray is following up on Walter's business as well as the customs records. I'd suggest you take a week off." "But I'm primary on this case." "I'll care for your duties," Olivier said, his face like stone. "Are you bumping me?" "Just a week, Scott. The press are showing their normal insanity, which is why you had to come in the back way this morning. Leave the area and let things settle for awhile." "I know I blew the case, but - " "This is not an option, Scott," Olivier said. Lammers had the hint of a smile on his face. "What about the Martin Gold case up in Corbin?" "You may continue it when you get back, but I want you totally away from police work for a week. Maybe you can bring us back a new perspective on Esma Hale's murder." "And not embarrass you anymore with the press?" Scott said. He got up and left the room. *

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Trudy Salter often used danger to remind herself that sanity was relative. She knew she was too old for stunts like climbing up to third floor balconies, but the apartment offered too many hand and footholds to dissuade her. One last leg swing, and she was there. For a few seconds, she stood motionless, understanding that the real foolishness was about to begin, and that turning around climbing the whole way back down would probably be much safer. Taking a breath, she knocked loudly on the glass of the patio door. Two seconds, and the curtain whipped open. Casey Stendahl stood there, his face expressionless. "What do you want?" he said through the glass. She could scarcely hear him.

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She held up her press card. "Go away," he said. She motioned for him to open the door, and, surprisingly, he pulled it back a couple of inches. "I'm not here to hound you, Mr. Stendahl," she said. "The police let you go, and I can help you a lot." "How?" "I can get your story out to the people who need to hear it. Right now the public have no reason to believe you're innocent. For all anybody knows, you were released on some technicality even though you're guilty as sin." He showed a trace of a smile. "Do you have any idea how guilty sin is, Miss..." "Salter. Call me Trudy." He stared at her for a few seconds, then opened the door the rest of the way. She went inside and he followed her. The apartment was about what she expected - Spartan furniture, battered TV, no pictures on the walls, dishes in the sink, clothes on the sofa, the old shag rug crying out for a good steam cleaning. She chose a cracked leather armchair, and he pushed clothing aside to sit on the sofa. "I'm a bit low on supplies," he said, "so I'd rather not offer you anything." "Fine. Let's just talk." "What about?" he asked. "You. This case." "And what's that going to do for me?" "Give you a chance to tell the world the truth. Do you really want to walk the streets with no one knowing why the cops let you go or whether or not they made a mistake doing so?"

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"How do I know you're not going to shaft me with some kind of 'Meet the Dark Soul of Casey Stendahl' column?" "Because I won't,” she said. “You have my word." He gave a little snort. "Word of a newspaper reporter. Great." "You can trust me," she said. "You can hurt me." "How about if I run the column by you before I publish it? I could phone you. Two rings, then I'll hang up, then call you right back." "No need. I've got caller ID. Just write down your number. I'm leaving the ringer off, but I'll call you back." She did so, then she got out a tiny recorder and turned it on. "You want to do this?" "Sure. If I decide to quit or I change my mind, you give me the tape. OK?" "Is that the best I'm going to get?" she asked. "You know it." "You're not being all that helpful." "Take it or leave it." "All right then, why don't you tell me why they let you go?" "They let me go because I didn't do it." "How did they come to that conclusion?" "Cow's blood." "What?" "They tested the blood on the floor and most of it came from a cow. The footprints from my shoes were added after Esma Hale's blood was wiped up and new blood put down."

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"Why?" "Because someone else killed her and drugged me. The original footprints would have fingered the real killers, so they re-doctored the scene to finger me." "What do you remember of that night?" He told her. "So it's a total blank from the time you started walking in the snowstorm until they woke you up in your van the next morning." "Just some strange, you know, like visions, like I was being carried, then I was lying on dirt." "And you woke up in the van with Esma's blood all over you, and blood on your boots?" "I doubt there was much left on the boots because of the snow. They didn't tell me." Trudy stared across at Casey, seeing his dead eyes, thinking about the lack of passion in his voice, a talking zombie. "Tell me who you are," she said. "What?" "I want to know about you, who you think you are, what drives you, things like that." "Casey Stendahl, bread man. I want a quiet life and I don't care to have any friends. I watch TV, and I like to keep my nose clean. That's all." "It's not much," she said. "What's the matter - don't you think you deserve more?" "Don't want more. Life is garbage anyway. I just want to get through it with as little pain as possible." His monotone made her believe him. "You grew up in Corbin, right?" she said. "How'd you know that?"

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"I'm a reporter. What happened in Corbin, Casey?" "I don't want to talk about that." "But it's most of your life's story. How am I supposed to do a column on you with what you've given me?" "I grew up. I had a bad childhood. I came here. I got busted. Now I'm free, and that makes me happy." "I heard something, Casey, about your father. Up in Corbin, where I've been for the past few days." "You’ve been checking me out? Why?" For some reason, even though she was angry at Scott, she didn't reveal that she'd followed him there. "I just wanted some background in case I got a chance to interview you," she said. "What a coincidence that you're available. Now, can you tell me about your father?" He sighed, then turned his head and looked out the window at the clouds, threatening snow again. "If you know, other people will soon. All right, I'll tell you straight what happened, but I don't want you twisting it. No murdering me in the press or anything like that." "All right." "Me and my dad, we had problems. He beat me up and put me in the hospital. Then, when I was a teenager, I was in the kitchen using a knife, and he ran at me, to hurt me or whatever, and I turned and he ran right onto the knife. I didn't do anything, he just didn't see the knife and it went right in. Killed him. I did a couple of years." "Were you angry?"

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"At him? No point 'cause he was dead. But I was mad at the system, because I never should have done any time." "Somebody else died up in Corbin, Casey. A Martin Gold?" "Friend of mine, yeah." He paused. "Want to talk about it?" "No. It's time for you to go." "I'm not sure I have enough to do you justice." "You'll do me justice," he said, his eyes empty and cold, "or you'll wish you had." He got up and showed her to the door. She was grateful he hadn’t made her take the balcony. *

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When she was gone, Casey went to the window, watching her drive off. Then he stared at the clouds for a few minutes. He'd been doing a lot of remembering lately, and the story as he'd known it was starting to flutter, as if it were a piece of fragile lace blowing in the wind, like the lace Keri used to tie to the handlebar of her bike. Martin thought it was stupid, she said, but then Martin thought lots of things were stupid. For his part, Casey liked the lace, because it excited him. Too bad nothing came of it with him and Keri. Martin always got in the way, even when he was dead. Keri thought Casey did it, as if he ever would kill her brother, because Martin had been his friend, had always been his friend. Even the clouds out there reminded him of Keri's lace. It was too bad that memory was such a hard thing to keep straight.

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The wind was colder now that he'd climbed the ridge, but Scott scarcely noticed it, his boots biting through the snow as he made for a rock crag near the edge of a thousand foot drop. There were only a few flakes falling, so visibility would not be a problem. This had always been his favorite place, though it was the first time he'd visited it in the middle of winter. From the crag a person could see forty miles across one tree covered hillside after another, yet every sign of human habitation was missing. If there was any place to re-evaluate your life, this had to be it. Scott sat on the highest rock and turned his body in a shallow arc to see the entire vista of rocks, snow and green trees, with the occasional lake as an accent point. He looked at the sky, which was hiding its blue with a thin cloud cover, and wondered whether it was possible to penetrate such a covering and find behind it more than a vague presence, to find behind it a concrete being of immense power who could speak and direct and make all things certain. "What is it?" Bess had said. "What is it that makes you ignore what you've been given?" And he truly didn’t know how to answer her. The Scott Horsely of his know-it-all past had now become the biggest intruder on his present, the long familiar Scott Horsely of blundering moves, growing depression, a marriage so blighted that the most humane thing would have been to bury it. No one wanted this apparition coming back, did they, but there it was, and all the gains Scott had made were hanging out there to dry in the cold wind. People had told him, at least those who'd found out about his decision, that old dogs don't change, you are what you are. But he'd stopped wanting to be what he was, and he'd looked

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forward to discovering a new Scott Horsely on the other side of what was happening to him. But now the hope was elusive. To his left a rabbit popped up, saw him, and disappeared again so quickly that he wondered if he'd imagined it. The peace here was no abstraction, no wishful thinking. Here on this crag, with only a momentary bunny for company, a man could find a calm so concrete that he could build his future on it, make it his reference point for everything. But it wasn't peace that he was looking for. He stared at the sky again and said slowly, "Are you there?" Foolish move asking something like that, because everyone knew God was there, and it only revealed a pathetic weakness when you found it necessary to ask. But that was the heart of it pathetic weakness, a weakness so profound that you found yourself sobbing, "Help me, help me," found yourself promising anything if only he'd rescue you from your helplessness. "Are you there?" The wind blew a bit harder, and it might have been a signal, but he couldn't be sure. It wouldn't have mattered a great deal, because he wasn't sure he was ready to receive any signals. Scott Horsely, Homicide Cop. The title had a great sound to it, a sound of strength and a complete lack of nonsense. Horsely would get the job done. The reality, of course, was that he was a small town investigator who rarely did homicides and blew them royally when they came up. Currently, he was enough of an embarrassment that he'd been sent on a week’s vacation, preferably out of town. His mind for some reason drifted back to a case he'd handled seven or eight years before, a fraud artist who'd set up a little back room operation to sell counterfeit concert tickets for events in

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Vancouver. It had taken a few weeks to find a victim upset enough to help him track down the perp's floating office, and Scott had brought the guy in for questioning and a line-up. There was no question he was guilty. By the time Scott was done, there'd been eleven identifications from victims, some of whom had been set back hundreds of dollars. But this was when the case got interesting. According to the perp, a man of twenty-seven with a college education in business admin and no other visible means of support, this case wasn't about fraud at all. It was about unwritten social contracts. When people came to this guy, he offered them a discount on tickets. His customers knew something was wrong, because he never represented himself as authorized to sell what he was selling. He simply said, "This is what I've got and this is my price." According to him, his customers entered under another set of laws when they bought his wares, not a code of honesty and guarantees but of Take-What-You-Can-Get-and-Watch-Your-Back. His customers knew the risks of fraud, but they accepted those risks by dealing with him, because they wanted a deal they could never get through normal channels. If the tickets turned out to be phoney, they could kick themselves for their lack of judgment, but they couldn't deny that they'd made a social contract under rules that were outside of the fair play boundaries they had been used to. "Therefore," he said, "I'm guilty of nothing, or my customers are all guilty with me. None of us were dealing with the normal rules, and they all knew it." Why this memory came to mind up there on the rock crag in the middle of winter in the middle of the wilderness was at first a mystery to Scott. Then he saw it with a clarity that was amazing. All of us think we simply are what we are. We cling to our identity like it's our life's blood. But identity changes with the seasons, with the environments we put ourselves into, and we

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get shaped. We do what we might otherwise never do. We live by rules that normally we would reject utterly. People are not rocks or islands, we're like oozing bits in a lava lamp, as dependent on the flow of the current as by the nature of our substance. The perp was right in his own twisted way those who buy into the land of deceit don't deserve to have the land of honesty fight to give them justice. Just like those who move to the land of religious faith shouldn't expect to live well like pagans. Feeling colder now, Scott stood on the crag, recognizing that his feet were no more than two feet from the edge and that the drop would kill him without a doubt. From here, first a body would hit a ledge about thirty feet down. There would be a bounce, then a free-fall that might take eight or ten seconds before the forest floor absorbed the shock. If the body hit a tree, it might end up dead with only a few bones broken. No one who was sane would accept such a fate or seek it out. No one with an ounce of sense would launch himself from the crag, because our urge to preserve our bleak existence is stronger than our urge to avoid its future terrors. Sick people abandon their lives. Well people never do unless it's to save the lives of others. And so, months before, with a divorce leering at him, and a soul so weary that it could scarcely force itself to waken to a new day, Scott Horsely had broken his social contract. He had ceased to be an island and had cried out to the higher power who had been waiting for him all along. Scott Horsely had abandoned the life he knew because there was nothing left for him that was worth embracing. To be sure, the language he'd used was nothing like the thoughts he was having up there on the crag. He'd given his life to Jesus and left behind his sinful ways. Not a word of suicide. Not a

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word of forsaking one social contract for another. But that was what it had meant, because living in God's world would utterly incompatible with living in his own. More snow was falling now, enough to bury him if he wasn't careful. This was no coastal valley. These mountains assumed that all who entered them understood their terms and didn't whine when calamity fell on the unwary. The locals told him this place was a bountiful mistress until you made her into a woman scorned. Then watch out. Scott remembered the reference to the lion in The Chronicles of Narnia, the bold statement that he wasn't a tame lion, had never intended to be. Like these mountains. He thought he knew then what it was that had turned him into a zombie for the past few months. He had wanted the peace and wholeness of a new life, but he didn't want its social contract. He didn't want to have to take on the prissy innocence of people who saw the raw evils of this world as things to abhor and avoid, people who would blush at an off-color joke and be totally flummoxed by a string of curses. Scott Horsely liked his hardness, liked the respect it brought him and the power that nourished his spirit. He cringed whenever anyone commented on the rumor that Scott had gotten himself religion. Next thing you knew, he'd be spending his days consuming tea and cookies with delicate senior citizens. Then he'd be letting perps off with a warning because they promised to go to church when they were free. Or he'd end up going door to door pleading for people to get on their knees and find new life in Jesus. He brushed some snow off his forehead, finding a rueful grin forming because he knew how deeply he'd just been delving into the realm of caricature. There were plenty of tough, hardy, wellrounded Christians out there, though only God knew how they could be so utterly dependent on him and yet not live like pansies. For Scott, the two things were incompatible - being your own

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man and being God's man. And the possibility that the kind of weakness he'd just been through in blowing the Esma Hales case could be a way of life There was no way he could consider coming down a few notches, being a kinder, gentler Horsely. Not without tipping the scales that held his battered self image in order. But the demands of his new life called for exactly that, called for Scott Horsely to declare himself a child of God and lover of humanity. A deeper fear lurked, and it had to do with his reaction to the murder of Esma Hale. He'd experienced what could only be called blinding fury, something that had startled him, something that had probably been the primary reason why he fumbled so much of the early investigation. Blinding fury was not an emotion for cops. You got hard because you had to. Along with his partners, he'd joked at major crime scenes, showing the sensitivity of a truck, because that's what you had to do. The anger had come from the injustice of this murder, the attack on someone who had no means of defending herself, who could have been silenced with a knock on the head or some rope and a chair. If they had to kill her, they could have done it quickly and neatly, not crowning her eighty-five years by turning her into a disgusting mess on the floor. It made him angry, angry enough to miss the very things that were shouting at him to notice. Bess told him the anger was because he was seeing things with the eyes of God now. But the eyes of God were of little value if they made you blow the case. If is possible to lie consciously to yourself, Scott knew he’d been doing that for hours up here. The problem that was disturbing his sleep and blowing his case wasn’t that he was afraid to give up his macho image or that he was too angry about Esma Hale’s murder. None of that was even close, but he couldn’t make himself dredge up the real darkness that motivated his flight from

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God. Darkness like that needed to stay buried where you hoped one day that it would be forgotten. So you made up other reasons to make yourself feel better. With a groan, he got up. For a couple more minutes he stared at the view, then he started on the hour's hike back down to the cabin. The trip back was faster, both because it was downhill and because the deeper snow gave his boots more grip. Visibility was dropping rapidly, and he wondered for a moment whether some wrong turn or fall might leave him immobilized and freezing. They wouldn't find his body until Spring. Walking more carefully at the thought, he followed the dim trail that wound down the edges of the hills, his view of the valley floor obscured by the trees, but the certainty of the trail somehow comforting. Once he startled a deer on its way up. It fled into the woods and he went on. Then, finally, the trail opened and he saw the cabin, the thin smoke from the chimney assuring him that Bess was keeping the home fires burning. He wondered what he was going to tell her.

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CHAPTER NINETEEN Scott hesitated a moment at Casey Stendahl's door. The press appeared to have lost interest, which was an obvious plus, but he was about to talk to the man without his lawyer, and situations like this could be risky. Scott's knock, when he finally braced himself to deliver it, seemed too loud, or maybe it was the cold morning that made the sound so jarring. "Go away," Casey's voice came from inside. He didn't sound particularly angry. "It's Scott Horsely, Mr. Stendahl. I was the investigator on your case." "There is no case,: he said.. “Beat it." "I need to talk to you about Corbin." The door swung open, and Casey stood there in a t-shirt and jeans, his face blank but his body showing tension - shoulders up and head extended forward. "Corbin is history," Casey said. "Why don't you just leave me alone?" "You know what they're saying about you and Martin Gold?" "What are they saying?" "They claim you baited him, did the whole racist thing. Hung out with his sister and maybe killed him because he was opposed to the relationship." Scott wondered at himself because he usually kept investigations closer to his chest. Maybe it was because he was hoping somehow to get a hint of emotion out of the man. "It's all a crock. Who'd you talk to?" "Can I come in?" Casey opened the door wider, but said nothing. Scott went in past him and sat in his ratty armchair. Casey sat down opposite him, his body stiff. "Who'd you talk to?" Casey asked.

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"Harlan Smithers, your old principal." "He never had a clue about anything. The guy’s an idiot." "And Fred Edwards, who initially told me you started bating Martin when he rejected your attempt to be his friend." "Wasn't any attempt” Casey said. “We were best friends for years." "What about Keri?" Casey stared at him for a few seconds. "I don't want to talk about Keri," he said slowly. "Martin warned you off, didn't he?” Scott said. “Fred says you stalked her." "Fred's always been a dufus." "What about Ezekiel Hawke?" Scott asked. "We hung out at his place. Strange old coot. Gave us free milk and cookies.” “He give you anything else?” “He had some guns. Taught us how to shoot targets.” "He hated Jews." Scott watched for some reaction in Casey, saw none. "Everybody's entitled, you know. I never bought into that garbage, especially since Martin was a Jew. Martin would ask me not to go over to Ezekiel’s, but I still went to hang out, you know?" "Casey, I located Martin Gold's parents this morning, and I phoned them. Martin's dad says you two started out as friends, then you started persecuting him. And Keri told her mother while she was at university that you'd regularly travel up there and stalk her." "Up at the university?" "Yes."

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"Why are people telling all these lies?” Casey asked. “Why does everybody think they have a right to lie about me?" Scott hesitated. "Sometimes, we believe things because we want to believe them or need to believe them. We think we've got the truth, but we don't." "You referring to me?” Casey asked. “You think I've created some kind of dream world in my head?" "Maybe." "Get out." Casey stood and motioned with his hand toward the door. Scott rose. "I want you to know I'm continuing to check out your past, Casey. There are a bunch of things that don't add up." "Blow it out your ear, cop." Scott made as dignified a retreat as he could muster. *

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Bess packed Scott's suitcase with a lethargy that she found hard to explain. Up at the cabin they'd been so close, so intimate, Scott acting like a newlywed, as if he'd found all his answers, as if he'd dredged solutions out of the snow. But as soon as they started back, he'd cooled, grown more distant again the way he'd been for the past few months, and she couldn't draw him out, no matter what she did. Ray Lammers had been given the Esma Hale case, something that angered Scott though he never revealed a hint of emotion about it to Bess. Quite a blow to be kicked off the biggest case of his career because of poor performance. But Olivier had at least enough sense to save some of Scott's dignity by sending him back to Corbin to track down Casey Stendahl's past.

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Unbidden, Bess had been thinking about leaving Scott, only now she knew it would be dead wrong to do so. Whatever had happened between him and Trudy Salter, she knew he'd been faithful. Trudy was known as a predator on the job and off it, so Bess couldn't justify leaving Scott, not if she claimed to have any kind of real relationship with the Almighty, who was supposed to fix things. She looked at his shirts in the case, all folded just the way he liked them, a few pair of pants underneath, socks, underwear, shaving kit, a couple of novels, a small Bible, all essence of the man in whom she'd invested her life. She could read him well in so many things, but she couldn't help him where it really counted, and she couldn't avoid the desire to cut bait and run, because it was getting so hard to see the pain in him and yet not be able to offer him anything. Whatever was lurking inside him was wearing him down. "Scott," she murmured to the empty room, "what are you holding onto?" The suitcase and its contents offered no answer. *

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The cell phone jarred him as he took the Number One Highway out of Hope. On the third ring, he picked it up. "Scott Horsely here." "Where do you get off questioning my client when his charge has been stayed and I'm nowhere around?" "Nice to speak to you too, Jay. How did you get this number?" "From your chief. Actually, I'm in his office right now." Trouble. "Can I talk to him?" Scott asked.

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There were a few bumping sounds, then Olivier's voice came on with echoes of speaker phone. "We have a serious situation here," he said. "No you don't, Chief. I'm not on the Esma Hale case anymore since you gave it to Ray. My concern with Casey is strictly what happened to Martin and Keri Gold. Esma never even came up in our conversation, and Casey didn't ask for his lawyer." "Is that true?" Olivier said to Jay beside him. "How should I know?" Jay Simon said. "Nobody invited me to be there to observe. Just tell him to keep his nose clean from now on or I'll have him appearing before the police board." "Thanks, Jay," Scott said. "I'll be a good boy from now on, I promise." "Do not contact Casey again, Scott, unless Mr. Simon is present," Olivier said. "Simon doesn't have a leg to stand on, Chief." "Just remember that we've lost one investigation and we can't afford to lose another." "So it's true," Simon said, his voice tense, "that you're investigating Martin Gold's death?" "And the death," Scott said, "of Keri Gold, who was being stalked by Casey. I don't think you appreciate how serious this is, Jay. We have four people dead, and the only common denominator is Casey Stendahl. The reason I went to see him was to warn him in case he had plans that none of us would like to hear about." "And you haven't had four of your own friends or acquaintances die since you were a teenager?" "Not by violence. Look, Chief, is there anything else or can I concentrate on my driving?" "Go ahead, Scott." Olivier's voice sounded weary. "And watch your step," Simon put in. *

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There's buzzing in my ears almost all the time now, Jay, and I'm not above admitting it's starting to spook me. I tried to go back to work this morning, but I couldn't get it together, so I had to phone in sick. The boss told me to take two weeks of sick leave, then plant my rear in one of his trucks or I didn't have to bother ever coming back again. My head aches too. Some people would suspect that I hear voices, but I don't, never have. It would be better if I heard voices, like Son of Sam, so I could blame something to blame for all this confusion. But there's just me in here - Casey Stendahl - and I'm not much into talking to myself. This Horsely character is on his way back to Corbin, and I've got half a mind to follow him there, try to set the record straight before he poisons half the town with his crazy ideas about me. I know what happened there, and those bleeding heart liars who've been slandering me don't have a clue what I suffered to keep Martin as my friend, what I went through to watch over Keri. Horsely called it stalking, as if I was some kind of a jungle animal out for a kill and a quick feed. That cop's one dangerous dude, and maybe I need to do something to stop him before he wrecks me. I could call up that Salter woman and do a "poor me" routine, get the public up in arms that an innocent man is still being hounded by the bacon boys. God only knows what they think of me already, my public I mean, the people who thought I was some freak, some sub-human piece of trash who likes to be the one to carve when he has a knife in his hand. Keri didn't like my knife, the one I used to carry in my pocket even though it used to wear holes that I'd have to sew up, and I'm not much on sewing. Then one day it fell out and I lost it. Keri didn't like it when I used to show it to her, but I just wanted her to understand how much it hurt me that she wouldn't go out, that she blew me off when all I ever wanted to do was protect her.

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I watched over her a lot, in case some goon decided to hurt her for reasons of his own, watched over her, took long hours at it even when I was tired, because you can't be too careful. Now that's all past - Keri's past, Martin's past, maybe I'm past too, because that's how I feel, like nothing I do now is ever going to fix this, like people are always going to stare at me and lock up their daughters until I've gone on my way. I thought for awhile after I got home that maybe I'd just end it, you know, only then all the screws would know they won. Just picture how Horsely would get a laugh if I did myself in, one more bad apple taken care of and he didn't have to lift a finger, the poor sap did it to himself, must have been guilty after all. Can you think who would come out to the funeral for Casey Stendahl? Talk about underwhelming. Right now, all I can see is that I've got to do something. They're taking away my life, and I'm sure not just going to let them do it. Investigate all you want, Horsely, because Casey Stendahl's going to put on his gear real soon, and your warped little case is going to die on the vine. *

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Ruell Janzen wasn't smiling when Scott walked into the station. "Back for more fishing?" he said, getting up from a chair and planting both hands firmly on the counter. "Were you planning to cooperate with me?" Scott asked. "I know this is your turf, and I don't have much to work with, but my gut is saying Casey Stendahl's a time bomb. I really need your help." "The old soft-sell, right? Win the chief's sympathy and you'll have him eating out of your hand." "No soft-sell. I was told to do a job, and I'd like to work with you instead of against you."

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"Well we've got plenty of wild geese around here," Janzen said. "Might as well be you hunting them as anybody. What do you need?" "More contacts. Other people who knew Casey from high school or just had some kind of regular association with him." "I gave you a high school principal - " "Who seemed a bit out of touch. And Fred Edwards isn't anything like a reliable witness." "You saying I'm being uncooperative?" Janzen was starting to squint. "I'm saying you think this is all a waste of time, so why try hard?" Scott gave him a level gaze and Janzen looked away. Score one for Horsely. "I'll get you more names. Come to think of it..." He paused. "Debby Stevens. She was a secretary at the high school. Always got more than involved in the students' lives, like she was a den mother or something." "Where can I find her?" "Nursing home. I'll write down the address for you. Last I talked to her, she was still really sharp, but hurting from arthritis. How much you want to bet she can remember Casey's shoe size." He pulled out a phone book and looked up her address, writing it on a pad. "Thanks." Scott took the piece of paper from him. "Look, forget that crack about not trying. I'm trying to cure myself of my big mouth, but it's taking longer than I thought." "No need to grovel," Janzen said. "When you're right, you're right. I think this investigation's full of garbage, so you'll have to prod me every once in awhile. I deserved the jab." He gave a half-grin, but Scott could see the resentment in his eyes. If anything came of this case, Janzen would be seen as the goat for not investigating it better when it happened, and he didn't look like the kind of man to relish the prospect.

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Scott pulled his rental into the parking lot of the nursing home, choosing one of the couple dozen spaces available. The place was small and shabby looking, with an air of neglect that reminded him of the police station he'd just left. He went through the smudged glass front door to the reception counter. No one was there, so he rang a bell, summoning a harried-looking woman who appeared to have dressed on the fly that morning. "I'd like to see Debby Stevens," he said. "Why?" She gave him a look that was half suspicion and half frustration for having been called away from whatever she'd been doing. Scott knew better than to reason with her. He pulled out his badge. "Police investigation. I'd appreciate it if you directed me to her." That irritated her even more, but she led him to a small room with a bed and a dresser the only furniture. An elderly woman sat in a wheelchair. Her back was turned, and she was looking out the window. The receptionist left without a word. "Debbie Stevens?" Scott said. "Yes, who is it?" The chair backed up, a small motor whirring, then turned. She was a small woman, very wrinkled, but her smile told of a strong inner life still beating inside her. "I'm Scott, Horsely, ma'am." he said. "A police officer from Kenderville." "Oh dear," she said, smiling even more. "Was I speeding in my wheelchair again?" "Maybe you were, but I'm here about something else. I'm trying to track down some information on one of the students you knew at the high school - Casey Standahl." Her smile froze. "I was wondering," she said, "how long it would be before somebody came to ask about him. Who'd he kill now?"

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CHAPTER TWENTY I never told them I had a car, the stupid jerks should have checked with motor vehicles. I keep it in storage, Jay, and I use it when I need to, which isn't most of the time because I have the bread truck or else good old shanks pony. Shanks pony? You don't know what shanks pony is? That's feet, Jay, plain, ordinary feet. So I got into Corbin about eleven in the morning and checked into a fleabag motel, only one in town. Horsely's probably staying here too, but I haven't seen him. Town's no better than I remember it, and that was as bad as any place could get, all ingrown, like incest gone wild. None of these rubes ever had a thought of their own, don't paint their houses, all their lawns looking like unwashed dogs. The clerk at the motel didn't recognize me, but I remember him from my trial over the death of my dad. This guy used to sit in the third row back, right in the middle, and he'd keep staring at me like I was some kind of forbidden lover or something, like maybe he'd start drooling all over his chin. That's the way it is with some people, they can't turn their eyes away. Now that I think of it, I can't recall a single person here who stood by me when I went down for the count. They all thought I murdered my old man out of pure spite, and I'm sure some of them were remembering how Martin died and wondering if it was an accident. I remember seeing the paper after my charge got dropped to manslaughter, and the editorial said it all, "They should have burned him." Or maybe it didn't say that exactly, but that's what I remember. I paid my price for good old dad. So Horsley will come back from his travels, and he'll see me at the restaurant or in the street, and he'll say...

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What do you think he'll say? Maybe, get out of town. Maybe, get out of my way. Maybe, watch your step or I'll have you back in the slammer. He's going to know that I'm dogging him, because I sure wouldn't come back to this hell-hole on my own, not with the kind of history I've got here, the number of people who might be glad to see me floating face down in a pool of my own blood. I wish Keri was alive. She could have come back with me, and the two of us would have faced the whole town down until they all realized that I'm a righteous dude who wouldn't hurt a fly, or whatever. The two of us could have been something here, because she loved me with a passion that you never see in ordinary folks, and the amazing thing about it, Jay, was that she was mine. Totally. She's still mine, and no town full of bigots is going to take her away from me. *

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Debbie Stevens had a power to her that belied her wrinkled, tiny form. Scott could well imagine her in her working days, running the high school office with intelligence and a complete lack of nonsense. She was quite willing to talk about Casey. "Nobody asked me anything after the death of his father," she said, the wheelchair dwarfing her. "I thought of going down to the trial and telling what I knew, except that I didn't really know anything about his father, just about the kind of person Casey is." "What kind of person is that, Miss Stevens?" Scott asked her, keeping his voice soft. "Don't patronize me, young man. I know what you want, and I don't need prompting." "Sorry.” He found himself smiling under the rebuke. “Go ahead, then. I'm all ears." "He had this blank way about him, no emotions ever. I thought he was autistic at first, but he's not. So when I heard about the boys going off to Ezekiel Hawke's place, I called a bunch of them to meet with me about it."

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Scott gave her a look. "I know," she said. "My job title was 'secretary,' but the principal was a do-nothing, so I took some liberties. Anyway, I called them in after school and tried to explain to them that Ezekiel was a nasty racist old S.O.B., pardon the French." "Were they impressed?" Scott asked, resisting the impulse to smile. "Not in the slightest. But Casey..." She trailed off, staring past Scott. "Yes?" "It was the first time I'd ever seen it, and maybe not too many other people ever did. For a second there was such a bolt of hatred that came out of his eyes that it gave me a chill. Then it was gone." "Did you ever see the look again?" "A couple of times when he got in trouble at school. He usually didn't actually direct it at anybody, just kind of let it slip out of him and then he'd get control of it again." "You think it was important, this look, I mean?" Scott asked. "If it wasn't important, I wouldn't be telling you. You own a dog?" "Yes." "You know dogs?" "I've had some experience," he said. "Ever been in the presence of a dog and you just know he's going to bite you even though you couldn’t actually point to any sign that he was vicious? You just know. That's how it is with Casey. He's very dangerous." "Do you have any other evidence?"

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"After Martin died, just before Casey killed his dad, he came to talk to me, or he was hanging around or something. I asked him what he wanted standing there like that, and he didn't want anything, of course, they never do when you ask them. But we got to talking, and he asked me if I knew how much it would cost to get somebody a memorial gravestone. I told him I didn't, suggested he call the funeral home. Then I asked him who the stone would be for..." She paused again. "It was for Martin, wasn't it?" Scott said. She nodded. "He said he'd been feeling really bad about Martin. It wouldn't go away. He thought if he could get a stone for him, maybe he could sleep at nights. I asked him why he was taking so much responsibility for something that had been an accident, and he gave kind of a sickly grin and said, 'accident,' as if he was surprised to hear me using the word." "He didn't think it was an accident?" "He said to me, 'Martin didn't deserve it. That's why I've got to get the stone.'" "Are you sure those were his words?" Scott asked. "Yes. He clammed up after that and never did bring it up again. I guess the stone was too much money for him." "What do you think happened to Martin?" "Casey or one of his friends killed him." "Why?" he asked. "Casey tried to be his buddy at the beginning, but I think it was only because he'd fallen for Martin's sister Keri. Martin rejected him, so Casey started calling him Jew-boy. If Martin was becoming a threat to Casey's relationship with Keri, you'd have a good motive for murder." "Keri died too," Scott said.

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"I know." She looked up at him from her chair, her eyes troubled. "I hope you can find some way to stop Casey Stendahl before anybody else dies." *

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Scott drove back to the motel about eight that evening. He'd talked to several other people who knew Casey or his parents or Martin's family. All of them seemed baffled by Casey, by the coldness of his manner and the way death seemed to surround him. Nothing much of what he heard was tangible enough even to continue his investigation let alone get near an arrest. Where Casey went, people died, but only in one situation had Casey been tried and convicted, and even then it could have been an accident. Scott recognized that he was hungry, so he went over to the restaurant at one end of the shabby motel complex and sat down in a booth. He barely paid attention to the menu or his order and was startled when the food arrived. Clearly, he told himself, it was time to get Casey off the brain for awhile. The guy was starting to consume him. Once he looked up from his burger and thought he saw someone peering through the front window, but whoever it was vanished almost immediately. Other than himself, there were no customers in the place, and he started feeling lonely, not in any depth-of-despair sort of way, just a sense that it would have been good to have someone to talk to. He finished eating and went to his room to call Bess. "Hi," she said, her voice sounding drowsy. "It's only nine o'clock," he said. "Were you asleep?" "Just bored,” she said. “I dosed off in front of some dumb comedy on TV. But I'm really glad you called. Is everything all right?" "Fine. Any progress on the Esma Hale case?" he asked.

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"Ray Lammers isn't the kind of guy to keep us updated, Scotty. Why don't you forget Esma Hale for awhile? "Because she's the biggest failure of my career." "Any luck up there in Corbin?" she asked. "Some. I've got more of a picture of Casey, and he doesn't look any better to me. There's something really sinister about the guy." "Is this Scott Horsely I'm talking to, Mr. Facts and Figures and Let's keep Speculation Out of This?" "The very same,” Scott said, “and most people think I've got about as much depth as a wading pool. But Casey spooks me because he's the kind of guy who never lets a thing stick to him. He's a Teflon man." "Is he really smart enough to do four murders and only serve time for one of them? Casey Stendahl's a bread man, not a professional killer." "Some people just have a knack." "I miss you, Scotty,” she said. “I wish you were back here beside me this minute." "Couple more days and I'll have to wrap this up, probably without any case to pursue. I'm having second thoughts, Bess." "About what?" "Being a cop. You lose your edge and nothing's any good anymore." "Why have you lost your edge?" She asked "I feel like I'm fighting something off, like something's fogging my brain." He breathed out heavily. "Some cops just lose it, no shame in that. Only shame is in keeping on when you know you're a liability."

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"I don’t think you’ve lost anything. You missed some things with Esma Hale, but you've cleared so many cases they should be giving you a medal." He smiled. Bess would rather die than show a lack of confidence in him. He was grateful. "Gotta go. Maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow." "Just make sure you stay away from Ms. Salter,” Bess said. “It seems to me she'd like nothing better than to help you get lucky tonight." "She's nowhere to be seen. Honest." "I love you, Scotty." "I love you too." They'd said the words so often that they'd become a refrain. *

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Ray Lammers was in a rage. The major crime people from Vancouver had turned him into an errand boy. Sure, they let him sit in while they grilled the Scolaris again, and they let him ride with them while they talked to everybody who's had any contact with Esma Hale, but they made it plain that they wanted his ears open and his mouth shut. By the end of two days, Ray was ready to kill somebody himself. Olivier was less than sympathetic. "You're a social climber, aren't you, Ray?" he said. "You love the limelight. This might be a good experience for you. Watch them and learn." Learn what? How to be a big city know-it-all? Nothing they were doing was anything special. The only thing they had going for them was a lot more man-power and a lot of specialized equipment. They put a bug on the Scolari home and Walter's office. Some accounting guy compared Esma's credit card receipts with the orders she had made over the net, then audited Alice

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Scolari's financial records at the store. None of this was surprising, and Ray could have handled the whole thing himself. About 4:30 the second afternoon, he excused himself and drove around in his car for awhile, trying to put some physical and emotional distance between himself and major crime. It was raining again, no sign at all left of the big storm the night of Esma Hale's murder. Ray remembered the scene in that kitchen - how could he ever forget it - and it was still almost impossible to connect what he'd seen with the living, breathing human being who had once lived there, who'd made tea for herself and knitted little sweaters for the grandkids. He'd had dreams, when he got out of the academy, that he and Scott would take some small town by storm. They made a perfect team. Scott was a thinker, Ray was a man of action. It should have worked so well. They'd both started in Kenderville, and they'd both stayed, but Scott had studied more, had a few more lucky breaks, and now Ray worked for him like some ignorant lackey. Scott never let him forget the difference either, always giving him those looks that said, "Don't forget your place, Ray." Driving usually calmed him, the rolling hills and small farms making him feel like he was living in Mayberry, and Andy and Barney would be greeting him when he got back to the station. He'd never asked for much, just some kind of place where he was known and understood, where he could hold his head up. Scott had denied him that dream. And today even driving did nothing to dampen the anger. Suddenly he wondered where that little weasel Casey Stendahl had gotten to. The only thing he and Scott agreed on was that Casey was bad news. Of course, it would be Scott who'd announce the truth about Casey to the world, and Ray would just smile like a faithful sidekick

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should. Maybe a trip over to Casey's place wouldn't be a bad idea, just drop in for a chat, maybe put some fear of God in the guy. When he got there, nobody was home, so he knocked on the apartment manager's door. A large scowling woman told him Casey was gone for a week. He'd asked her to pick up his mail for him. "Where's he gone?" Ray asked. "Told me he was going home. Didn't say where it was." Casey Stendahl and Scott Horsely together in the small town of Corbin. Now that might generate some fun.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE So I went down to visit Fred at the Garage, we used to call him Freddy when I was a kid Freddy Edwards. His face lost all its color when he saw me, and I had this incredible rush, Jay, like I was doing two lines of coke real fast, only I don't use that stuff anymore. Freddy, white as a piece of cod because he knew about me, because he was afraid of what he thought I could do. "I thought you was in jail," he said. "They let me go," I told him. "Don't you listen to the news, Fred?" "You killed an old lady." "Was framed, you mean. Judge freed me because somebody set me up." I could tell Fred was having a hard time processing this, and it made me feel good enough to think about maybe telling him I'd escaped and was about to start on a Natural Born Killers routine. That would have got his juices flowing. "What are you doing here?" he asked me. I told him it was a free country and I was on vacation like one of those jet-setters. "No jets landing around here," he said, trying to grin, trying to loosen up, because I could see it bothered him to let me have so much power over him. "What have you been doing?" I asked him. "Running this place. It's mine." "You make a living pumping gas and fixing cars?" I asked him. It looked to me like there wasn't enough population to keep anybody in business in Corbin except the grocery store. Never had been. "I moonlight a bit," he said. "What at?"

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"This and that," he said. So it was clear now that I was a stranger to him, some blast from the past who only made him worry, not like I was a friend anymore. "Ezekiel still around?" I asked. "Died. He was real old even when were kids." "Everybody dies," I said. There was hesitation in his eyes then, like he wanted to ask me but he didn't dare. "You're wondering if I did Martin, aren't you," I said. "Keri too." "No, Casey, nothing like that. Friends don't ask." "We used to be friends," I said. As I spoke, I saw the fear come back into his eyes. I half expected him to fall at my feet. *

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The phone rang early, maybe six-thirty, and Scott had to force himself awake. "Yeah?" The line had a bit of a buzz to it. "Trudy calling. You sure bounce around. What are you doing back in Corbin?" He hung up the phone without answering her. What he'd heard the day before from Debbie, the retired high school secretary, had woven itself into his dreams and had probably made some kind of sense while he'd been asleep. Now all he could remember of the dreams was the disembodied face of Casey Stendahl moving from deadpan to fury to deadpan again. Dreams couldn't help him. He still had nothing definite on Casey, and the clock was ticking. Even more disturbing were the other dreams. He hadn’t let himself think about Terry for a long time, and it frightened him that those dreams were coming back now.

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Wearily he got up and showered, then went down to the restaurant for breakfast. The place looked even shabbier in the daylight, like the set for some modern gothic movie where the monster jumps out from behind the booth and eats the patrons before devouring the food they left behind. The waitress looked tired. She had a bruise on her cheekbone, and Scott was tempted to question her about it, but he knew that in a town this small somebody probably already had. If not this bruise, the one before. "You having the special?" she asked. "Maybe, if you'll tell me what it is." "Told you yesterday,” she said. “Special never changes." "I think I'll have the buckwheat pancakes." She showed no sign that she was interested in conversation. "Suit yourself," she said, already walking away. "Special's cheaper." For a second, Scott was struck with a pang of loneliness so acute that he almost gasped. She reminded him of his hometown, a place called Downes, bigger than Corbin but almost as tired of life. He and his brother used to find pop bottles and earn enough for a meal at the diner. Other kids bought candy, but to Scott and Terry the diner was like a magnet, because only grownups usually went there - rich ones at that. The waitress was always sardonic at best and usually just plain rude. Terry, he Scott squeezed his eyes together in mid thought. Memory wasn't always a helpful friend, and he knew he had better things to occupy his mind than mental pictures of he and Terry growing up. Until the food arrived, he concentrated on what he'd heard the day before, trying to synthesize it into something significant, a pattern maybe, but he failed on all counts. Half way through his pancakes, he heard a voice behind him. "Tastes good, I bet."

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His mind was used to reacting quickly, but it took him a full three seconds to place the voice. "What are you doing here, Casey?" he asked, not turning his head. "Same as you. Scouting around. Judge says I'm free. No probation, no nothing, 'cause you screwed up." Casey came out of the booth behind Scott and sat down across from him. "It's not smart for the two of us to be sharing the same room, Casey," Scott said slowly, looking at the man and seeing the blank nothingness in his eyes. "I'm a citizen just like you, cop." He said it evenly without a hint of menace in his tone. "You're sitting in my booth, and until I pay the bill this is my turf." "Resentment, Horsely?" he asked. "Why don't you tell me why you're so far out of your territory." "You know what I'm doing here, and interfering with me is going to land you an obstruction charge. How did you get to Corbin, anyway?" "You're only allowed to be here, Horsely, because the local cops are tolerating you, so don't come off all righteous on me." His face was blank, his tone conversational. Scott went back to attacking his food, his mind working very fast but coming up with nothing. Casey shifted in his seat, obviously expecting an argument and wondering why the discussion had evaporated. "I can go anywhere I want, you know," Casey said finally. "Why are you in Corbin?" Scott put his fork down. "What do you want coming here?" "I want my reputation back. You're smearing it everywhere you go." Scott started to smile, then felt the amusement draining, because it really wasn't very funny. "Casey, you need to understand something" he said. "There's no place for you here anymore. I've scarcely met a single person who has any doubts that you're a vicious killer. They're afraid of you,

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and they'd probably force you out of town if they could. Why don't you find another place where you're not so well known?" "And let you go on making me look like dirt?" "I'm just asking questions, Casey. If you think you look like dirt, you must have looked like that before I arrived. Let's be reasonable." He tried to soften his expression. "If you're innocent, you're not going to help your cause roaming all over Corbin. It makes you look bad. Just go home and let me do my job. I'm not planning to railroad you into an arrest. In fact, I'd just as soon convince myself that you're one of the good guys." "Save the PR talk for the press, cop," he said. "Doesn't wash on me." He got up and walked out of the restaurant. *

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Bess took the phone call with irritation, because she'd been cleaning her boots on the back porch and now she'd tracked up half the kitchen. "Have you heard from Scott?" Ray Lammers asked. "Not since yesterday," she said. "When's he coming back?" "He said he needed at least a couple more days." "Look, Bess, Casey's been seen up in Corbin. The local cops were worried and phoned me. Scott's out investigating, and they couldn't locate him." "He's got a cell, Ray." "Turned it off. If he calls, tell him to watch his back." "Why the sudden concern, Ray?" she asked him. "Casey's not a suspect in Esma Hale's murder, and you and Scott haven't been getting along very well."

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"Just passing on a warning, Bess." "Did you find out something, Ray? Is there something Scott should know about?" "No, nothing." His voice was flat, empty of emotion. "You can tell me," she said. "Nothing to tell, Bess. If you hear from him, let him know I'm hoping he comes back with some solid evidence." Ray hung up. Bess pressed the phone cradle and dialed Scott's cell number. She didn't get an answer. *

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So now I've got Horsely completely figured, Jay, filthy guy dragged me right out of my booth at the restaurant where I wasn't doing anything, not even looking his direction. Grabs me by the front of my coat and hauls me into his own booth right beside him, made me spill my coffee. Made so much noise, the waitress came over, but he flashed his badge and she backed off. I said to him, "I'm a citizen, cop, and you've got no right to manhandle me, and he said, "I've got any right I want to take. Tell me how you killed Martin." Just like that - "Tell me how you killed Martin." "Didn't kill him," I said, and he started twisting my arm up behind my back until tears started gushing out of my eyes. I could have told him I did it, killed Martin, but I didn't say a thing, so the pain went on until he was sure my cheeks were good and wet. What it is, Jay, Horsely wants me destroyed in this town. The waitress saw the whole thing, and there wasn't an ounce of sympathy for me in her face. The cop practically threw me out, and I swear I could hear that ugly waitress cheering. All I was trying to do, I swear to you, was save what was left of my reputation in Corbin. Man can't

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even enjoy his breakfast without the screws climbing all over him. If this is going to be the way it is, Jay, I might as well jump off a bridge. Casey signed his name and addressed the envelope, feeling outrage and a dim sense of satisfaction. He licked a stamp and stuck it on before tossing the letter into the box. Two, three days to get to Jay Simon, then all hell would break loose. Horsely deserved it. *

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Just before noon, Scott stopped in at the police station in Corbin and had a chat with Janzen. Nothing was adding up to solid evidence, and it showed on his face. "What you need," Janzen said, when Scott had explained his lack of progress, "is a chat with Martin Gold's parents." "I thought you'd lost touch with them," Scott said. "One of the guys back in Kenderville is trying to trace the Gold family for me." "No need. They've kept in contact over the years. I even have an e-mail address." Scott stood up. "You've known this all along, and you didn't say anything?" "You didn't ask. I told you they moved away, and you assumed I'd lost track." Janzen showed a trace of a grin, just enough to let Scott in on the face that his investigation was as resented on the police side of Corbin as it was on Casey's. "Doesn't anybody here want to know the truth about Casey Stendahl?" Scott asked. "I'm beating my brains out for a lead, and you sit on vital information." "More like a witch-hunt, I'd say. Why don't you just sit down, Scott, and lose some of that attitude. I might cough up a phone number or cyber-address for you if you'd come off your high horse." "Sorry," Scott said, hoping his face showed it. "So it's really possible to contact the Golds?"

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"Sure is." Janzen reached over to a small file box and extracted a card. "Here's the data. I'd like my card back when you're done." "Can I use your phone?" "Sure thing. Wouldn't want to be uncooperative." Janzen waved a hand in the direction of the next room. Inside, Scott found a table, a few chairs and a phone. Quite deliberately, he shut the door before he dialed. He got voice mail and left a message along with his cell number. Grudging the loss of solitude, he turned his cell phone back on, then walked out of the station without another word to Janzen. Small town pride was going to sabotage this case, maybe put it in the dumpster. He got into his car and stared through the front window, seeing nothing. He'd confronted dead ends before. They always brought frustration, because he'd grown up to believe that truth would be found if you looked for it long enough. Cops get their man. Perry Mason always unearths the real killer just seconds before the closing credits. The real world, however, placed a premium on lies and usually settled for probabilities. Unless you found the perp with the gun in his hand and the victim no more than ten seconds dead, you couldn't even start to talk about truth. Casey was slippery and dangerous, but so were thousands of others. Didn't make him a killer, even if he'd been in the vicinity of every one of the death scenes. It made no difference what Debbie the school secretary saw in Casey's eyes. No difference that Casey was back in town, worried about his reputation, or so he said. All that mattered was what would convince a jury, and juries were loathe to convict a killer unless someone found a little chunk of truth in the sea of conflicting evidence. His cell rang. Bess. "Casey's in Corbin."

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"I know," he said. "I talked to him awhile back. He's in a 'You've got nothing on me copper,' kind of mood right now. It's a little bit endearing." "Be careful, Scotty. Ray Lammers told me you should watch your back." "Why's Ray worried about me?" "Who knows?” Bess said. “When are you coming home?" "Tomorrow, probably. This thing's a bust. I can't find an angle on it no matter how hard I try." "More snow coming tomorrow. Be careful, Scotty." "You don't sound like yourself. What's wrong?" "How am I supposed to sound?" she said. "It's just the same old me. Nothing's wrong except I miss you." They said goodbye, and he put his cell back in his coat pocket, making sure it was still on. After awhile, he shut his eyes and found his mind drifting back to his brother Terry. Why now? For a few seconds, he almost had the courage to ask for forgiveness, not that his brother would care one way or the other.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Janet Halworth was up especially early, considering the fact that winter put most people her age indoors for the duration. Not Janet, not when the skies had cleared and the air hadn't had time to grow cold since the cloud cover had left. At sixty-five, she knew she shouldn't have been walking the streets at 5:30 in the morning, but sleep was elusive now, and she had a lot of energy to burn. They'd told her to get a dog if she was going to wander at all hours, but she'd retorted that the last time anyone was attacked in Corbin was a couple of minutes before never. The houses in the tiny subdivision that provided shelter to most of the population were dark still except for porch lights and the occasional interior bulb, but she felt sheltered by the darkness, like a warm womb where no protection was needed. The TV said that snow was coming, but she wasn't going to let that put her off either. Funny thing about taking too many precautions - it locked you up, turning you longing for security into a prison that fastened a person in. Janet was not about to be a prisoner of anybody again, not since Joe had died, rest his miserable, narrow little soul. She breathed deep, loving the bite of the air, the silence. Everyone else snug in their beds and a world of wakefulness just for her. This was something no one would be allowed to deny her, and she hoped she wouldn't grow too frail before she'd had her fill of it. On the edge of a subdivision the road went past a field with a few scrawny trees in it, relics of some community plan that had cleared the land years before then left it to struggle back to nature on its own. She hated the arrogance of planners, the way they so often took something sacred and did whatever they wanted with it, then changed their minds and forgot about the carcass they'd left behind.

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It was darker here without street lights, and she walked more carefully, aware of the risks of falling. Her doctor said she'd make a hundred easy, but it was plain that he liked to jolly her up, knowing that she had a tendency to be cantankerous. Another step, and something made a squishing sound under her foot. The ground was slippery too, and she backed away from it, fearing she'd stepped on some half-rotted cat. But there was a fascination that made her look even though she really didn't want to see, and so she stared at the spot until she discerned something that was light gray or white (though in this lack of light it could have been blue or pink), something maybe two feet by three, a newspaper or a piece of clothing. Her eyes followed it along its edge, and then for a second she thought she'd seen part of a human form, a hand stretched out, the fingers slightly curled. "Getting to be an old fool, Janet," she said aloud, reassured by her own voice. Body in the street, my word. Probably some garbage from the restaurant, dropped on the road. Roger was always letting things fall off his pickup. So why, then, was she continuing to stare? Why did the thing look more like a hand every second? She'd never bothered with flashlights, but she did have one of those little things people put on their key ring so they can see the locks on their cars at night. She reached into her purse, pulled it out, pointed it at whatever was on the road… And screamed. *

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The ringing of the phone sounded like the inside of a bell tower, and Scott groaned, all too used to calls that invaded sleep. The dreams he’d been having the past few nights were becoming more troubled, more violent, and it was hard to pull himself away from them, even for the phone. His hand fumbled for the receiver.

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"What?" "Ruell Janzen. You better get over here fast." "What's the problem?" "Not on the phone. Just hurry it up." There was an edge in Janzen's voice that Scott would have thought wasn't possible. Something had spooked him. He looked across the motel room in the semi-darkness, trying to remember where he'd dropped his clothes after a long evening of watching too much television, though he hadn’t spent long enough to blot out his recognition of personal failure. He dressed and left the suite. It was only a couple of minutes walk to the Corbin police station. Inside were all three members of the force, two of them, including Ruell, looking like they'd dressed as quickly as Scott had. "What's the problem?" he asked. "I'm due to leave town in a couple of hours." He wasn't sure why he'd shared the information except that he had a feeling that this was something to do with his flopped investigation. "Murder," Ruell said. "Real nasty." "Where's the body?" "Dispatcher's down there in a cruiser, keeping prying eyes away. We didn't want to disturb the scene till special crimes got here." "From Vancouver? They'll be a couple of hours. What are you doing leaving the body in the care of a secretary?" "She's tougher than you think," Ruel said, his face chalky. "Thought I'd call you before we looked it over." He picked up his hat. "You can ride with me."

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The trip was short, no more than a quarter of a mile. A cruiser was waiting, lights flashing, and a small group had gathered, standing back as if they all wanted to win obedient citizen of the year awards. The dispatcher got out and said something to Ruell. "It’s all right now," he told her. "Get back to the station and handle the phones." She wiped an eye with the back of her hand, then climbed back into the car and drove away. Scott took the flashlight out of Ruell's hand and shone it at the edge of the road. There was clearly a hand and a foot visible and an enormous amount of blood. "Block it in with the cars and put some light on it, but keep at least twenty feet back," he said, not looking at Ruell. "Then get those people to go home." Janzen did what he was told. The scene was soon as surreal as Scott knew it would be, like some garish work of art illuminated by floodlights, the hand sticking up as if posed. Gray coat, black pants, black shoes, small feet, probably a woman. The blood patch had spread from one side of her, so there would be access to the body on the other side. Stepping carefully, his eyes on the ground, he walked behind her and crouched, feeling her wrist for a pulse. Her arm was stiff, the flesh cold. No pulse. He stepped back, staring at her, absorbing the scene for long-term memory. She was mostly on her left side, but with one shoulder blade on the pavement, her head on the gravel shoulder, her left hand resting on a small rock lying on the road. Her face was obscured by shoulder length brown hair. She looked slim, young. There was a purse beside her, small, shoulder-bag style. He rose and walked back to Ruell. "Give me some gloves." Janzen handed him rubber gloves and Scott went back to the body, opening the purse gingerly, worried about smudging prints even with the gloves on. There was a wallet inside, and he pulled it out. A hundred bucks along with credit cards and a driver's license. He pulled the license

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out and shone his light on the picture. The face was familiar, and he looked back at the body, surprised that he hadn't recognized her, feeling regret that he hadn't protected her. He put the card back in the wallet and the wallet back in the purse, leaving it where it had been lying. Then he peeled off the rubber gloves and walked back to Ruell. "Call the newspaper in Kenderville," he said. "Tell them they're down one investigative reporter." *

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I see flashes sometimes, Jay, like stabbing light only it isn't light exactly, it's more like accusations or that feeling you get when you sense a punch coming but there's no time to get out of the way. Out of the blue I'm trying to get a hand up before it hits, but I know there's nothing I can do to defend myself. Afterward, I feel like garbage. That reporter, that Trudy whatever her name is, she spotted me yesterday, wanted to talk. I told her where she could put her questions. Who needs her? I mean, what is she ever going to do for me but make a name for herself out of my misery? Scum of the earth, these people. I just want out of Corbin. Figure I'll go today. Funny how sometimes when you go home you find out it never was home anyway, not even when you grew up there. These people always hated me, and I'd like to burn the whole place behind me, or maybe sneak into everybody's house one at a time and do them one by one. Not that I would, Jay, so get off your high horse. Not that I would. *

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"Her name is Trudy Salter. She was a newspaper reporter." As he spoke he could see the face of Nordstrom, the top guy from major crime, doing its "Why don't you leave investigating to the experts" look.

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"You knew her?" "She was dogging a case I'm working on. She called me yesterday morning, who knows from where, but I hung up on her." "Called you here in town?" "At the motel." The station was looking shabbier than usual, this particular interview room smelling musty, as if it were seldom used. "We need to know what she was doing here, who her contacts were." Shell Nordstrom looked like he'd be a bulldog in an investigation - tough and unwilling to let go. "I need to remind you that I'm not some suspect you've dragged off the street. You wanted to know who she was, and I'm telling you." "Why are you here in Corbin?" Scott rubbed his eyes then leaned his chair back until it was balancing precariously. "I'm investigating the death of a guy named Martin Gold. Years ago. Our original suspect in the Esma Hale case may have killed her. Trudy wanted an inside track." "How badly?" "What?" "She do you any favors? Try to buy you?" Nordstrom had a strand of blonde hair that fell over an eyebrow. It was the only sign of vulnerability on him. Scott stared back, weighing odds, wrestling with himself. Finally he sighed and let the chair back down on four legs again. "I was up here a couple of weeks ago before the Esma Hale case blew up on us." "Blew up on you, you mean," Nordstrom said.

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"That's a matter of interpretation." Scott tried to read the man but saw nothing but stone covered by thin flesh. "Anyway," he said, "Trudy Salter was really hungry for a story. She set me up so it looked like we spent the night together." "Did you?" "Not the way you mean. The room service guy saw us together." Nordstrom wrote down a few notes, oblivious to Scott sitting across the table from him. After a couple of minutes, he looked up. "She make you mad?" "Trudy? No, she was more frustrating than anything. I can't think of anybody I'd like less to have a relationship with. She was always in my face. That's why I hung up on her." "Never went away. Phoned you, set you up for embarrassment. Must have made you angry, Scott. Maybe just a little -" "Cut the clown act, Nordstrom." Scott stood up. "I've told you everything I know about Trudy Salter. I didn't know for sure she was back in Corbin, and I hadn't seen her or heard from her in a couple of weeks before she called me yesterday morning. Meanwhile I've still got Casey Stendahl to deal with, and you've got better things to do than try to rattle me." "I thought we were on the same page, Scott." Nordstrom sounded almost hurt. "Not when you're suggesting that a fellow cop is a suspect." "Suspect?" Nordstrom arched an eyebrow. "Way too early for that. So who do you think offed her?" Scott reached for the door handle and half opened the door before turning back. "How much you want to bet Casey Stendahl's still in town?" he said. "He was yesterday. I talked to him over breakfast."

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"Your leaving Corbin right now isn’t a good idea idea,” Nordstrom said. “I'll tell your boss you're working with me. That way you can help me or be a suspect or whatever, and I won't have to chase you over half the countryside. OK?" "I'll be at the motel," Scott said, his tone deliberately uninviting. This cop game he’d been playing for so long was running to the end of its course, and for the first time he was actually anticipating a different life.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The news was on the car radio when Jay Simon parked outside his office. He sat listening to it, wondering how this lightly populated area could have had two murder victims in as many months. The main story was the death of Trudy Salter, body found just five hours before, and the press was already making connections between her and Esma Hale. Sure, she'd been killed in Corbin, but whatever monster was doing these things likely originated in Kenderville. Jay wondered whether or not he should verify that Casey was still in town, but he decided it wasn't his case anymore and Casey wasn't a good candidate for long term client. He went to his office, the weight of his briefcase dragging on him the way life seemed to drag on him lately, and he thought again about going back into corporate law where the crooks were at least civilized about their work. He picked up his letters on the way in, scarcely noticing them or his secretary, then tossed his briefcase and the letters on the desk before sitting in his big chair and closing his eyes. Wishing he were back in bed was a rotten way to start a morning. He forced himself to open his eyes, then he put the briefcase on the floor and looked across at his big calendar on the wall. No cases until after lunch. That would give him time to go over the social worker's report on the Ossie Funk case. He was riffling absently through the letters, most of them business, when he noticed a smaller one with a roughly handwritten address, post-dated from the town of Corbin. There was no return address. Pulling open a drawer, he got a silver letter opener and slit the letter open. The paper that fell out was creased and had grease stains on it. Squinting at the virtually illegible script, he started to read. When he was done, he read it again, then scanned the whole thing into his computer before printing a copy. A couple of words in the original were uncertain, but the rest was clear enough. So were the facts:

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Casey had been in Corbin the day before Trudy Salter was murdered. The letter had been posted from there.

He'd had some kind of confrontation with Scott Horsely at a restaurant, and

he claimed in the letter that Horsley had roughed him up. Jay didn't need much of an I.Q. to know he had an ethical dilemma on his hands. Technically, Casey was no longer a client, yet the guy had written this thing as if he were. Did Casey believe the information in it was privileged? If so, why did he send it to Jay, since it was obvious from his tone that he wanted to hurt Horsely and the only way that would happen was if his complaint became public. A murder had happened in Corbin, and Casey was probably there, which made this more than a garden variety ethical problem. Jay picked up the phone and dialed Casey's number in Kenderville. No answer, no voice mail. So he phoned Ray Lammers at the police station and bullied Scott Horsely's cell phone number out of him. Scott answered on the first ring. "Where are you?" Jay said, his voice too intense. "Who's speaking?" Scott sounded as if he'd been woken from sleep. "Jay Simon. I need to talk to you before I make this public." "Make what public? Look, Jay, I've got trouble enough up here without you talking nonsense." "You're in Corbin, right?" "Yes." "Working on the investigation?" There was silence on the line, a vague feeling of menace in it. Finally Scott said, "You've got thirty seconds to convince me not to hang up."

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"Casey sent me a letter. Claims you roughed him up and threatened him at a restaurant. Maybe that would make it a client thing, but I'm more concerned that he mailed the letter from Corbin yesterday." "He was here. I talked to him." "You roughed him up in a public place, right in front of a waitress?" "I talked to him. Nobody got physical." "He says you -" "Casey's a congenital liar. You want me to ask the waitress to call you and set your mind at ease about what went down?" "Why would he send me the letter if there wasn't any truth to it?" "Thought you were more jaded than that, Jay. He's mad at me for raking up old memories. He thinks I've destroyed his reputation here. It's just his way of lashing out." "So the cops there know he was in town yesterday?" "Sure. He stayed at the motel. If I were you, Jay, I'd stick that letter in the back of a drawer somewhere and forget about it. If it'll make you feel any better, I'll get the waitress to call you." "Do that. You think Casey was involved?" "In Trudy Salter's murder? Your guess is as good as mine. Seems kind of dopey of him to be so public around here if he was planning to kill her, but maybe he freaked out or something. Anyway, he's gone now and we don't know where he went. Left sometime before eight this morning without checking out. Casey still your client?" "Search me. Look, Scott, would you keep me posted if they're planning to charge him?" "Sure." The line went dead. *

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Scott headed for the shower, feeling muzzy, wondering whether the dreams he’d been having were a symptom or the cause of the way he was feeling. He should have been on his way back to Kenderville but instead he'd been dragged out to a murder scene before dawn, then pretty much he’d been told he was a suspect and shouldn't leave town. Bess had been disappointed when he called her, but for some reason he resisted telling her that he hadn't been invited to join the investigation. Instead, he'd gone back to the motel until Jay Simon had phoned. While he showered, he tried to put the fragments of the Salter murder together in his mind. Trudy had phoned him the morning before from who knew where, probably a cell call so they wouldn't even be able to trace it. She knew he was back in Corbin. Casey was there too, obnoxious and angry. Had she met Casey during the night only to find out the hard way that he was everything she dreaded he might be? Or had she dug too deeply into somebody else's life and paid the price for it? He found it hard to feel real sympathy for her, though he knew he should have had some sort of kindred feeling for any creature of God who fell into the wrong hands. She was too hungry, too intent on making her place in the world by walking on other people's corpses. She'd set him up in this very motel, and the ramifications of that would probably haunt him for a long time. Ever since he'd started on the Esma Hale case, he'd been feeling less and less of anything. At first, of course, there'd been the anger at the way Esma died, but he'd suppressed that. He'd suppressed everything, and now that there wasn't any case to work on, he felt only numbness for the two women who were probably victims of the same monster. Was it possible to get so numb that you lost yourself entirely? Maybe this was a mental breakdown - drifting away from your identity, your humanity, until one day you realized that you'd turned into something like a machine. Ever since the change - why did he keep calling it that - he'd

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been abandoning his selfhood, one piece at a time. Now, instead of burning with rage that Trudy Salter had been murdered, probably just for doing her job, he couldn't even generate a moment of sorrow. Just a lot of troubling dreams that were robbing him of sleep. Terry, his poor dead brother, would have laughed at him, told him to get with it. But Terry couldn't talk anymore, and only Scott knew the reason why. Feeling suddenly weak as if he's been punched in the stomach, Scott found himself leaning against the edge of the shower, gasping for breath, and seeing Terry in front of him, slipping under the culvert, his last look - the last look he gave anyone - an accusation that big brother Scotty should have Should have what, for pity sake? Forcing air into his lungs, Scott felt his strength returning. He knew how hard he'd worked to blot out the image that kept wanting to swallow him - stupid melodramatic image of the brother who died and the broken teenager who'd become a cop to To do what? To save all the other Terrys, to atone for the sin of losing one? What did Terry have to do with anything? Why did poor dead Trudy Salter evoke the accusing image of Terry? One thing was certain in Scott's mind - he wasn't about to turn his life into a soap opera, some maudlin crusade to make up for the sins of his past. Terry was dead and second-guessing was ludicrous. Trudy Salter was dead too, and Scott couldn't have saved her either. This job demanded too much for him to be suffocating himself with doubt. The best cop was a blunt instrument, smart but not given to nuances, because most crime was a blunt instrument, and nuances put you off track too easily. These TV shows where cops got into endless debates over the meaning of life made him laugh. A real cop didn't dare think much about meaning or injustice or the pain of helpless victims. A real cop only believed that a case was solvable and that he was the man to solve it. He couldn't empathize either with the victim or the perp. He couldn't even empathize with himself.

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The moment that weakness becomes the backbone of your day, you'd better quit or some perp is going to take you out, or you'll make that really big mistake that gets somebody else killed. Better to be a security guard in a mall than a cop who's lost his confidence and become everybody's enemy. The phone rang. He hurried out of the shower, leaving drip marks on the carpet. "Yeah?" "I want to talk to you." It was Wayne Nordstrom, head of special crime. "Meet you where you are in ten?" "Should I call a lawyer?" Scott asked. There was a pause, then Nordstrom said, "What do you need a lawyer for?" "You tell me." "You're starting to worry me, Scott. I just want to track Trudy Salter's whereabouts for the couple of days before she died. You're sounding like a perp to me." "And you're sounding like you don't know I'm a cop. Why are you wasting time making me a suspect? Just tell me you're coming over to question me, and I'll decide whether or not to have a lawyer with me." "Your place in ten minutes," Nordstrom said, and hung up. Nordstrom made it in seven, and Scott opened the door to him, dreading the next part. With Scott in the room was a staff member from the motel. "Who's he?" Nordstrom asked. "Bob Cruz. Works here. Look, you sit over there, and Bob and I will sit here. Then he can tell you what he knows." Nordstrom sat down. "Shoot."

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"It was early," Cruz said. He was a thin man, dark complexion, nervous. "The woman had ordered room service. When I knocked, she said the door was open. I came in and saw them in the bedroom." "Who?" "Him. And the woman. " Nordstrom pulled a photograph out of the inside pocket of his jacket, got up and held it out to Cruz. "That her?" "Yes." Nordstrom sat down, his manner more deliberate now. "What were they wearing?" "He had a pajama shirt on. She...well, her shoulders were bare. I couldn't see anything else." "In the same bed." "Yes. Look, I'm supposed to be on duty so -" "Fine. Go. I may be in touch later." As soon as the door closed behind Cruz, Nordstrom asked Scott, "Did you break it off with her before she died?" "Break what off? ”Scott asked. “There was nothing to break off because there never was a relationship." "She was in your bed." "I told you how it happened. She set me up so she could force me to give her an exclusive on whatever I turned up in the Martin Gold investigation." "You're a heavy sleeper?"

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"Ask my wife. If the phone rings in the middle of the night, she usually has to pinch me awake." "You see Trudy Salter yesterday at all?" "She phoned me in the morning, said she knew I was back in Corbin. I hung up on her. You could try tracing it." "She used a cell phone. You didn't hear from her again?" "No. Was she booked in at this motel?" "Apparently not." "She might not have even been in Corbin when she phoned me. You sure she was killed where we found her body?" "Yup. Look, Scott, just between me and you, I know you didn't do it, probably was Casey after all, but I wish you could do more to make me feel good about this." "What do you want - eyewitnesses? A lie detector test?" "Lie detector might help. Thing is, Scott, you're not selling this as well as you could." "Why should I need to sell it? "Because we live in a dirty world and the people you'd least suspect are up to all kinds of things. You bombed out on the Esma Hale case, so maybe you were feeling bad and this young chicky throws herself at you..." "And I killed her why exactly? She was going to tell my wife? Forget it because I already told my wife what happened. She was going to ruin my career? Who cares what a cop does in his spare time?" "I didn't say you killed her, but you've got to sell your innocence better."

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"If there's nothing else," Scott said, getting up and going to the door, "I've got some brooding to do." "Don't fool with this, Scotty," Nordstrom said. "I've seen charges laid on flimsier evidence than you've got floating around you." Scott gave him a wry smile. "And to think a month and a half ago," he said, "I was at the top of my game and could do no wrong."

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR "He's totally out of it now, you have to know that," Ray Lammers said. "Calls for suspension at least -" "Why, so that you can take back the post he robbed from you?" Olivier asked, stubbing out the remains of a cigarette and staring at Lammers through the smoke. "Sit down, Ray. When you tower over me like that you give the impression of subordination." "I didn't know you smoked, Chief." "Started again a week ago. I suppose you're going to tell me it's against regulations to smoke in a public building." "No." "Do you want my job too, Ray? Sit down." Ray sat. "I'm going to tell you something now I've never told anybody under my command." Olivier paused, still staring. "What is it?" "I don't like you. I haven't liked you from the minute I met you." Olivier's accent was stronger, his k's sounding like hard g's. "You're the kind of blundering cop that people like me have to explain to superiors. If you want to request a transfer, I'll be glad to facilitate it, but don't come in here trying to steal a rank you don't deserve." "I could report you," Ray said, his jaw tight. "And I could deny ever having this conversation." The anger showed on Lammers' face. "Scott Horsely's the one with the problem, not me. Nordstrom says he had a thing with Trudy Salter."

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"And Officer Nordstrom would rather share that information with you than with me?" Olivier reached for a phone and dialled a long distance number. Once it began ringing, he said to Lammers, "You can go." As Ray left the office, he heard Olivier saying, "Get me Nordstrom." *

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Wayne Nordstrom had been chosen to lead the special crime unit not just because he was smarter and tougher than any of the other candidates but because he had an aura of command around him, an ability to get things done and get people moving. When he operated in a crime scene, procedure was almost military, and every person under him had better know the job or get out of his way. When Olivier's call was patched in to him, Nordstrom knew in an instant that this was politics, something he tried to avoid like a bad case of flu. Olivier wanted to know what was happening with Scott Horsely. "He's cooling his heels at the motel. I had a chat with him, and he got belligerent." "Is he a suspect?" "Everybody's a suspect. My own grandmother if she knew Trudy Salter." "That's not what I asked you," Olivier said. Nordstrom exhaled. "He appears to have had an affair with her. While we've got nobody who saw them together here yesterday, she phoned him from somewhere." "And Casey Stendahl?" Olivier asked. "In town yesterday. He left his motel without checking out before eight this morning." "Is anyone looking for him?" "What do you expect from me, Olivier? I'm the investigator on this and I'll look for anybody I please."

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"I want you to put Scott Horsely on the case," Olivier said. "What are you talking about? He had a relationship with the victim." "Alleged relationship. Give him the job of tracking her whereabouts yesterday." "And if he knows all about her whereabouts because he was involved in her death,” Nordstrom said, “you're going to end up with a tainted case." "If he doesn't, I'm going to get a good officer back. You can't just leave him under a cloud. It will finish his career." "And what you're asking may finish mine," Nordstrom said. "This is my case." "Horsely is one of us," Olivier said. "Give him a chance." "Do you trust him?" Olivier paused. "What's trust these days? I don't think he had anything to do with Trudy Salter's murder. You can keep him on a short leash if you want, but I need to know that he's being given a way to clear the suspicion around him." "I hope you know what you're doing. Within the next hour I want a fax from you officially asking me to put him on the case. If he messes up, I'm setting the goons on you and washing my hands of him." "Thank you," Olivier said. As soon as he was off the line he started typing the fax, the first feelings of doubt beginning to chew on his psyche. *

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I hate them all for making me live like this, stupid pig Horsely and his gang. Sleeping in my car in the dead of winter is not my idea of living, Jay, you hear me? Salter shouldn't have died, we all know that, but she did and now they're searching high and low for me. What does that have to do with my life, Jay, you tell me why do I have to keep on suffering like this?

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My dreams when I can sleep are getting very bad, always lots of blood and screaming, but I didn't do it, Jay. I wasn't anywhere near her when she got offed. Here's the truth, OK? I was at the motel about eleven yesterday morning, and she showed up at my door, who knows how she found me? Said she wanted to do a story on how a man rebuilds his reputation in a town without pity like Corbin. I told her to get out of my face. She left, and she didn't tell me where she was going. Then this morning I get breakfast early at the restaurant, and the waitress says some newspaper reporter from Kenderville got murdered. So I lit out without ordering, and now I'm here wondering why Casey Stendahl always has to be the guy holding the dirty end of the stick. You tell me that, Jay. *

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As soon as Nordstrom left, Scott took another shower, wondering if he'd developed some kind of a compulsive disorder or simply found the hot water conducive to thinking. His head hurt and he knew he was looking tired and old. Being put into the Salter case was Olivier's doing, something Scott appreciated because there weren't many people on the job willing to give him a vote of confidence lately. He'd be watched, for sure, so he had to take care that nothing he did would be misinterpreted. That, of course, didn't help determine whether the career was worth saving. Towelling himself roughly, he pulled on the bathrobe and called Bess. "They've asked me to help with the case," he said. "Apparently Olivier's been meddling." "Are you going to do it?" she asked. "You tell me why I should." "Because some poor woman got killed, and you're one of the best there is. Chances are it was the same person who killed Esma Hale, and you need to stop him before anybody else dies."

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"I've seen that movie, Bess. Several times in fact. Never was any good." "You want to quit, don't you?" "All I want” he said, “is some peace. There are terrible things going on inside my head, and I'm burned out." "How can I help you, Scotty?" Her voice betrayed a lot of feeling, for which he was grateful.. "Come up here. Get the farm looked after, then hop a bus." "All right." "No argument?" "Why should there be? Tell me how to find you." He told her. "Scotty?" She said. "What?" "You drifted off at the end there. Something more on your mind?" "They're saying I had an affair with her," he said. "But you didn't." "But, I didn't. Thing is I didn't want to put something like that on you." "It's already on the both of us,” she said. “You get going on the investigation. I'll make it to the motel on my own and wait for you there." "All right. Don't open the door to strangers." He heard her hang up, but he held onto the phone until the hum became annoying. *

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"Here's what we know." Wayne Nordstrom had gathered his people in one of the interview rooms, and it was far too small for the seven of them, including Scott. "She was killed somewhere between eleven and just after one. Big knife - hunting knife or kitchen knife. No weapon found. Nine stab wounds, so the perp wanted to be sure. Killing was done right there. No witnesses, nobody heard anything. Nearest house is a hundred yards and the people there sleep in a bedroom at the back. Her car was a block away, but nobody in that part of town seems to have had a connection with her." "Who saw her in Corbin?" Scott asked. "Motel maid saw her leaving the unit where Casey Stendahl was staying. Time was..." He looked at his pad. "Ten or eleven in the morning, maid was kind of vague. Nobody saw her have lunch in town. She wasn't booked into any motel within twenty miles." "Did she buy gas, snacks? She use a credit card?" Nordstrom took a couple of sheets of paper out of his briefcase. "Two cards. The records are complete." "Why didn't you give this to me when I got here?" Scott asked. "Forgot." Nordstrom looked unconcerned. "Way I see it," Scott said, "she'd set out to meet somebody when she got killed. There wasn't any other reason for her being there in the middle of the night. Chances are the killer got right up to her without spooking her because she was expecting him." "So now," Nordstrom said, "we're canvassing the residents, Scott, while you follow the credit card trail." "You don't want to give me a partner?" "Do you need one?" Nordstrom asked.

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"No. Do you think I need one?" Nordstrom stared at him for a few seconds. "Let's just get the job done. We meet back here at 4:30." *

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The day was turning drizzly, the way it often did that time of year, giving Scott a slight shiver as he walked to the gas station. Fred Edwards was out in front, pumping. Scott waited until he was done, then approached him. "Hunting season still on, cop?" Fred said, his tone mild. "Ain't sighted Casey lately, so you might get skunked this time." He motioned. "Let's get out of this rain." He went inside, and Scott followed him. Fred dropped a few bills in the till, then stayed where he was behind the counter and asked, "This about the woman?" "She bought gas here about noon. You pump it?" "Sure. She was a pretty lady. Too bad." "Did she say anything?" Scott asked. "Asked me if I knew Casey Stendahl, told her I didn't." "Why?" "Too many people nosing around. She didn't seem right." "She give you any indication where she was going, what she was planning?" Scott asked. "Nope. Paid and drove off. That's all." Edwards had his lower-substratum-of-society look on, and Scott found it hard to read the man through it. "If you remember anything else, call the station, OK?" "Sure thing." Edwards' face showed that calling the station was low on his priorities list, if it was there at all. “By the way, cop, you look like crap. Ever heard of sleeping?”

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Scott moved on to the restaurant. The waitress told him, "She had Greek salad and a few dinner rolls, asked me about Casey somebody, but I only moved here last year. Don't know any Casey." From there, Trudy had spent the afternoon in obscurity, then had had supper ten miles down the highway. *

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Feeling weary and hoping there was a mid-afternoon coffee waiting for him, he drove to Joplin and found the restaurant where Trudy Salter had probably eaten her last meal. He flashed her picture a few times but nobody remembered her. The restaurant was on the highway and boasted "family home cooking," so it was crowded, one of those "we never sleep" places. Finally he stopped a waitress in mid course across the dining area with a tray full of food. "Police. Have you seen this woman?" She looked. "Uh, yeah. Look, let me dump this, OK, then I'll get back to you." She was in her early thirties and looked like she'd been doing the job for years. He watched her handle the tray with skill and a tired ease. Then she came back to him. "Saw her last night,” she said. “She had a steak." "Anybody with her?" he asked. "I'm on my shift, all right? I've got no time for this." "She's dead. Murdered last night." "That woman down in Corbin?” she said, her face going pale. “That's her in the picture?" He nodded. "Let's sit down a minute. Your boss said to tell any staff who could help me not to worry about the time."

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"Shows how much you know about waiting tables," she said, but she allowed him to lead her to a booth. "When did she come in?" he asked her. "About six-thirty." "That fits. Her credit card record said she paid at 7:18. Who was she with?" "Nobody,” she said. “She didn't even give the impression she was expecting someone." "Did she say anything?" "I served her, but other than the business of getting her a meal, neither of us said anything much." "Did she seem nervous?” Scott asked. “In a hurry?" "No, she was pretty relaxed. She -" The waitress paused. "What?" "Probably doesn’t mean much." "Let me assess that," Scott said. "She had a bruise under her left eye. Any higher and it would have been a shiner. She'd tried to cover it up with makeup, but it showed through." "Did it seem to be hurting her?" "No." Scott looked at his watch. "I've got to go, but you may end up being a witness." He gave her a piece of paper from his notebook. "Just write name, address and phone numbers." "Sure." She didn't seem resentful. Scott assumed that anything more than routine was welcome in a place like this.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE "You OK?" Scott kissed her at the door of the motel. "Fine." She looked wary, as if this were a bad place to be. "You sure, Bess?" She frowned. "Let's go inside." "I have to get back to the station. Just an hour or so." She could see his hesitation, the lines next to his eyes. “You look so tired, Scott.” “Trouble sleeping,” he said, his light tone contradicting everything else she could see. “The sooner I get this over with the better.” "You'd better go, then," she said. He felt her shoving the door against his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Why did they pull you in on this? They're using you, Scotty." "What makes you think that?" She looked close to tears. "Nothing's safe anymore. I'm used to being afraid for you, but not like this. They think you killed her, I know they do." "I didn't kill anybody." Except Terry, but he'd never talked to her about Terry. He kissed her again. "Don't worry," he said. He knew she could see the fear in his eyes. *

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It was 4:40 when he got to the station. Nordstrom grunted at him and then went on with the debriefing he'd started a few minutes earlier. All the special crime people were there, plus Ruell Janzen. "Seven wounds,” Nordstrom said. “Large knife, which we haven't recovered. The ground was dry under her, so she died between about eleven and when it rained briefly at one-twenty."

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"Any sign of another vehicle?" Scott asked. They were sitting in a semi-circle, Scott on one end of it because he’d gotten there late. Nordstrom sat opposite them. "Not a trace. Could have been a car there or not. People in the neighborhood all seem to go to bed early." "Why didn't you tell me about the bruise on her face?" Scott asked. Nordstrom looked puzzled. "Somebody killed the woman with a knife. Who cares about a bruise?" "She had it hours before she was killed. A waitress saw it around supper time. I don't know what kinds of crimes you deal with, Wayne, but a person who'd punch a woman could be capable of killing her." Ruell Janzen snickered. Nordstrom pinned him to his chair with a look. "Sorry I didn't mention the bruise, Scotty, now can we get on with this?” “The bruise is important,” Scott insisted. “Let’s at least get it on the table.” “All right,” Nordstrom said wearily, “How long had she had the bruise?" "Gas station guy didn't say anything about it, so I'll have to talk to him again. Maybe I can get a time frame. Can somebody call her newspaper and ask if she'd banged herself up on the day before she died? Somebody else should contact the M.E. and get a time fix on the bruise." "It's not your show, Scotty," Nordstrom said, his voice milder than what showed on his face. "We'll get to everything in due time. In the meantime, you need to know that we've got nothing from neighbors, so what you’re doing tracking her last day is pretty much all we can work with." "You want to take my assignment back, Wayne? Give it to someone more to your liking?" Nordstrom stared at him for a few seconds, gauging how much conflict might be in the

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offing. Then he said, "No, you can hold onto it, Scott. Just keep us in the picture and don't forget who's leading this investigation." As if he could. All of them, even Ruell, had that watchful look that people get when they discover that someone in their midst could be a traitor or worse. A brother in arms becomes an object of concern. The circle closes and the feared one can't get back in even if he stands on his head or buys them all a round. "I'm having some supper with my wife and then tracking down Mr. Edwards," Scott said. "You got a home address for him, Ruell?" Ruell found him one and wrote it down. As he left, Scott felt every one of them watching his back. *

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Bess was preoccupied while they ate supper at the restaurant. He didn't know how to read her. "Is the chicken OK?” he asked. “That coating looks a little deadly." She was silent for a few seconds, then she asked, "What's happening here, Scotty?" "Trudy Salter got killed. Olivier bullied them into putting me on the team. What else is there to know?" "The thing you're hiding." She dug her fork into the chicken as if it were an enemy. "You think I had something going on with Trudy Salter?" he asked. "No I don't. She was nothing like your type, probably annoyed the heck out of you. This thing I see in your eyes is something totally else." "And your grammar needs adjusting."

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She tossed her fork on the table. "Stop fooling with me, Scotty. I want to know now." A couple two tables down paused in mid conversation to watch them. “Why are you going after me like this? I’ve always been straight with you.” Scott felt her gaze on him, hot, demanding. “And you gave your life to God a few months ago,” she said, “but you won’t talk about that either. Your eyes are haunted. What’s happening to you Scotty?” He caved then, because he knew he couldn’t hide anything from her. “I’ve been having dreams. It's all messed up -“ "Dreams about what? Who?" "Remind me not to recommend you as a therapist. You’d make a better interrogator." He picked up a napkin and brushed a crumb from the corner of his mouth. "All right. I had a brother. Terry. Couple of years younger than me. He drowned. Stupid kid thought he could go tubing on a flooding stream, got sucked into a culvert. I'm dreaming about it. He comes into my mind." “You never told me about a brother.” “No point. He died.” He could feel how hard his words were, but he couldn’t take them back. "This was when you were kids?" He nodded. "Where were you when this happened?" "On the bank. Running on the bank yelling at him to knock it off." "What about when he went into the culvert?" "I don't want to talk about this." He dug into his food. "Let's talk at the motel then." She had that determined look he’d learned not to ignore. "Let’s not talk about it anywhere." He knew his protest was verging on futile even as he said it.

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"You're such a crusader, Scotty," she said. "What?" Her face was white, taut. "You blame yourself for your brother's death - a brother you never told me about - and now you're atoning for it by trying to save the world. That’s why you’re pushing so hard on these murders, isn’t it?" "Don't turn this into a session with a shrink. I've been dreaming about him, OK? Esma Hale and that little creep Stendahl are getting to me. I'm making big mistakes, and I can't get on to this faith thing at all." "Because you've finally grown up enough to admit that you could have done something to save your brother, but you didn't?" His reaction to her words told her she was off the mark somehow. He got up and walked to the cashier's counter, asked for the bill, paid it. Bess followed him out of the restaurant, watching his big stride, his natural confidence, marvelling at the troubled little soul inside. When they reached the motel, he unlocked the door and kissed her, then turned toward the street. "Gotta go." "No, you don't. You walk away now, Scotty, and I'm going home." "I can't deal with this right now." "But you’re going to. I have to know what happened." She pulled him inside, and he didn't protest. He sat heavily in an armchair. She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Your brother," she said. "Terry." "He went into the culvert. Could you reach him?"

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"I..." His eyes were watery. For a full half a minute he stared at her. "He was coming down the stream on an inflated inner tube and I was on a side road with the culvert under me, and he was coming down and he looked really scared now because the water was way stronger than he thought it would be, and he reached up and I got his arm, and I was so..." He stopped. "What, Scotty?" He didn’t answer. There was water on his cheeks. "Please tell me." "I never told anyone." "Told what?" “Please. I can’t do this.” His hands were folded as if he were praying. “I think you need to, Scotty. I think it’s going to kill you if you don’t.” She was crying now. "It was…” he began. “Terry, he…You weren’t there, Bess. You couldn’t possibly…I was so angry, he'd made me run a mile maybe, following him on that stupid tube, and I was yelling at him to get out of there, and he was laughing at me, and when I got his arm, he said something like 'wuss' or something, and I could see he couldn't care less how much he'd scared me, but he was scared too. I was so angry." "What happened?" Her voice was soft, her expression showing something close to awe. "I pulled him out, and the tube went under." "You pulled him out?" He sighed, but it sounded more like a groan. "No, I didn't pull him out. I was so angry, and it was his fault anyway, so why was I breaking my back holding onto the guy, so I..." "What did you do?" Her face showed disbelief. "Scotty? Did you let him go?"

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"No, I pulled him out. I must have pulled him out. Or maybe I didn't even get hold of him in the first place." "Scotty." "I can't." "Why not?" "I was so angry. It was his fault. So I..." He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I let him go." His voice was just a whisper. "I let him go and he went under there, and I couldn't reach him, and he didn't come out the other side. I knew if I went after him I wouldn't come out either, so I pushed a tree branch in so he could grab it, but it jerked out of my hands. I ran for home, and all the emergency people came but they couldn't do anything. They wouldn't even let me see him, not even at the funeral. The last I ever saw of him was that horror on his face when I let him go." "Scotty." She went over to him and put her arms around him, kneeling on the carpet. "I killed my brother," he said, scarcely understanding his own words, but knowing they were true. "I’m no better than any of them. No better than Casey Stendahl." "What?" She pulled away from him. "Or Ted Bundy. Or Josef Stalin." "Stop it, Scotty." "I murdered my brother. I had him and then he said that to me, and I thought, 'All right, then, find your own way out,' and I let go of him and he drowned. Are you going to tell me now that Jesus forgives me? You going to tell me I'm one of the good guys?" "Why did it come back to you now, Scotty? All those years and now all of a sudden …"

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"Because I'm no different. I can't lord it over a Casey Stendahl because I'm him. He's me. Look, this is all too stupid." "Why now?" she asked again. "Because I thought I could find forgiveness. Bad old Scott Horsely kneels at the feet of Jesus. I thought he’d give me absolution." "He gave you more than that. He gave you a new life. He forgave you." Scott got up, went to the bathroom and wiped his face. He turned and saw Bess still kneeling where he'd been. "I have to go," he said. "Don't leave. Please. I just have to go for awhile." "All right," she said. *

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It's cold here, and I can't even light a fire. Nobody's around, Jay, like we've just had the Second Coming and I'm the only guy on earth who got missed, Casey the freak, abandoned by everyone, even God. Battered old picnic tables, some of them tipped over, and the lake looks so cold you'd swear it was death itself. Food's running low too. There's no place else I can go. Just wanted you to know that they've ruined my life, Jay. Horsely and his gang, and that Salter woman. Came to my motel room when I had one before the money ran out, but I let her know what I thought all right. Let her know good. That was the last I saw of her, so why am I freezing here in my car? I didn't do anything, I'm as innocent as a baby. *

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Fred Edwards was none too pleased when Scott knocked on his door about seven that evening. He'd had enough of this cop. Just talking to him made you feel like your head was splitting.

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"What do you want now?" he demanded, his voice grating. "Can I come in?" Scott said. "Not convenient. What do you want to know?" Edwards gripped the edge of the open door and leaned outward slightly, just enough to give himself the sense that he was pushing back. "When Trudy Salter bought gas from you -" "About twelve-thirty." "I know. Did she have any marks on her face?" "Wasn't paying much attention." He was more comfortable now, thinking that it was easier to play this cop’s game than fight him off. "What did you notice?" Scott asked him. "She had some dark glasses on, big lenses. Maybe there was something around one of her eyes, like she'd bumped into a wall or something." "A bruise?" The night was cold and Scott felt the wind trying to inch under his coat. "Something like it. Casey told me he'd had a problem with her." Edwards said it so casually that Scott might have missed it. "Casey talked to her? When did he tell you that?" "Came by about three. Asked if I'd seen this dame, described her. It was this Salter woman. So I asked him what he wanted with her, and he said he'd blown her off earlier when she came to his motel room." "What else did he say?" "I asked him did he do her, and he kind of smirked and said 'no.' Said she bugged him too much, had to dust her a bit to get her to leave." Edwards couldn’t resist flashing a smile.

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"You mean he hit her?" "Just a backhand, he said. Nothing serious. Because she wouldn't leave him alone." He smiled again. "You think that's funny?" Scott asked. "Hey, I didn't know the lady, OK? But Casey, man, he can get scary sometimes." "Did you see Casey after that?" "Nope. Heard he checked out just after you found the Salter woman's body. Out of money or something." "Why didn't you tell me this before?" Scott asked him. "Why didn't you ask me? Helping cops isn't on my agenda, you know?" "Still chopping cars, Fred?" Scott asked. Edwards shrank a bit. "Don't know what you're talking about." He stepped inside and slammed the door. Scott took a breath to clean his lungs. In his work he was always meeting bottom feeders, but they still bothered him. There was an underbelly that walked and talked and ate and slept as if it were human, but it was scarcely that. People like Edwards were enough to put the kibosh on a notion that the world was a secure place. He got out his cell and called Nordstrom to tell him what he'd just heard, then he went for a walk. It was getting colder, feeling like snow, the wind cutting through his over-light jacket. For the first few minutes, he forced Fred Edwards out of his mind. This was Nordstrom's show, so let Nordstrom follow up on Casey. Then, gradually, he brought himself back to the topic of Terry. He'd told her. Terry was out of the closet and now Scott had to decide what to do with him. You killed your brother, man. You had him and you could have saved him, but you did him in.

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Bess kept asking him why all this was coming back now, and he knew the answer though he couldn't understand how to explain it to her. That offer of forgiveness had seemed like a gift on a platter a few months before. But nothing was that easy, though he still craved release. He kicked himself for not taking what had been offered to him. Who wouldn't want absolution? Who wouldn't?

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX "Hi," he said, his tone revealing little except his tiredness. "Hi." Bess pulled the door open, then walked to the bed and lay down on it. He closed the door behind him then stretched out beside her, saying nothing. Time passed, neither of them noticed it. Finally, she stirred. "Scotty?" "What?" "I don't want you to take this the wrong way. I feel like I need to tell you something." "Then tell me." "I think I need to say I forgive you." "For what?" "For not telling me about Terry all this time. For what you think you did to him." "I don't want to talk about Terry." "I'd never hold him against you." "Let me rest." "Why did you ask me to come here to Corbin?" she said. "Not for absolution." "What other reason?" He said nothing for a minute or more. When he spoke, his voice was soft, tentative. "I was afraid." She leaned up sharply on her elbow. "You?" "I'm losing track, Bess, you know, something like, I don't know, like the Incredible Shrinking Man. I feel like I'm going to disappear and I'll never be able to find -" He paused. "Find what?" she said.

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"Afterward, when I had a chance to think about it, I told myself my hand slipped. That's what I told everybody else, so why shouldn't it be true? Terry was always a bony kid. His jacket was soaking wet, so I couldn't hang onto him." "I thought you didn't want to talk about Terry." "The answer getting close now, like I'm going to find it if I can only hold on just a little more. I think..." He turned his head and stared into her eyes. "I think all of this means that what I did is the same what I am. I didn't recognize it, but now I can't run anymore." "Recognize what, Scotty?" "I’ve seen my own darkness. You pretend you aren’t a monster and you tell yourself there's all kinds of lines you'd never cross. Except that's a lie." "What's the truth, then?" "That only a chosen few get to see their darkness. I've seen mine, Casey's seen his, whoever killed Esma and Trudy Salter..." His voice drifted off, as if too exhausted to form words. "I'm tired," he said. After a few minutes, Bess could tell from his breathing that he was asleep. *

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I can't stay here, Jay. This place is like death. You could imagine kids in this park swimming in the lake in the summer, eating too many barbecued burgers and drinking enough cola to barf on it. You could imagine that, but you can't do anything with this place in the wintertime. Only problem now is where do I go? They're all hunting me I’m sure, and other than finding a gun and holing up until they force me out, what kind of future is there? I didn't kill her. We had a disagreement, but she left the motel in one piece. I never touched her. So where do these people get off tracking me like a wounded animal? Tell me that, Jay. *

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Ray Lammers answered the phone at his extension about midnight. He didn't recognize the voice, but his display traced it to a pay phone on the edge of Kenderville. Later he would congratulate himself for having stayed on duty an extra couple of hours. "You want Casey Stendahl?" The voice was raspy, possibly muffled with a cloth. It wasn't Stendahl's lawyer. "Do you have some information on Mr. Stendahl?" Ray asked. "How much you offering?" said the voice. "He's not facing any charges at this point, so there's no reward." "Bummer," the voice said. "Anyway, he's holed up at the picnic ground at Acton Lake." "By himself?" "Casey's always by himself." "Do you know if he's armed?" "I know you’re tracing, so gotta go." The man hung up. When the squad car radioed two minutes later from the site of the phone booth the call had come from, there was no sign of the caller. The nearest RCMP carried out the arrest. Casey was caught totally by surprise as he slept in a battered old Ford. He wasn't armed, and he said nothing the whole way to Corbin, where they locked him up at the police station. *

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Scott got the call at four-thirty a.m.. Bess stirred beside him and managed to get him awake by the fifth ring. "What?" he said into the clumsily held receiver. "We've got Casey Stendahl," Wayne Nordstrom said. "His lawyer's on his way, due in Corbin in about twenty minutes. You've questioned the guy before, so we want you here."

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"What are you holding him on?" Scott asked. "Suspected assault. He's got to be the one who gave Trudy Salter woman the shiner. It probably won't stick, but it gives us a chance to work on him." "Not likely," Scott said, "not as long as Jay Simon is representing the guy. Casey will be tighter than a clam." By the time Scott got to the station, Simon was there and locked away with his client. They called in Nordstrom and Scott about half an hour later. Jay looked grim. Casey showed his usual lack of emotion. "What have you got for us, Jay?" Scott asked. "You the primary on this case?" Simon asked. "I am," Nordstrom said, giving Scott a warning glance. "Your client is charged with assault, and you've got to know there's plenty of suspicion of murder too. What's he going to tell us?" "He was in bed at the motel when Trudy Salter was killed," Jay said. "No corroboration because he didn't know he'd need any. On the assault, we'll grant you that Salter visited him the morning before she died, but he didn't lay a hand on her." "Wouldn't it be nice," Nordstrom said, "if life were that simple. People get beat up and killed, but there's never any offender because everybody who could have done it was home in bed or simply too kind hearted to have done such a terrible thing." "It would be nicer if you people would stop harassing my client. He didn't do the Esma Hale killing - even Crown Counsel had to admit that. Why implicate him on this one?" "Because she left Casey's suite with a bruise on her face," Scott said.

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"So you claim. Of course, she could have tripped getting out of bed that morning. If you people have nothing more, we'd like to go. There's no charge here, and I see false arrest all over this thing." "Why did he bolt?" Scott asked. "He didn't bolt. He's out of money and he's scared, so he hung out at a campground for a few days. Want to try on a trespassing charge?" "We have a witness who says Casey told him he hit Trudy Salter," Scott said. "Who's the witness?" "Ask Casey," Scott said, staring at the suspect. "Casey's word against some other guy," Jay said. "If you don't have any more, we really need to get going." Nordstrom motioned. "Clear out, then. Just make sure your client is somewhere we can find him, because there's no doubt at all we'll be talking to him again." Casey said nothing, showed nothing on his face, as Jay Simon led him out of the room. *

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Scott had lunch with Bess, saying little about the Casey arrest, brooding, his mind too much on the case to be any real company to her. After they ate, he walked over to Fred Edwards' station again. Edwards was alone in the shop, working on an old pickup. Scott wasn't surprised to see him scowl. "Can't you screws do all your questioning at once?" he said. "This is visit number three, and I've got a business to run."

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"Which business?" Scott said, smiling. "Seems like I've got probable cause to get a warrant on whatever business you're hiding the other side of that wall. Nobody ever questioned you about that?" "I've got work to do," Edwards said, his tone minimally more subdued. "Told you everything I know." "Casey, when he came to see you yesterday afternoon, was he upbeat, angry, depressed?" "His juices were flowing, I guess, at least as much as they ever did with Casey. He seemed kind of pumped, sure." "Angry?" "Maybe. I don't know. Looked sort of like satisfied that he'd belted the Salter woman." "You're sure he told you he hit her?" "Sure I'm sure. Then he left and I haven't seen or heard from him since." Edwards was starting to relax, assuming the interview was pretty much over. "You know Casey pretty well, right? The two of you were close?" "Sure." "What's he like? Everybody I talk to has a different story on him, and it really makes me curious." "I don't need to help you, Horsely." "And I don't need to ignore your little alternative business in the room on the other side of that wall." Edwards gave him a calculated look. "Casey, he seems like nothing, like nobody could ever read him because there wasn't anything going on in his head. But Casey's mean, maybe even one of those people that like to hurt other people -"

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"A sadist?" "Right. Like I've never seen him tear the wings off a butterfly or kill a cat or anything, but there's this kind of presence in him that scares the snot out of me. Like a tame tiger maybe, only you know you just need the right thing to set it off." "You think he's capable of murder?" Scott asked. "Casey's capable of anything." "He claims he never hit Trudy Salter." "What did you expect him to say?" Edward had a look on his face that was almost bitterness, as if he'd been hurt by something he wanted badly to cover up. "Why didn't the two of you stay in touch?" Scott asked. "Cause he scares me. Look, I've got to finish this truck in an hour and I'm only half done." "One more question." "Make it fast." Scott hesitated. Then he asked, "What big secret are you keeping from me, Fred?" "Take off, cop," Edwards said, his voice flat. Scott stared at him a few seconds, then walked back to the street. *

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There was no steel mesh between Jay Simon and Casey Stendahl as they drove north to get Casey's car at the picnic ground, but there might as well have been. What was there to say, after all? Finally, Jay cleared his throat. "What are you going to do now?" he asked. Casey beside him shifted in his seat. "Go back to my job if they'll take me. I'm tired of all this. I just want my life back."

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"Pretty lonely life." "It’s my life." Casey's tone was measured, but Jay could here a faint edge to it. They were silent for a few minutes, then Casey asked, "Aren't you interested in what went on with me and Trudy Salter?" "Not much." "Why not?" "Because I'm not your drinking buddy, Casey. For better or worse we're in a professional relationship. If you confess something terrible to me, I can't use it against you. There aren't any charges anyway, so I'd rather not have more on my conscience than I already have." "What if I told you I never touched her?" he said. "There's no point telling me anything since I don't have a clue whether or not you're lying to me." "You don't like me, do you?" Casey said. "I don't trust you. There's a difference." "So you think I'm some kind of shady character, maybe a serial killer just like all of them think?" "I'm a professional. I don't dwell on speculations like that. In my business, it's better not to think too much." "What if I want you to believe me?” Casey asked. “What if it means something to have somebody believe me?" "Then I'd have to choose between believing you and speculating that maybe you're trying to whitewash your guilt. Either way, I'm the wrong guy to come to." "I didn't do it." Casey said.

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"I'm glad to hear that. Now, since the road's getting icy, let me concentrate on my driving." Jay didn't look at him. He was afraid he might see some kind of emotion on Casey's face.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Bess Horsely crossed the street in the late afternoon to look at the shops that lined the block opposite the motel. She was bored and feeling guilty about being bored, because Scott needed her here, and she should have been able to find enough to occupy her time while he pursued the Trudy Salter case at the station. Maybe the craft store near the end of the block had some of the silk daisies she needed for the bronze bucket in her front room at home. The street was almost deserted, a tired feeling to it just like the whole town, weariness with a life that never changed except for something horrible like a murder. She'd almost reached the craft store when a pickup truck pulled alongside her and the male driver called out through the open passenger window, "Mrs. Horsely?" She stopped and looked at the truck with its "Edwards Garage" painted on the none too clean side of it. The man inside looked scruffy, mean, so she started walking again. Behind her, she knew he'd gotten out of the truck, his footsteps quick as he followed her. She walked faster, but then he was in front of her, blocking her path. "Go away," she said. "I don't know you." "Please, I don't mean no harm." "How do you know my name?" she asked, her glance darting to the craft shop about ten feet away. "Saw you coming out of his motel room. I guessed." She stepped past him, then he was in front of her again. "Leave me alone," she said. "Your husband." Fred Edwards' face had a pleading look. "What about him?"

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"He's been hounding me. I think he's trying to make out I was in on the murder, and I don't know what to do because he's the cops." "My husband isn't persecuting you," she said. "No, that's not..." He looked frustrated. "I don't know how to say this. You see, Casey told me -" "Casey Stendahl?" "He told me why she came to see him the morning she died." "What's that got to do with me? Tell the police." "I can't. He's your husband, but I don't know who else will listen to me but you. Casey says Trudy Salter came to him for protection." "From who?" She asked. "Your husband." "From Scott?" "She said he's had some kind of Fatal Attraction thing going ever since they, you know -" "They never did anything." "Then you're too gullible for words. Casey says the Salter woman didn't want no more than a one-night stand, but your Scott couldn't let go." "That's ridiculous. Why did she come here then, if she knew Scott was here too?" Bess asked. "How should I know? She was afraid of your husband and now she's dead and Casey didn't do it. Sure, Casey hit her because she wouldn't go away, but he didn't kill her and neither did I, and now your husband's going to frame us."

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"Get away from me," she said, her anger beyond thought. "Get away." She moved past him into the craft store, her breath coming in such gasps that she had to hold onto a shelf to steady herself. *

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Scott was livid when she phoned him. He ran the two blocks to Fred Edwards' gas station just as Fred pulled up in his truck. With one hand, Scott opened the driver's side door and with the other he dragged Fred out of the cab, almost toppling him before Fred found his feet and Scott flung him against the side of the truck. "Hold on!" Fred shouted, shielding his face with his hand. "I didn't touch her." "What did you tell her?" "Casey -" Fred choked for a second, catching his breath. "Casey, he said you..." Fred's voice trailed off and he started coughing, his head down. Eventually it stopped, and he looked up, his eyes watery. "Casey said you were stalking Trudy Salter. She came to him for protection, but he blew her off, hit her." "What are you doing going after my wife, you piece of filth?" Scott tensed, feeling ready to hit him, then hesitating at the craven fear in Fred's face. "I'm scared of you. You're trying to make out Casey and I did this, I know you are. I wanted you to back off me." "What did Casey tell you?" "The Salter woman said you'd been phoning her, following her, said you'd leave your wife for her, and she got scared because she couldn't tell you to clear off so you'd hear her. She thought Casey could protect her."

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"Casey?” Scott said. “That doesn't make any sense. She could have gone to her boss or my boss for that matter. Why would she go to Casey?" Fred looked uncomfortable. "How should I know? It's what Casey told me is all. So back off, all right? I didn't have nothing to do with that Salter woman getting cut up." Scott stared at him a few seconds, then said, "You’re coming with me," and pulled on Fred's jacket, moving him down the sidewalk. "Where?" Fred's eyes were darting, unable to focus for more than half a second at a time. "Station. You can make a statement." “No way.” “You want to go in handcuffs?” Scott asked. "I got nothing to make a statement about. What Casey told me, isn’t it what you call it, hearsay?" "That's for lawyer shows on TV." Scott was pulling him along and Fred had little choice but to move his feet or be dragged prone along the pavement. "We're doing an investigation, and if Casey told you something, we want to get it down." "They'll think you did it," Fred said, his voice strident. "They'll nail you for the Salter killing.” "Or they'll decide you're a lying little piece of garbage or Casey is. I'm not going to let an accusation like this float around until it bites me when I'm not looking." They made a strange sight, the big man and the smaller scruffy one, locked into a dance neither of them looked like they were enjoying. *

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"Problem, Ruell?" Scott said, sitting Fred none too gently in a chair. Nordstrom and a couple of his guys came out of a back room. "Fred's not going to be any help to us," Ruell said. "Talks out of both sides of his mouth and still has time to light a cigarette." "What you bad-mouthing me for?" Fred said, his tone showing he was used to it. "Mr. Edwards has a statement to make," Scott said. "Don't neither." "Sure you do, Fred." "OK,” Fred said, “this big clod dragged me in here and I want to lodge a case of police brutality." "What did you tell my wife?" "Don't remember." Fred was grinning now. "I was drunk." "It only happened half an hour ago, Fred," Scott said, bending down to stare Edwards in the eye. "You want me to go first and tell your story, about you and the garage that can't make any money?" "No, I'll tell them. I didn't mean no harm, just can't figure out why you want them to be hearing this, is all. Wife accuses you of an affair, you're supposed to lie through your teeth. Anything else is just stupid." "What's this about, Scott?" Nordstrom asked, no patience showing. "We're in the middle of a big case and there’s no room for your personal life." "Tell it, Fred," Scott said, "or I swear I'll nail your hide on the wall over there." "Casey says the Salter woman told him she needed to hide out on account of Horsely here stalking her. She was scared to death he was going to come after her."

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Nordstrom looked bewildered. "Casey said that? Why didn't he tell us?" "Search me." Fred got up. "If you're done with hosing me around, I've got a life, OK?" He walked out of the station. No one tried to stop him. Nordstrom stared at Scott for a few seconds, then said, "Let's do coffee." He led Scott into an interview room after they'd each poured a cup. When the door shut behind them, Scott felt a a shudder go through him. "You probably think," Nordstrom said, "that Casey and Fred are trying to frame you. Chances are that's what's happening." "I brought him here as soon as I heard what Casey was saying," Scott said. "That must be worth something to you." "We've got a waiter who saw you and the Salter woman in bed, now we've got a claim that you were stalking her. Have you got anything to counter this stuff?" "Casey says she came to him for protection. Even a two year old wouldn't buy a story like that." "I'm not buying anything yet. Why are they trying to frame you?" "Because Casey's a suspect and I've been jerking Fred's chain for awhile. He's doing some chopping out of his garage, and I've been using it for leverage. He's probably scared." "Well, settle it with him. In case you haven't noticed, Scott, you're starting to cramp my style. I don't want to hear about family crises and degenerate false witnesses. It just gets in the way. Find something I can use." "OK, then spell out for me exactly what we have now." "What, the whole case?" "Just a summary," Scott said

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"Why? You've heard it all." "Humor me." Nordstrom sighed, then pulled out a notebook. "You got here a day or two before Trudy Salter appeared. Casey arrived the same day. About eleven the morning of the murder, Salter went to see Casey at the motel, subject uncertain." Nordstrom gave Scott a calculating look. "Casey appears to have hit her. She had lunch at the restaurant, then gassed up at Fred's and headed out of town. Supper about five, at a place ten miles from here. Then she gets killed back here in Corbin about midnight." "The weapon?" "Long bladed knife, not found yet. ME says there may some similarities in the knife-work between Esma Hale and Trudy Salter. He's doing more work on it. No cow's blood this time. I wouldn't be surprised to find we've got one perp for both killings." "Thanks. I appreciate having it all together" "Why?" "Because something's missing, some piece isn't there in your little notebook, and I keep hoping it will come to me." "Something I missed?" "No." Scott didn't elaborate, and Nordstrom decided not to press him. "If we can't get something in the next couple of days," Nordstrom said, "I'm scaling back on the case. No point beating our brains out. Maybe we'll get a reward program started and wait for some fruit to drop out of the trees." "Rewards don't solve cases."

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"Neither do you lately, Scotty," Nordstrom said, his voice gentler than his words. "I'm giving you a lot of rope on this thing. If you turn out to be part of the problem, I'll walk all over you." "I know." Scott drank the rest of his coffee, then left the room. A few seconds later he stepped outside the building, noticing that it had grown dark and a brisk wind was blowing. *

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He took his time going back to the motel even though he knew that Bess was probably still shaken up by Fred's intrusion into her life. He was unsure how to approach her. He used his key at the front door. Bess met him two steps in and clung to him. Life stopped for a few minutes. While he held her in that familiar pose that spoke of the promises they had made to each other, he wondered how to rules of evidence would work in this situation. Rules of evidence were generally of little value in a multi-person frame-up. Then she said against his shoulder, "I didn't believe him." He said, "But you'll never be sure, will you?" She pulled away, shock on her face. "You and Trudy Salter did not have a relationship. You didn't." He tried to smile, to reassure her, but it didn't come off well. "Fred is lying," he said, "and Trudy Salter faked a relationship to pressure me to give her an exclusive story. So why do I feel like a killer at a press conference?" He sat on the edge of the bed but she remained where she was, her face chalky. "As long as you live, Bess, you'll always carry a little kernel of doubt." "Why should I?" She was suddenly angry. "I should be able to trust you totally. If I can't, that's your fault, not mine."

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"I didn't ask to be set up," he said. "You can trust me because I have never stepped out on you, Bess. I killed my brother, but I've been absolutely faithful to you, even when our marriage was coming apart. If I ever..." He paused, breathing hard. "I have too much on my conscience already. Long ago I told myself that if I ever had a thing with another woman I wouldn't have enough left of my life to make it worth going on living. All I can ask you to do is believe me." "I do," she said. "I want to." She sat beside him, and he turned and saw tears on her face. "I have to, Scotty." He tried to hold her, but she was stiff beside him, not resisting but not helping. "There was nothing between us," he said. She didn't answer. After a couple of minutes had passed, she said, "What are you going to do now?" "About the case?" She nodded. "There's one common denominator for Casey and Fred and Martin Gold," he said. "And he was a very bad dude." She looked at him, puzzled, and he smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "Just another wild goose chase. I'm getting good at those." He shut his eyes, leaning against her, and sensed that she was softening slightly. Then Terry's face, that last face, came into his vision, and he opened his eyes again, starring at the wall. If Ezekiel Hawke could not speak, though he was dead, Scott knew his own future would be pretty much decided.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT The house should have smelled musty, but Ezekiel Hawke's last abode had no scent to it at all. His nephew, summoned from a town thirty miles away, had come eagerly, a young fellow with glasses and too much energy, heavy on the geek quotient. "Like I said," he told Scott as he unlocked the door, "none of us knew what to make of it. He never contacted any of the family for the last ten years of his life, then we came here and saw what he'd gathered, and nobody could figure whether we should clear it all out for the trash or turn it into a museum. He was a genius all right, but really twisted." Nathan Faldo, the nephew, ushered him in. The front room looked ordinary enough - sofa, a couple of armchairs, a few end tables, an older TV. "Who's been cleaning?" Scott asked. "My wife and I come in about once a week." "Why?" Nathan looked puzzled at the question, as if it had never been asked before. "Because this was his place. I couldn't imagine just letting it go to seed." They walked through the rest of the main floor, Scott seeing nothing remarkable. Then Nathan paused in mid-step and turned, staring at Scott. "What?" Scott said. "No one outside the family and the boys my uncle had over has ever seen this place. I want you to understand that he might not have been like other people, but he wasn't some kind of ghoul. Whatever he did here, he had reasons, and every one of them is spelled out in his journal. Maybe there aren't many people who'd agree with him - I know I can't - but I don't want you to think of him as some ignorant beast.”

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"You sound like maybe you admire him," Scott said. "Maybe I do. Not for his beliefs but for his genius. He was my uncle. I remember him coming to family things when I was a kid, and when he walked into the room all the conversation stopped and Uncle Ezekiel got to set the topics for the rest of the afternoon. He had so many things to say, things you could learn from, like the real reasons people do things, or the facts behind things in the news that puzzled ordinary folks. He had a room…" Nathan paused. “What kind of room?” “I sneaked in once when I was a kid. After he died I explored it more. That’s where he did his real work.” "Can I see it?" Scott asked. “I don’t know…” Nathan said, but Scott could see the pride in his eyes. “If your uncle was a great man, why would you want to hide what he accomplished?” Scott asked. “All right,” Nathan said. “Just be prepared. Some people wouldn’t like what they see.” Nathan led him to a door off the kitchen and a narrow spiral staircase down. Near the bottom, Nathan flipped a switch, and Scott found himself transported. The room below was large, easily most of the footprint of the floor above him. The ceiling was flat black, the walls were oak, with ornate mouldings everywhere; the carpet was blood red. At one end was a huge chair, more like a throne, made of oak with red leather upholstery. Ringing it were thirty wooden chairs in a perfect semi-circle. In their own stands on either side of the throne were large flags - swastikas. Above the throne was a banner in black and red with gold print letters spelling Blut, Boden, Erde, Gemeinshaft - the battle cry that Hitler used to shout at the crowds and make them scream back at

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him until he'd driven them to a frenzy. There were brass shields all along the walls, each bearing some fascist symbol or other. Scott turned and looked at Nathan, whose eyes were glittering, and he understood why the man and his wife had come once a week to clean the place in the three years since Ezekiel Hawke had died. This was the Devil's room, as attractive to the unwary as only the Devil could make it. "You said there was a journal?" Scott asked. Nathan didn't answer. "Mr. Faldo?" "What?" "A journal?" "The book. There on the stand. But handle it carefully. I think I'm probably the only one except him who's ever read it, and I wouldn't be sharing it with you if you weren't investigating a murder." Murders. This place could easily hold the key to Esma Hale's killing as well. Scott walked over to the large oak stand and the leather-bound book on it, easily nine inches by twelve by two inches thick. The cover had no print on it, nor did the spine. On first page was a large swastika in black and red and white. The next page was the first entry, dated almost thirty years before. Scott thumbed through the book quickly, noting that there was at least one entry a week until a couple of months before Ezekiel Hawke's death. He went back to the first entry and read it: I always thought that the things my parents taught me and my school teachers spooned down my eager little throat were gospel truth. I never asked why the enemies of our nation had done what they did. As far as I was concerned, they were all devils, and the West was well rid of them - Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Guevera.

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But people who think often find themselves travelling strange paths and discovering new territory. Sometimes they learn to their amazement that they've grown up in a foreign country and only through a strange path have they found their true home. I wanted to hate Hitler as my parents had done, as my society had done, because he was the reason for a war that cost us untold lives and reshaped the world. But I had the opportunity whether fortune or misfortune or simply fate - to read his own words and be swept up in his own struggle, and I found myself as strangely warmed as John Wesley did when he got religion. This has never been an easy society for me, this land of opportunity and plenty. Certainly, I have all the comforts that a lucky twist in the road could give me. I invented something that others wanted, and selling it gave me enough to free my life to pursue interests beyond those of basic survival. But I found that we are not a happy people, not a contented people. The more we have the more we grasp after that which we can't have. My friend, the little corporal, taught me to understand that the life we crave is to be found in identifying our highest destiny and going after it, tossing aside the real enemies as we go. There are such things as conspiracies, otherwise why would so many otherwise intelligent people find themselves bound into the pleasure principle, unable to achieve any more than a new washing machine and a better car? The media, controlled by the Jews, and the economy, sapped by the blacks, have lulled us into complacency and destroyed the path to joyfulness. We will not live as long as they rule. Thus I resolve, this day, to lead a charge toward life and away from the living death I once thought was the norm.

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Scott turned the pages to the last few years of Ezekiel Hawke's earthly journey. There were the names he was growing all too familiar with - Casey Stendahl, Fred Edwards, even Martin Gold, though Martin never belonged to Ezekiel's club and everything said about him was an attack on his Jewish heritage. Ezekiel was grooming a little army of Nazis right in his own basement, giving them the ideology, dressing them in S.S. uniforms, teaching them about guns and bombs and barehanded killing. After about twenty minutes, Scott closed the book. Nathan was still watching him, immobile, as fascinated as a deer caught in a spotlight. When Scott looked at him, he began to grin, the fascination seeming to overcome him. "Quite a revelation," Scott said, feeling uneasy with Nathan's mood. "Fascinating and horrible all at the same time," Nathan said. "I know how you feel." "I'll need to take the book with me and study it." "No," Nathan said. "This book is germane to my investigation." "How could you possibly know that?" Nathan said. "Are you going to lend it to me?" "Not a chance." "I'll get a warrant," Scott told him. "On what grounds? "Probable evidence related to the death of Trudy Salter." "She was investigating my uncle?"

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"We don't know what she was investigating. Nobody's been able to find her computer, and her desktop back at her office told us nothing. That's why this book could be so important. It links together people who were connected with Trudy Salter." "Do you know what I do for a living, Officer Horsely?" "No." "Business law. I may not be up on criminal procedure, but even first year law school told me that you've got nothing that will get you a warrant here.” Scott walked toward the large chair at the end of the room. "Who built the furniture?" he asked, reaching the chair and running a hand along one arm. "My uncle probably. His hobby was cabinet making." "He made some cash off an invention?" "Patent. He was working for a chemical company when he discovered a process. Instead of sharing it with his company, he quit and went to competitors. The cash payment and royalties on the process made him rich enough to retire." "So he retired here and became a Nazi?" Scott asked. "Don’t say that word like it’s a curse." "I'd like to photocopy this journal at the very least," Scott said, noting the way Nathan's look grew tense as he spoke. "You could go with me. We'll do it at the library, then I'll give you back the original." "No can do." "You know," Scott said, "your uncle must have had a pretty expensive pen for all the years he wrote this journals. Never ran out of ink for thirty years or else he found the same kind of refill

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the whole time, because there's no change of color from beginning to end. The ink on the first page looks no older than the ink of the last." "What are you saying?" Nathan walked across the red carpet to Scott and pulled the journal out of his hand. "You saying this didn't come from my grandfather?" "Show me a sample of his handwriting other than this book." "I don't have to show you anything. Get out of this house." "This carpet isn't more than two or three years old either. What have you been doing here, Nathan?" Scott turned to leave, not surprised that Nathan didn't answered him. When Scott reached the front door and went outside, his lungs sucked in the cold air greedily as if he'd been under water for a long time or locked in an airless cupboard. Nathan didn't follow him out. For awhile Scott stood on the front steps, feeling depressed. There didn't seem to be much doubt that Nathan had re-decorated Ezekiel's original shrine, if there had been one, and that the journal was either copied from Ezekiel's original or largely fabricated by Nathan. In any case, he couldn’t be sure how much of the house was the way Ezekiel had left it, though the throne and the chairs circling it had a genuine feel to them.. The journal was the surprising part. If Ezekiel had originally written one himself, what would be the advantage in making another handwritten copy? If it was a compilation from several smaller notebooks, why not simply bind together Ezekiel's original pages or type out the whole thing? Why copy it in longhand? If Nathan had composed the journal himself, how did he know to include Casey and Fred among the boys Ezekiel worked with? The most obvious solution was that there had been an original journal that Nathan needed to perpetuate, but it had information in it that needed to be removed. Thus Nathan had copied it, omitting and changing whatever he needed to. Had he done it for himself or for someone else?

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Why, in fact, had he gone to the expense of putting new carpet into Ezekiel's throne room? Just to feed his own hero worship? Maybe Ezekiel Hawke's legacy had been reborn in a new movement with new kids or even adults. That would explain the renovations and the need for the journal. A new movement built on the shaky foundation of Ezekiel's babbling, and led by who? Nathan? Scott knew better than to go back to the station with this. There was clearly not enough for a search warrant, and the connection between Trudy Salter and Ezekiel Hawke was too fragile to survive discussion by homicide detectives. Instead, he walked down the block, found an overgrown empty lot with plenty of brush in it, and waited, feeling more like a Peeping Tom than a cop on a stakeout. Nathan took his time inside. Who knew what he was doing in there to make things right? After about an hour, he left the house and drove away. Fifteen minutes later, a car pulled up at the front door and Ruell Janzen stepped out. He didn't look around, just walked to the front door of Ezekiel's house, turned the handle and went in.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Freddy called me last night, said he wanted to talk, wanted to come here to Kenderville and see me "personally". Who knows where he got my number, because it's a cinch I haven't been hanging with him. Haven't been hanging with anyone since I came back from Corbin. They gave me the job back, who knows why. When I'm done for the day, I come home and stay there. Said he wanted to talk about Ezekiel and what I remembered, and I told him, "I remember everything," and he asked me when he could see me. I told him, "Never." He's scared of me, but he got really bold and told me he was coming anyway, so I told him to let me know when he was arriving so I could be sure not to be here. Then he said, "I know you did her." "Who?" I asked. "Salter. You hit her in the face, then you killed her later on." "I didn't hit her," I said. "Didn't kill her. Who says it was me?" "You're the one who did Martin." "And you promised me, Fred, you said you'd never raise that again. I was drunk that day, you remember, and if you say I killed him, I'll go with that, but nobody knows for sure what happened to him. You didn't see it or anything." "But you came to me zoned right out of your skull," Fred said, "and you were shaking and saying Martin was dead because you pushed him." "I don't remember that, Fred," I said, so now you know, Jay, what he thinks I did, but I don't remember anything like that. I was drinking then, stupid kid not old enough for an opinion and already a secret drunk.

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Fred says to me, "Now they're all over my turf, and I want you to do something to get them off. Don't you go bringing your messes to Corbin, then lighting out like you was some kind of angel on fairy dust." So I asked him why he was so steamed, and he told me Scott Horsely was hounding him. I told him, tell the guy to take off, but he was hesitating like he couldn't bring himself to say anything to Horsely. "What's he got on you?" I asked. "Nothing," he said. "So, can I come and see you?" "If you do," I said, "you won't find me here. I've got nothing to do with any of this stuff going down, so leave me alone, Fred." "Horsely's going to hurt us," he said. I knew what he meant, but it's not for sharing, even with you, Jay. I hung up on him. *

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"What are you doing here, Ruell?" Scott said. He'd followed the Corbin police chief into the house and down into the basement without a sound. Janzen whirled from where he'd been standing staring at the big room with the red carpet and dark walls, the swastika flags and Nazi shields. "Scott," he said. "You must be 90% cat." "How did you get in here?" "Door was unlocked,” Ruell said. “I was worried about you." "Why?" "I got to thinking about the stories of old Ezekiel and his fascist rituals. Just wondered when you were gone so long."

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"What do you make of this place?" Scott asked him, coming the last few steps down, then walking across to the big chair-throne and sitting on it. "Stupid theories Hitler had," Janzen said. "Thousand Year Reich." "I went to hear a German theologian speak - my wife's idea - and he said something like. 'I grew up in the Nazi era. By the time the Thousand Year Reich had ended, I was eighteen.'" "You think this was what put Casey on his weird path?" Janzen asked. "Not unless he already had a taste for it. Let's go. We shouldn't be here, and now I've got to call up the nephew to lock the place." "Maybe it's got a spring lock." "Nope,” Scott said. “Deadbolt." "Somebody told me old Ezekiel used to leave a key outside so people could come whenever they wanted to read something or do whatever else the old monster was into." He led the way outside. After digging in a plantless hanging pot for a few seconds, he came up with a key and locked the door. "Stupid of Nathan to forget to lock up," he said. Scott smiled. "Well, if you're going to have a deviant family, you got to hope they don't have functioning brains." *

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Scott went back to the motel and picked Bess up for lunch. "Let's drive a bit," he said. "All right." They headed north toward the next small town twelve miles ahead. Bess watched him, seeing the familiar furrow in his forehead. "You want to tell me about it?" "What? You mean Ezekiel's house. Basement's turned into a Nazi shrine, and his little nephew Nathan tends it like a garden."

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"Isn't that against the law?" Bess asked. "Privacy of your own home." "So what's bothering you, then?" she said. He slowed slightly. "Somebody renovated that shrine no more than two or three years ago. Everything's new. And Nathan's awfully careless for somebody who treasures the place so much. He left the front door unlocked when he left." "You didn't find anything connecting Ezekiel with Casey Stendahl?" she asked. "There's a journal, but I'm sure it's either doctored or an outright fake. You know, ever since Esma Hale, everything's like a spider's web. There are connections, but they keep breaking on me. There's no substance to any of this." "You must have some feeling about the reason, Scott. I know you and you're brooding about something." "I don't believe in conspiracies. Most felons are simply too stupid to carry on anything that involves more than two or three people. But there's a deeper thing happening here, like some kind of puppet master with his own script. We've got racists everywhere, a really handy Casey Stendahl to blame for everything, and yet nobody can figure out why these two people died. Even Trudy Salter's notes are gone. Her computer has nothing in it any newer than a week before she died, and what's there explains nothing." "You make it sound like you're dealing with a master criminal and a big network of evil people," she said. "Which is why I have to get away and clear my head. Conspiracies don't work. They can't survive a few weeks let alone the years that seem to be behind this - Martin Gold, his sister, Esma

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Hale, Trudy Salter. The only common denominator is Ezekiel Hawke and his racism, but he's dead and there's no evidence Esma Hale even knew Ezekiel existed." "What about you, Scotty?" she asked. "These murders are tearing at your soul and then you've got the other thing to think about..." "I've been dealing with Terry’s death for decades now," he said, his voice tired. "Always managed to push him into the background till now, so I guess I can do the same a while longer." "You need to deal with it." "Sure," he said. Sure, deal with Terry, deal with Casey, and Fred and Scott Horsely too for good measure. Deal with them all. In the end, the only one with a crime pinned on him would be Scott Horsely, Sibling Killer. I swear before God that I'm guilty. They found a German restaurant and ate heartily, the schnitzel going down easily. For more than an hour, they focused on nothing but trivialities. But by the time Scott got behind the wheel for the trip back, he was brooding again. "Can't you let it rest a while longer?" Bess asked him as he steered the car expertly on the winding road. "Leave it for tomorrow. He didn't answer her and they drove in silence for a few minutes. Then he said, his voice soft, "Want to help me do a B & E?" "A burglary?" "Sure," he said. "Some jokes are just stupid, Scott." "No joke." "It's against the law. Let's just go back to the motel."

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"Nathan didn't forget to lock the front door of Ezekiel's place. I saw him turn the key of the deadbolt." "Maybe he turned the key the wrong way. How else did Ruell Janzen get in?" She paused. "You're going to burglarize Ezekiel Hawke's house?" "No,” he said. “Think about it for a second. We've got Ezekiel as the kingpin in a racist club attended by a bunch of high schoolers. We know Fred and Casey attended the club, maybe Ruell as involved too despite the way he seems to hate racism now. Something has revived that club or a new version of it. Nathan's involved. There's just too much devotion there for him not to be, and he's bound to know they renovated Ezekiel's big room a few years ago. Fred's got a large area in his shop that I thought was being used for chopping cars. Maybe he's hiding something else." "Get a warrant, Scotty. If anybody finds out you broke into Fred's place, you're out of a job and probably on your way to jail." "No evidence for a warrant. Besides, Fred and I have an understanding." "Don't do this," she said, pulling on his sleeve. “Come on, Scotty.” "You can be my lookout," he said. "And if it won't?" "Then I won't have a lookout. I'll do it myself." "What's wrong with you, Scott?" He didn't answer as he took a particularly sharp corner a bit too fast. Straightening the car, he hunched forward slightly as if the driving needed all his concentration. It was simple, really. With a career in the toilet, a fledgling faith dying on the vine, and a dead brother accusing him from

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the grave, the only possible solution was to break this case wide open. Ordinary gumshoe plodding wasn't going to do it. He had to find a way into this thing, whatever it was. No case he'd over handled had so many loose threads to it. Was Casey a multiple murderer? Had Esma been killed because of she’d found the child porn Walter likely put on her computer or simply because she took in some crazy person on a stormy night? What had Trudy Salter been working on? Why was there only one connection that held the case together - a dead Nazi named Ezekiel Hawke? Or was he a false trail entirely? Now there was Fred in the picture, maybe Ruell Janzen too, not to mention Ezekiel's adoring nephew Nathan. The characters in this adventure were like gummi bears thrown into a pudding - the longer they stayed there the less clear identity they seemed to have. He realized that Bess was talking to him: "...and we could start again. Sure, you might not like the job, but any security firm would jump at the chance. You don't have to go on with this, Scotty." "What are you talking about?" "Getting out. If they can't appreciate you by this time, why do we have to go on trying to impress them?" "I'm not trying to impress anybody, just get the job done." "Not 'impress,' I didn't mean that exactly, but it's like you're starting at the bottom again, trying to win respect. It's not right." He slowed slightly. "A cop's only as good as his last bust. You know that. When things start coming apart, you either make it right or get out of the biz. I'm not ready to get out yet." "But -" "I'm not quitting."

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"You'll end up going to jail," she said, panic in her voice. "Are you going to be my lookout or not?" They were nearing Corbin, billboards starting to appear, though it was obvious Corbin would never have much to boast about. "Why do you always have to be so pig-headed?" she said. "I'll take that as a yes." Half a block from his destination, he killed the headlights. There was no one on the street, and they easily found a dark corner at the side the gas station where Bess could watch most of the front. Scott opened the trunk, wincing at the brightness of the trunk light, found his flashlight and covered all but a small circle of the lens with masking tape. He congratulated himself that he'd thought to wear dark clothes. The station had a back door with a simple lock and no deadbolt. There was no sign of a burglar alarm, but that was a risk nevertheless. Scott pulled a piece of rubber plastic out of his pocket and had the lock sprung in five seconds. Carefully, he opened the door then shone the light around the walls, looking for an alarm. There was none. The wall he was most interested in was to his left. It had nothing on it except painted wood slats, but he knew that behind it was room enough to store at least two cars. For the next ten minutes he searched for an opening, frustrated by the limited glow from his muted flashlight. He thought of removing some of the masking tape from the lens, but the risk of someone seeing a moving beam inside the station was too high. Then he spotted the lines of a door that went floor to ceiling and was eight feet wide. He tried pulling at the bottom, but there was nothing to give him a grip. The thing had to be on some

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kind of hydraulic lifter. This was taking too long, and he could only imagine what was going through Bess's mind. Why couldn't Fred have simply rigged something like a garage door opener? Going across to the workbench opposite the false wall, Scott moved his light in a search pattern, knowing that there must be a button or switch, but not out in the open where some bored customer might push it. Ten minutes later, he found it under the right corner of the bench. Steeling himself, he pushed it. An electric motor started whining, and the false door began lifting up, pushed by two rods from the other side that angled up from the floor in the hidden room. Less than a minute later, the false wall was pushed to the ceiling, and Scott was able to shine his light into Fred's secret. The room was empty. Cement floor except for the holes for the hydraulic lifter. Rough gyproc walls painted a pale green long ago, gyproc ceiling. Nothing else at all. He must have been preoccupied because he heard nothing until Ruell Janzen said, "Doing some sightseeing, Scott?"

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CHAPTER THIRTY "You really think you've got the whole world in your hand, don't you Mr. City Cop?" The lights were on in the gas station now, and Ruell Janzen's face was cold white. "Where's my wife?" Scott asked "Out in the car. I snuck up on her and told her not to make a peep." "I'm here, Scotty. I'm all right." Bess stepped through the back door and walked stiffly to Scott's side. "So what's the drill now, Ruell?" Scott said. "This is what's called a career-ender, Horsely. B & E, no warrant, not even anything to show for your search. I smell roast pig." "So get it over with," Scott said, trying not to let the weariness show in his voice. "Best turn me in to Nordstrom. He'll handle it through my chief. Fred can press his charges whenever." "Fred doesn't want to press any charges," Ruell said, his face inscrutable. "How do you know that?" "Fred and me go a long way back. He owes me a few, so as far as he's concerned, he gave you the key, asked you what...like maybe asked you to check out a suspicious noise? Fred won't be any trouble to you." "But you will, won't you, Ruell? Scott Horsely in your pocket would give you a real rush." Bess stood silently beside Scott, confusion of her face. "That hurts, Scott," Ruell said, not looking hurt. "You make a mistake and I cover for you, and suddenly it's me who has some kind of ulterior motive? Even if I did, who could prove what just went down? It's not like I'd have anything I could hold over you unless I make an arrest right now, and I don't plan to do that."

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"Show of good faith then, Ruell - why don't you hand me the disk from that video camera up there?" Scott pointed to a dark corner. "I didn't see it until you turned on the light, but chances are it recorded everything." "Not my camera. I'll have to ask Fred. He's not a very generous type, so don't blame me if he says 'no.'" "What do you want from us?" Bess said. Ruell's face showed anger. "You big town style cops always think you've got us hicks all figured out, don't you? What made you think you dig up what happened to Martin Gold when I'd closed it as an accident? You draw that Salter woman into town like a bug to a bug light and she gets zapped right on my turf. I don't owe you anything, and it's my business if I think I need some leverage with you. Far as I'm concerned, you never should have come here at all." "I don't like whatever bargain you're looking for," Scott said. "We're leaving, Bess." He took her hand. "Where are you going?" Ruell looked concerned for the first time. "Talk to Nordstrom. Tell him all about this. There's no way you're going to get a piece of me for the rest of my career." With surprising speed, Janzen pulled his gun and pointed it at Scott. "You'll stay here until I'm done," he said. "You're done now, Ruell. Smile, you're on Candid Camera, or did you forget about the eye in the corner?" Scott managed a weak smile. "Were you planning to edit the video to leave out the part about pulling a piece on me?" Janzen looked uncertain for a few seconds, then he put his gun away.

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They left Ruell behind in the garage and got into the car, Scott driving and Bess building storm clouds beside him. "Whatever you want to say," he said, "let's discuss it later." "Do you have to go to Wayne Nordstrom, Scotty?" she said. "They'll fire you and you could go to jail." "If I knuckle under to Ruell, he'll finish off my career anyway someday, whenever he doesn't find me useful anymore. I'd rather go out this way." Nordstorm was getting ready to leave, the fifteen hour days starting to show on him. He took one look at Scott and Bess and said, "I've had enough. Unless you've got the killer in a bag, I'm going home." "I did something stupid," Scott said. No one else was in the front office. The duty cop must have been taking a coffee break. "Like what?" "Broke into Fred Edwards' place. I thought he was running a chop shop anyway, so it I found what I thought might be there, it would be a bonus, and Fred couldn't say anything even if he caught me. Instead, Ruell found me, and he's got a video." Nordstrom cursed, then sat down, throwing his coat on the desk. "What's in your head, Scott? Anything you found at Edwards' place would be tainted evidence without a warrant." "I wasn't looking for evidence, just a connection." "With what?" Scott sat on another chair in the office, but Bess remained standing where she was. "Fred's in the middle of this. He's too cagey, and he's got strong ties to Ezekiel Hawke." "Who has nothing to do with the Salter case, because he’s long dead." "I think Ezekiel is the key."

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"Sometimes, Scott, things start to fall apart." Nordstrom paused. "Nobody's fault. The chemistry changes or whatever, and a good cop becomes just an ordinary cop. No shame in it, but it's best if he stays away from the front lines." "You throwing me off this case?" "I could be throwing you in jail. Is Ruell going to make anything of your little caper?" "He'll keep quiet if I become his bond slave for the rest of my life. I told him no deal, so who knows what he'll do?" "You need to listen to Scott." Bess had been so quiet that she startled both of them when she spoke. "Why?" Norstrom asked her. "Scott has instincts. I don't think he's lost any edge at all. You know how it works, Wayne. Some cops solve cases because they turn over every stone until they find the right one. Other cops have a knack. It doesn't look straightforward and sometimes it seems like chasing wild geese, but it works. Scott's got the knack. He's solved dozens of cases, even some that good cops gave up on. If he says there's a connection with Ezekiel Hawke, then there likely is." "Nice speech," Nordstrom murmured. "Earns you five minutes more with me, Scott. You explain the logic, and if there's even a glimmer of interest in what you have to say, I'll try to keep Ruell off your back and you can follow your trail. If there's nothing, you're on your way back to Kenderville tonight." "All right." Scott blinked a couple of times, feeling very tired, wondering if he made sense even to himself. When he spoke, he suspected that his voice sounded hollow, maybe even desperate. "Trudy Salter. There's no reason for anybody to kill her here unless she was investigating something that put somebody at risk. Last I heard, she was following me around

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because I was investigating Martin Gold. The day she was killed, she visited Casey, and he hit her." "So it was Casey who killed her?" Nordstrom asked. "No. At least, probably not. The thing about this case is that should be simple, but it's not. There are too many possible trails for it to be a crime of passion. And Trudy was killed the same way Esma Hale bought it. From what I know of Trudy Salter, she wanted a big story. Martin Gold by himself might be interesting, but he died a long time ago and finding his murderer wouldn't do enough. Trudy smelled serial killer or grand conspiracy or something. That's what she was after." "Which tells me nothing about any connection with Ezekiel Hawke." "Then you tell me, Wayne - why do people get into conspiracies in the first place?" "Money, revenge, some wild-eyed cause, a cover-up, how should I know?" "Conspiracies take a lot of work. The more people involved, the more likely that somebody will give the game away. The best conspiracies are tied to money because the risk of losing the cash keeps everybody's mouths closed. So maybe it’s money." Scott wasn’t sure he believed it himself. "So where's the money here, Scott?" Nordstrom was starting to fidget. "There was a child porn operation in the secret room under Esma’s kitchen.." "But that dried up when Esma was killed, and I don’t evidence of it springing up again here in Corbin," Nordstrom said. “Maybe Esma found out about the child porn, but what does that have to do with Trudy Salter’s murder?" "Maybe Fred’s garage was a backup porn site, or maybe something’s going on at Ezekiel Hawke’s house." "You visited both places and didn't see a thing."

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"Nathan only let me see what he wanted me to see," Scott said. "Fred had everything at his garage until Trudy came to town, then they moved it out." "How do you know that?" "They put big money into that contraption to move the wall up and down in Fred's garage. If he'd had a chop shop in there, no clean-up would have been able to hide all the grease spots. There was no sign of grease in that room. Instead, I found this." Scott reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a triangle of torn paper about two inches across. He handed it to Nordstrom, who read one side, then flipped it over. "Read it out loud, Wayne," Bess said, still standing where she'd stopped when she came in. "Here it says, '…best boys this side of the…'. Other side says, '...All you need is a subscripti...' It isn't evidence, wouldn't have been even if you'd had a warrant." "It's some sort of advertising pamphlet, maybe taken off a website," Scott said. "That would connect Fred with child porn.” "So Fred killed Trudy Salter because she somehow found out about his dirty little secret?" "Makes sense to me. Fred may well have had a porn server in his garage. Moved it somewhere when I started putting the pressure on." "Where does Casey Stendahl fit?" "Fall guy. He was a misfit as a teenager, maybe already a drunk. Had a bad habit of blacking out when he was plastered. The criminals could blame it all on him if they needed to." Nordstrom stood up and put his coat back on. "You're hanging by a thread, Scott," he said. "If Ruell wants to press the break-in, there's not much I can do to stop him. You better hope he forgets about it." "Is there a case here?" Scott asked.

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"If there is, you'd better hope you're a genius. Two days, and I pull the plug. Olivier can have you back, you lucky dog." He turned and walked out. *

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Fred was here tonight. Drove the whole way to Kenderville, and I still don't have a clue what he wanted. Said something about feeling bad over all the stuff that's happened to me. Told me to forget about Martin, said Martin wasn't worth remembering after all the damage he almost did to us. I like that word 'us,' Jay. Haven't heard it in a long time. Fred's all right, you know. Sure, the beast shows a lot, but he's always tried to steer me out of trouble. Half an hour later, he left and I still don't know what it was about. He got a cell call while he was here. Something about the garage. I thought I saw a flash of fear on his face, but you never know with Fred. Sometimes it's just gas. *

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Ray Lammers was chief on duty that night. The call from a pay phone near the drugstore wasn't right from the beginning, because the voice was obviously muffled with something so that Ray couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. Only one sentence before the caller hung up: "Casey Stendahl killed the Salter woman, and hid the knife in a culvert out on Duck Road, a mile north of the intersection with Blakeford." Ray despatched a car right away to have a look, and the constable was back in an hour with a plastic bag. They went into an interview room to have a look. Inside the bag was a tartan scarf with delicate fringes on its edges and dark stains everywhere else. Along with the scarf, in a smaller plastic bag was a large kitchen knife. Ray dusted it for fingerprints and found only one, a partial down near the blade. Somebody must have been careless when he wiped it. There was no apparent blood on the knife, but he sent it on to forensics anyway, along with the scarf.

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At one o'clock a 911 was forwarded to Ray. The woman was hysterical, probably half drunk too. "He's in the alley, and the blood's everywhere! I just wanted a shortcut, and I got some on me too, God help me, I don't know what to do, I don't..." Her voice trailed off. "Where are you?" Ray's senses were firing on all cylinders, the boredom of night shift gone in an instant. "Fourth...Fourth, and I don't know." "It's OK,” Ray said. “I've got you located. An ambulance is on the way." "Somebody killed him. Please hurry. I'm scared they'll kill me too." The body was under a piece of dirty clear plastic in an alley off fourth. The plastic was half torn off, and the witness, whoever she was, was gone. She'd probably tried to roll him for cash until she saw the shape he was in. There were at least seven stab wounds. With care, Ray was able to get at the victim's wallet. The driver's licence picture matched his face. Fred Edwards wouldn't be needing his license any longer.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE "We're becoming overwhelmed." Olivier sat back against the front of his desk and said to Nordstrom, "Can you coordinate on all three killings?" Olivier's thick accent was back, a clear sign of stress. "Sure, if you're reasonably certain they're linked." "The ME has compared the knife wounds. Different weapons but same height of killer and same kinds of thrusts. A large knife was used in each. That tells me we have the same killer." "We have some specs on the killer at last?" "In the file." Olivier tossed it to him. "About five-nine, right handed, held the knife in upper-cut fashion. That probably means he's had some experience with this sort of thing." "So you'll want Scott to head things up here?" Nordstrom asked. "Yes." Scott shifted in his chair, aware that the room was too small for his big frame now that Nordstrom, Ray Lammers and a couple of other people from major crime occupied it. "I'd rather give Esma Hale and Fred Edwards to Ray," Scott said. "Why?" Olivier's voice was abrupt, perhaps angry. "We have three connected killings and who knows how many more to come? Trudy Salter bought it because she stuck her nose into the wrong secret. Fred was probably part of the Hale and Salter killings, but maybe he wasn't bright enough to have been trusted forever with high stakes." "What high stakes?" Nordstrom asked. "We know that it took more than one person to do the cover-up on the Esma Hale killing. There's probably a small group of people with something really big to hide." He wondered if he was going to regret the confidence in his voice.

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"We solve crimes in teams," Olivier said. "Wayne here will coordinate. You work on the Edwards case along with Ray." "I need to be out of the loop," Scott said. "All of this comes together in Corbin. That's where the heart of the secret is, and I need to find it before someone else dies." Nordstrom laughed, the sound harsh in this somber room. "Who'd you think you are?" he said. "We have to do this by the book, which means everybody takes a piece and we all work on it until something breaks. We don't need a floater chasing rainbows." "Let him try." Ray tried to make his voice sound casual. "I need a chance at this case, and Scott's floundering. If the press ever gets ahold of all the blunders he's made - I mean he even slept with one of the victims." "Did not," Scott said mildly. "Look, let me put it on the line. The answer is in Corbin, and I'll find it before the next murder or turn in my shield. All right?" He stared at Olivier, who returned the gaze for five or six seconds. "We're short of manpower," Olivier said. "On the other hand, your predecessor told me to trust the way you do things. Go ahead and try. It really is your last chance, though." "Thanks." Scott left the room, feeling eyes of pity on his back. *

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Scott had brought Bess back to check out the farm and tell her uncle that he could go home, but he found her sitting on the front porch waiting for him. He got out of his car slowly, trying to assess the situation, fearing that something was about to fall on him. "You still have a job?" she asked. "Sure." "Three people have died, Scott."

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"Is that my fault?" he said, sitting next to her on the step. It was a cloudy day but dry, no wind, and he could almost feel spring in the moderated cold of the air. "Not your fault, but you need to do something about it. I know the memories of Terry are giving you flashbacks. But somebody's hacking people to death, and I don't want anyone saying my husband was too lost in the clouds to be much good. If you fail this one, you could lose your career, and Scott Horsely without a badge would be a miserable thing to have around the house." "You memorize that speech?" She blushed. "I've been working on it for an hour. Pretty good, wasn't it?" "Very good." He reached around her shoulder and held her to him. "They've agreed to cut me some slack, so I'm going back to Corbin to get to results." "Our bags are still packed. We'll just put them back in the car and use the laundromat in Corbin." "I need to do the rest of this by myself," he said, feeling her pull away. She stared at him a few seconds her look making his heart beat faster. "Not a chance, Scott," she said finally. "Make me your deputy or whatever, but everyplace you go I'm going." "It doesn't work like that." "Now it does. I've been watching you fumbling through these cases like you hardly knew where you were. You talked me into helping you with a burglary. A burglary, Scott. How much you want to bet you've left all kinds of stones unturned? You can go back to Olivier and resign, but there's no way I'm going to let my husband just muddle his way into unemployment." "You can't come with me." "Then I'll stalk you. I'll show up wherever you are until you solve this thing." His face softened. "Am I really such a mess that I need a keeper?" he asked.

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"You need a friend. You need somebody to understand." "If Olivier ever found out..." "Coward," she said. "All right," he said, sick at himself. "But I call the shots. I know full well what I need to do when I get to Corbin. You're not talking to a basket case." "No, of course not," she said. *

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They called me about one in the morning, Jay. Guy with a muffled voice like he had a sock over his mouth. I heard somebody else in the background. Guy says to me, "Why'd you do it, Casey?" I said, "Do what?" Guy says, "You carved up your friend Edwards. Came to see you and you followed him out and gutted him." I couldn't find any words at all, Jay, and it must have made the guy mad. At least that was in his voice when he spoke again: "What's wrong with you, dirty little monster, you got to put holes in people. What's this sickness?" I said, "I don't know." He must have thought I'd admitted something, because he told me Fred was his friend, he'd known the guy since high school, and what was in my head to do somebody with as much going for him as Fred? What kind of sick Only by then I'd had enough, so I hung up.

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Fred's bought it and now they're coming after me for it. What's going down here, Jay? Wasn't me, that's all I know. Wasn't me at all. *

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Scott was surprised that she was game to see him again, but then Debbie Stevens, former school secretary and tough old lady, had enough spunk for two people. They found a corner of the nursing home dining room, and Scott introduced her to Bess. "I thought I told you everything the last time," she said, looking puzzled, yet pleased to have the fuss made over her. "You do jigsaw puzzles?" Scott asked her. "Only in my room when nobody's looking. Around here, everybody tries to help and that spoils it." "You ever do a puzzle and you just can't figure it out until you realize that two or three pieces have been lying on the floor all the time, and if you'd only had them the rest of it would make sense?" "You're about to make an analogy, aren't you?" Debbie said. She smiled at Bess. "And they talk about the way women beat around the bush." "I've got a bunch of pieces here," Scott said, "but something's on the floor, and I can't see it." "Then tell me what you have." Debbie reached out, took Scott's hand and held onto it. "There was an evil man in this town, Ezekiel Hawke, and he gathered a group of boys around him to carry on that evil. Most of those boys are gone who knows where. One of them Fred Edwards - is dead. Another - Casey Stendahl - is under suspicion. A brother and sister died, and maybe they were involved in Ezekiel's nastiness. Then an old woman - sorry..." She smiled.

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"Esma Hale had child porn connections on her computer. I think Ezekiel fed on more than racism, if you get my drift. Then Trudy Salter - an investigator who too close. Now Fred Edwards, a bad guy, who was probably turned on by the other bad guys." "A lot of pieces," Debbie said, her gaze clear, her mind working on the problem. "But we've got some things in common. The same person killed Esma Hale, Trudy Salter and Fred Edwards. That connects those cases, and the only uniting factors I can see are the racism/porn angles. That's why I'd very much like to find out who the other boys were who hung out at Ezekiel's house." "I don't know. It was really very secret. Fred was a blabbermouth, so everyone knew about him, but he never told about the others. Casey and I talked about it, but he never named names. I brought a bunch of the boys in one day to tell me about Ezekiel - boys I suspected were going over there - but they all denied it." "The high school principal - " "Harlan Smithers." "You said he was pretty ineffectual." "Harlan had been a big track star in his early days. Even ran in the Olympics, but he never came close to winning. That man did everything he could to keep himself in shape, still does probably, but he never really liked kids, and the job was just a way of keeping up his status in the community." "So he didn't do anything about Ezekiel Hawke's club?" "Just wrung his hands. I think he was really bothered by Ezekiel, but he never had the gumption to do what needed to be done." "What about Ruell Janzen? When did he hit town?"

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"He grew up here, didn't you know? Ruell's about twelve, fifteen years older than Casey, so they never went to school together. Ezekiel wasn't so strange then." "What brought Ruell back to town, do you know?" "He trained in the RCMP, then there was an opening here so he put in for it. He's been here, what ten, twelve years now." "I was aware of that. He never told me he grew up here." "It shouldn't matter much anyway," Debbie said. "Anything else you want to know?" "The boys you suspected were going over to Ezekiel's - are you sure none of them are around the area anymore?" "Not a one now that Fred Edwards is dead." "All right." Scott leaned forward. "We have a woman with child porn associations on her computer and a probable studio under her kitchen, a nosey reporter, and a man with ties to a racist mentor who attracted young boys. All dead. What's the most reasonable assumption?" "You're asking me?" Debbie said. "I just want to confirm that my mind hasn't slipped a gear." "Well," she said, thinking. "It seems likely that Ezekiel had a craving for boys and used his racism as a vehicle. Esma Hale had child porn going on in her house, so maybe she had found out something and threatened to tell. Trudy Salter's pretty obvious. Fred was probably connected with the child pornography, but maybe he was putting them at risk. Freddy was always talking before his mind was operating." "Same scenario I came up with. Only, it should have borne some fruit in arrests. We questioned Esma's son-in-law and daughter, but there wasn't enough to charge them with anything. I got access to a secret part of Fred Edwards' garage, but whatever had once been there was gone.

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From what I saw of the inside of Ezekiel's place, nothing was hidden there. So who are the murderers? People that bold should have revealed something, especially if they were the fanatics we think they are. Why don’t I have something by now?"

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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO The sound was intense, violent, and Scott screwed his eyes even more tightly shut to ward it off, angry at the intrusion. But it went on, and then he was awake as the pounding on the door of their motel room went on. "Whasat?" Bess said beside him, her arms making struggling motions. Scott got up and moved to the door. "Who's there?" "Let me in, man. They're going to kill me." "Who are you?" "Casey. Let me in." Scott opened the door. Casey Stendahl was dressed in a shabby track suit, his hair wild, the trace of real emotion on his face. "What are you doing here?" Scott asked. Behind him in the bedroom, Bess pulled her bedclothes up to her chin and got up to shut the bedroom door. "They said you were out of town, so I figured you for Corbin. You got to help me." "Who's after you?" Scott sat down. Casey pulled a small armchair away from the wall and sat on it. "This guy, about half an hour after Fred got offed, this guy phones me, says he knows I did it. I didn't even know Fred was dead, but he says I killed him. So tonight there I was in my own apartment on the third floor, and a rock the size of a grapefruit comes right through the glass door at the back. I rush onto the balcony and then I hear a bang. I ducked down for awhile, but whoever it was must have taken off. So I look at the wall, and there's a bullet hole." "Who was it?" Scott asked. "You must know who your enemies are."

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"I've always had enemies. People like to use me, then they drop me down a hole. Casey's always been a good patsy." He was staring at the floor now, looking as if he were shrinking inside, and Scott knew he had to phrase the next question carefully. "Is this all connected to the killings or do you think somebody's taking a chance to get at you for some other reason? "How should I know that, cop?" "You didn't have to come here. The Kenderville force could have taken care of it." "Fat chance of that,” Casey said. "Did you have any contact with Fred the day he died?" "He came to see me. Probably less than an hour before they did him." "Why?" Scott thought he saw another trace of emotion in Casey. "Who knows with Fred? Told me he knew people had always picked on me, and he was sorry. He said Martin and Keri were no big deal and I should forget about them. Then he got a call on his cell, something about the garage, and he took off without saying another thing." "What did he mean that Martin and Keri were no big deal?" "About me killing them," Casey said. "Are you saying - " "Don't be stupid." Casey looked up, his blank face chilling. "Them saying I killed Martin and Keri. Why do you think Ezekiel kept me hanging around? The guys told everyone I offed Martin, and Ezekiel couldn't get enough of me." "Did that bother you?" "Did that bother you?" Martin repeated back, his voice laced with sarcasm. "What are you – a shrink? Let's get down to how you're going to save my life."

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"Can't save your life if I don't have a clue who you're running from." "And I don't know who, so where's that leave us?" "Tell me about Ezekiel and the club." "I look ignorant to you?” Casey said. “You think I got a death wish?" The way Casey spoke out of his emotionless face made him menacing. "It's water under the bridge," Scott said. "I'm not looking seek prosecution for what happened years ago. Anyway, Ezekiel's dead." "Yeah, sure, Ezekiel is. Doesn't mean the danger's gone." He stared for a few seconds, then said, "What do you want to know?" "He taught you about the Nazis, holocaust denial, and so on?" "Sure." "Weapons training?" "Pistols mostly. Some rifle stuff and once a machine pistol out in the woods. Booby traps and home made bombs. We never actually made any, just learned how to do it." "What else?" "Ceremonies in the big room downstairs. Uniforms and flags. We all thought it was neat." "Did he teach you how to kill Jews?" Bess asked from behind Scott. She was dressed, and her face was anything but sympathetic. "Come on," Casey said. 'It was all a game, never serious, like Boy Scouts only with different ground rules. We never hurt anybody." "Did any of you boys get hurt? Did some of the guys get a bit twisted?" Bess asked. "A couple. They joined a militia down in Wyoming or something. Nobody else. It was a game."

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"And your parents did nothing?" Scott asked. "What about the school?" "We didn't tell our parents a thing. The school figured it out, but old Smithers, the principal, he didn't have the guts to even let the parents know, so they never knew." "How did the other guys treat you at Ezekiel's?" "Good. They figured I'd offed Martin and my dad, so I was like a hero to them. Me, I'd rather they thought I was innocent. I didn't want them laying that garbage on me, but hey, it got me respect." "Who's after you now?" Scott asked. "Same people killed Fred, I guess," Casey said. "You and Trudy Salter had a blow-up, and you hit her." "Doesn't mean a thing now." "You kill her?" "No." Casey's gaze was level, his voice dead calm. "What do you know that would put your life at risk?" "Maybe they think I'll remember what happened at the old lady's house. Maybe they think Fred told me something." "Did he?” Scott asked. “What exactly did he say when he came to see you?"” "He seemed to want to apologize,” Casey said, “like he'd suddenly seen how much he'd done me wrong. He told me he knew how much everybody had used me all these years, and he wished he could have stopped it. Then he said Martin and Keri weren't a problem, and I should stop thinking about them. I got the feeling..." "Yes?"

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"Like he was tired of living or something, like he'd decided to stop carrying his heavy load, whatever it was." "He got a call on his cell?" "He answered it, listened a few seconds, then said, 'The garage? It's not there anymore.'" "You sure that's what he said?" "Sure, I'm not stupid. I do remember a few things, at least some of the time. After that he told me he had to go. The guy was there maybe five, ten minutes max." "He didn't say who'd phoned him?" "No. Look, do I get protection or what?" Scott sighed, then went into the bedroom and came back out with a couple of blankets. "Bunk on the sofa for now. I'll figure out the rest in the morning." "What if they break in here tonight?" "You better hope they don't." Scott took Bess's hand and led her into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him and running the back of chair under the handle for good measure. *

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I remember the way Ezekiel almost drooled over me, Jay, but he never dared touch me. Not like the others. Every time I went over there, it seemed to me like I was some animal in a zoo, not just with Ezekiel. With everybody. They treated me great, but I always got the feeling they wanted something out of me. Back then I was having lots of headaches and pretty heavy into the booze, so not everything's clear. This Horsely character could suck the marrow out of an elephant with his questions. Wish I could figure out his game. This whole thing's somehow become personal with him. Sometimes I feel like he'd like to throw me on a plate and not finish chomping till he's picked my bones clean.

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Pretty sad state of affairs when you can't find anybody to trust except the very guy who might just lock you away. And what's with that wife of his *

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"What you writing?" Scott asked him. "Personal. Sorry, the light bothering you?" Casey reached to turn it out. "Leave it." Scott sat down in the armchair. Casey noticed that the door to the bedroom was shut. "Trouble sleeping?" Scott asked. "I'm always like that." "Tell me something, Casey." "What?" "You ever get the feeling that the kids at Ezekiel’s wanted you there so they could use you?" "For what?" "For anything. You ever have times when you knew hours had passed but you couldn't remember?" "What, like blackouts?" "You were drinking a lot then, right?" "Every once in awhile I'd lose a little time, sure. Me and drinking never did work. That's why I'm off it now." "You and Martin were close?" Scott asked. "Sure." "Half the town says you were enemies." "They didn't understand."

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"So suppose, Casey..." Scott leaned forward. "Suppose Martin was a problem to the club. You didn't belong yet, but people like Fred could make sure you were drunk -" "I didn't kill Martin!" Scott saw it then, a flash of monumental fury on Casey's face, smothered in an instant. "That wasn't what I was getting at. Somebody in Ezekiel's crowd could have killed him then told you that you did it. You had a blackout, so you couldn't ever be sure you didn't." "Maybe. Who knows anyway?" Casey turned his head to look at the curtained window. "I'm trying to understand all this. We've got all these people dead now, and you almost went down for Esma’s. You've been in the area for each of the others so you can’t be taken off the suspect list." "What about the people trying to kill me?" Casey asked. "Where's your evidence that you're in any danger at all?" "Big old rock next to my sofa. Broken glass. Bullet in the wall." "I could probably arrest you for the killings,” Scot said.. “You're what - five ten? Right handed too. Perfect profile, matches the killer's all the way." "What's your game, cop? There're no reason for you to come off harsh on me. You want to arrest me, go ahead. I didn't do it." "I don't think you did. I think you've been everybody's patsy for a long time and you're getting tired of it." "So?" "So help me. Help yourself. If you didn't do it then it's in your best interests to help me find out who did."

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"What do you want from me?" Casey got up and put his hands in his pockets, looking like a deer in headlights. "First a list of every person in Ezekiel Hawke's club. Second, anything you can remember about their parents, school friends, teachers, whatever, and any time opposition to Ezekiel was raised by anybody. Third, everything you know about Fred Edwards." "That would take me half a day." "Half a day? Sorry, I didn't realize your social calendar was so full." Casey glared at him. Scott got up and said, "I'll make you some coffee. The restaurant can bring us breakfast." "I don't feel right about helping you," Casey said. "Then help yourself." Casey gave him a look that might have been calculation. "How can I be sure I'm not digging my own grave giving you this information?" he asked. "You're already in a grave, Casey. It's time to dig yourself out." Casey sighed. "OK, give me some paper. Should have my head read." *

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Scott and Bess took their time over breakfast while Casey wrote furiously at a counter across the room. They said nothing to each other, but both could feel that the bond between them was strong, that somehow they'd reached an understanding. Watching Casey was a strange experience because they knew instinctively that he was still an alien presence, something other than humanity as they'd experienced it. Casey would always be an outsider, a perpetual stranger even to his friends. His face had a strange new intensity to it, almost an excitement. He was on to three pages now and going strong, as if he were purging his soul, unbottling a blockage in the stream of his life.

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Scott wasn't naive enough to believe that Casey could solve these murders alone, but he would have admitted to a feeling of anticipation as he watched Casey work. Anything was better than nothing. Finally, at ten-thirty, Casey put his pen down. "That's all," he said. "I'm tired. If what you want isn't here, then don't ask me where it is." Scott walked over to the table, picked up Casey's pages and sat in an armchair to read. For ten minutes, he scarcely moved except to shuffle paper. Then he set Casey's material on his knee. "This is all straight?" he asked Casey. "Straight as I know. Sometimes I get things mixed up a bit." “Who’s this ‘Wally’ person?” “Forgot his last name. He was older, hung with Ezekiel more than us.” "The confrontation with Harlan Smithers - that happened like you said?" "He came to Ezekiel's like he'd been priming himself all week. They had words while the rest of us stayed in the basement. Smithers called Ezekiel every name you could think of, mostly 'racist pig.' I'd never heard him so steamed. Old Ezekiel ordered him off his property, and he went, and I never heard old Harlan open his pathetic mouth again about it." "These things that happened, that the others said you did - vandalism, a couple of late night beatings, and of course the death of Martin Gold -" "I never did any of it. Last few hours have got me thinking, especially when Fred told me not to worry about Martin and Keri and what happened to them. Maybe I was set up." "Or maybe you did these things while you were having blackouts." "Scott?" Bess said from the counter where she'd been drinking coffee. "Why don't you go easy for a bit. Casey's given you something to work with. Accusing him of murder isn't very helpful."

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Scott felt instant resentment. "I'm the cop," he said. "You're not trained for this." "Maybe Casey would like a Coke or something." She smiled at him, and Scott for the first time recognized the good cop - bad cop routine she was working. "Give him what you want," he said. "Just please don't interfere." "Could you get it?" she asked. "There's a machine outside the motel office." "And leave you with him?" "He's OK. Go on." Scott left, taking his time walking to the machine, buying three Cokes and drinking one himself before he returned to the motel room. When he opened the door, he sensed a change in the atmosphere. "Your drink," he said, handing a can to Casey and give one wordlessly to Bess. "Scott?" Bess said. "What?" "Casey has something to share with you." Scott sat on a chair at Casey's table. "Something more than what you wrote?" "Yes," Casey said. He hesitated, then spoke. "I lied when I said I was a member of the club. They never made me a member because they thought I was a psycho. Ezekiel paid me to show up at the meetings and do whatever they wanted done." "Such as?" "Running errands, being a punching bag when they practised self-defence, doing night jobs like beating people up or stealing things." "What else did you do?" "I was a spy for Harlan Smithers. I told him everything."

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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE "You haven't been honest with me." Scott felt both awkward and angry as he sat in Harlan Smithers' living room, a cup of tea balanced on his knee. Bess was waiting for him at the restaurant, and Casey was holed up in their motel suite after a ten minute argument over whether Scott had the right to confront the retired principal over information Casey considered confidential. "I don't understand," Smithers said, a lock of gray hair sliding over one eye as he turned his head slightly, the only sign of nerves that Scott could see. "You bullied Casey Stendahl into becoming your spy. He wrote it all down for you, and now I'd like you to find that material, which I'm sure you still have, and turn it over to me." "This is preposterous." Scott smiled. "Not too many people I know would still use a word like that one. Tends to making your sound like you’re blustering, don't you think?" "I think you should leave." Smithers made no move to rise. "You're in a bit of a spot here, Mr. Smithers. True, Casey's one basket case when it comes to being a reliable witness, but this all fits together very nicely. Why didn't you tell me what happened?" "Maybe you should tell me something..." Smithers leaned forward, "Tell me how you plan to proceed when you leave here." "With or without Casey's reports to you?" "Without, of course. There were no reports."

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"Why are you so intent on obstructing a murder investigation?” Scott asked. “I think Casey's information is important. The fact that you made him your spy is neither here nor there anymore, so I can't figure out why you'd deny the whole thing." "You tell me how you plan to proceed," Harlan said. "I'll find other evidence that Casey acted as your spy, put some pressure on you by questioning past friends and colleagues, or is that 'friends and past colleagues?'" "Harassment is illegal, whether you're a cop or not." "I've been wondering about you for awhile, Mr. Smithers," Scott said. "Here was some dangerous fanatic seducing the souls of the teenage boys in your school and you ignored it. How could you live with yourself?" "I never knew anything. Just rumours. How dare you lay the blame on me?" Smithers' face was pale now, his lips pursed. "You had a responsibility. A boy died, probably because he was Jewish." "It didn't happen in my school. I kept the hatred out." "How?" Scott asked. "Pardon me?" "How did you keep the hatred out?" "We had sessions with the students on prejudice,” Harlan said, his voice calmer now that he was on familiar ground. “I made a point of going to every one and saying a few words. The students knew where I stood." "Did you know that Ezekiel's nephew is thinking of reviving the little monster club?" Smithers stared blankly for a few seconds. "No," he said finally, his voice close to a whisper.

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"Oh yes. He's renovated the meeting hall, even had the big journal rewritten to expunge the past. Casey ever report to you about the journal?" "Look!" Smithers' eyes blazed. "I invited you in, gave you tea. If this is going to be an interrogation, put me in a police cell. This town would love to hear that its beloved former principal was under the bright light." "As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Smithers," Scott said, "you're simply a loose end. Casey claims he spied for you, and I'm seeking confirmation. Why the hostility?" "Because you're implying that I didn't do enough to stop Ezekiel. You're saying I hired a student to do my dirty work for me. I won't have it, do you understand?" Smithers stood, his thin body tense, still looking fit despite his age. Scott wondered what he'd do if the man decided to take a poke at him. "If that's your decision, I'll have to accept it," Scott said. "I really could have used your help." "Please go." Scott stared at the principal's face, which showed a mix of anger and something like anxiety. Somewhere deep inside the man, Scott had struck a nerve. *

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It was a ten minute walk from Smithers' house, isolated on a narrow street north of town, to the restaurant where Bess was waiting. Scott smiled to himself as he went, wondering where the response this grilling of Sanders would come from. He certainly hadn't expected Smithers to admit anything, but stirring up bees was Scott's specialty. Eight minutes into his walk, with the restaurant in sight, the first bee landed.

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Ruell Janzen had no need for his car on such a short trip, but he used it anyway to advantage, cutting Scott off in mid step, wrenching the door open and slamming it behind himself. "What are you doing, Horsely?" Ruell said, his face white. "Walking. The air's nice up here. What’s the problem - some local walking tax I didn't pay?" "I want to know where you get off attacking the reputation of a man this town reveres." Scott stared Ruell in the eye, deliberately making his gaze uncomfortable. "Some terrible things happened in this town a few years ago," he said. "A group of thirty or forty boys were corrupted, a boy was killed. Harlan Smithers had information that might have shut Ezekiel Hawke down, but he held onto it. You knew things too, but I see no evidence that you did anything either." "Evidence? Of what? No one ever laid a complaint about Ezekiel. Parents must have known about his ideas, but he kept their kids off the streets, taught them to be polite, mow the lawn when asked, and they never divulged his ideology. Parents figured a guy like that couldn't be as bad as some people made him out to be. As for Martin, he fell. Nobody pushed." "Harlan knows better." Ruell shifted uncomfortably. "If he does, he never told me. Look, Horsely, I'm getting tired of you and tired of your brand of investigating. Either leave our citizens alone, or I'll ask your boss to reassign you." "How much did you know about Ezekiel back then, Ruell?" "Not much. Strange old guy but the kids liked him." "What about Casey?"

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"What's that fool got to do with anything? We didn't believe half of what he told us back then, and I certainly wouldn’t now. Look, just leave Smithers alone and stop harassing our citizens." "From what I can see,” Scott said, “Smithers is hiding secrets. He had to have known more than he let on. So you're saying it would be better for me to leave the secrets alone and let a bunch of murders end up in the dead file?" "You're talking garbage. Just get out of my town. I'm sick of you." "Sure." Scott smiled, though he felt no mirth. "I need to see Nathan anyway. How far is his place - thirty miles? Should be far enough away even for you, Ruell." Janzen climbed back into his car and drove away. *

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At the restaurant, Scott filled Bess in on the interview and Ruell's response to it. Casey had been adamant that he had served as Smithers' spy, and this was exactly what Scott would have expected from a weak high school principal who needed information but lacked the courage to get it through confrontation. "Maybe somebody will give himself away now that you're probing so hard," Bess said, sipping her third cup of coffee. "Could be dangerous." Scott put his cup down. "You should reconsider being here." "Not on your life,” she said. “I let you talk to Smithers alone because you told me you were going to be tough on him, and I didn’t want to see that. But we're going to follow this through together, Scott." "All right. The next thing is to shake Nathan's tree a bit. He'll be a lot easier to intimidate." "Can I come along?" she asked.

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"Sure,” he said. “You can be my secretary.” She frowned. “Think of it as an acting job. Once you start taking notes, it tends to rattle people's cages." They drove out of town without checking on Casey, who was still waiting in their motel room. He had room service privileges with a set limit. That and TV would keep him occupied. Scott found his mind drifting as he drove, despite the fact that he should have been spending his time trying to fit the last few loose ends together. He felt dirty, unworthy of the role he was playing, as if digging into even one more life would disqualify him from the human race forever. Investigating crime was a nasty business, especially when it involved having to work on people's weak points. He remembered the look Smithers had given him when he suggested that a school principal should have done more to attack the evils of Ezekiel Hawke. "Penny for them," Bess said suddenly. Scott hid his startle response by clenching the wheel hard, reminding himself that this mountain highway was a little too demanding to tolerate daydreaming. "It's nothing. I’m just a little bushed" he said." "Why isn't it this case working yet, Scott?" she asked. "You've done everything in your power, but the case just keeps closing up on you." "Because it's the nature of conspirators to protect their story. We have several people working together to hide a dark secret, and they're very practiced at keeping their cover story tight." "Who are they?" "How about Smithers and Ruell?" "Ruell? He's a cop." "He's been right at the hub of most of what's gone on in Corbin - the investigation of Martin Gold's death, friendship with Smithers, more knowledge than he'd admit about Ezekiel's club."

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What about the nephew, Nathan, the guy we're going to see?" "Too weak. He may be a fanatic, but I doubt he'd have the guts to pull off three grisly murders. Besides, he's probably on the other side." "What other side?" She turned sharply, aware of something new more by his tone than his words. "You know, don't you? You've figured it out." "Maybe." "Who?" "Guess." "Ruell and Smithers? Why?" "I don't know," he said. "So it's just speculation then." She frowned, looking deflated. "More than speculation. It starts with Casey. Normally I wouldn't have trusted a thing he said, but his being a spy for Smithers works perfectly. Good old Harlan doesn't seem to recognise it, but his left eye twitches when he's under pressure. I'm sure he was lying to me." "Maybe just to protect his reputation,” she said. “Using a student as a spy isn't exactly ethical, and he wouldn't want an accusation like that to get out even if he didn't do it." "Even if he did, it would have been water under the bridge by now. Nobody would care." "Why bring Ruell into it?" she asked. "He had a key to Ezekiel's house or else the fastest lock-picking speed in the West. He covered over my break-in at Fred Edwards' place, and Fred died right after. He warned me off Smithers." "I'm sorry, Scott," she said, "but it's not very convincing."

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"OK, answer me this - What did Ruell do when Martin died? What did he do about Ezekiel Hawke?" "Nothing." "What did Smithers do?" he asked. "Nothing." "But Smithers was getting regular reports from Casey," Scott reminded her. "He surely must have had enough to go to Ruell about it." "He didn't want a confrontation,” she said. “It would reveal that he'd used a spy, so he kept it to himself." "No he didn't,” he said. “He reported everything to Ruell." "How do you know that?" she asked. "Ruell told me by accident just awhile ago. He said that they never believed half of what Casey told them. He used the words 'we' and 'us', him and Harlan. That means Smithers was sharing his information with Ruell. Even if half of what Casey told me was actually going on, Ruell should have acted on it. Why didn't he?" "Because he was a supporter of Ezekiel?" "I don't think so. Casey never saw any involvement from Ruell. I'm sure Casey would have been glad to tell us there was, seeing how he feels about cops." Scott stared ahead for a few seconds. "If Ruell wasn't a supporter, then something else must have been stopping him." "Like what?" she asked. "Fear. Dirty secret." "And you think Ruell and Smithers killed Esma Hale because of a secret?" "Maybe. Ruell was off duty that night, and Smithers missed his regular bingo night."

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"You checked?" she asked. "Sure. A while back." "What about Trudy? Fred?" "Trudy found out something damaging,” he said.. “Fred was working for the killers, but he was too careless just when an investigation was going on. They decided he was expendable." The Fraser Canyon highway hugged the mountainside, a deep ravine and the Fraser River to their right. The snow had started to stick, and Scott slowed a bit. He told himself later that he should have known that Ruell would recognize the slip he’d made admitting that both he and Smithers got information from Casey. But he never dreamed it would be enough to push anyone into action. At about forty-five miles an hour, he rounded a curve and saw a police car sideways on the road. He barely stopped in time. Behind him, a car that had been far back suddenly sped up, then braked and spun crossways on the highway, barely avoiding hitting them. A man got out and walked to the passenger side of Scott's car, a pistol in his hand pointed at Bess.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR The cabin was about a thousand square feet - two bedrooms, a standard bathroom, and a kitchen with an electric stove and fridge along with cold running water. The front and back doors were heavily planked, everything held in place by large spikes. The windows were barred, the peaked ceiling and the floor planked as well. For utensils, Scott and Bess had only plastic picnic forks and knives, except for a small, fragile can opener. For an hour, Scott roamed the place, looking for anything strong or sharp enough to be used to dig them out, but he found nothing. Their captors had taken even his belt and Bess's nail file. The man in the car behind them had been Harlan Sanders. The police car, of course, was occupied by Ruell Janzen. While Ruell and Sanders could have forced Scott into a showdown, they both drew guns instead on Bess, knowing he'd fold to protect her. Scott's helplessness was almost palpable. Cars passed, even a semi, but there was no way for Scott to let them know that the policeman was the real criminal. Ruell put them in the back of his car after disarming Scott, then gave them cloth bags to pull over their heads before driving them into the hills for an hour or more. Once at the cabin, he held them at gunpoint while he explained how the electricity worked. Harlan stayed outside. "There are three generators," Ruell said. "You turn on number one when you get up, number two eight hours later, and number three when you go to bed. The TV is functional, and it's hooked up to satellite, so you should have everything you want. Watch the news at noon tomorrow." "Is this really necessary?" Scott asked. "Your alternative is a bullet in the head," Ruell murmured, something close to pleasure in his voice.

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"People will be looking for us," Bess told him, trying to appear calm, failing. "You bet your life they will." Ruell smiled then. He went to the door and let himself out, turning the deadbolt behind him. Once they were gone, Scott looked at Bess, calculating her state of mind, reassured that she seemed calmer than he expected. When he'd done the rounds searching for a way out, he sat down in a big dusty armchair. Bess sat on a similar one opposite him, not saying anything, watching the way he stared at the floor, the slump in his upper torso. "Why?" she asked finally. "I don't know." "They didn't kill us." "Maybe there are worse things than killing," he said. "Like?" "How should I know?" he said, more discouraged than annoyed at her questions. "You're kicking yourself that you let me come along, aren't you? Beating yourself up, just like you always do." He glanced at her, then stared at the floor again. "Let’s stop this," he said, his voice registering no emotion. "I need your strength now, Scotty." She went over to him and knelt on the floor, forcing him to look at her. "You fold now, and we'll both die." "I'm a fool," he said. "I should have seen the truth long before this happened." "We can get out. I'm sure of it," she said. "Out of this cabin, you mean? What makes you think that would make us free?" She looked bewildered. "Sure, out of this cabin. Then you arrest them."

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He sighed. "Let’s sit down," he said. "You're not getting it at all." "Getting what?" She moved back to the chair, sitting on it awkwardly like a bird perching on the edge of its nest. "They didn't lock us up here so they could kill us later. From what I can see, we'd make lousy hostages. That leaves one more option. Let me think for awhile." He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes, the expression on his face anything but comforting. Bess watched him as the minutes passed, forming a prayer that didn't want to find shape, praying it anyway, more of a desperate cry than a carefully worded plea. Then Scott opened his eyes. "What?" she asked. "It's almost perfect," he said. "They have what they need, and Ruell's about to become a hero." "Stop playing with me, Scotty." "Where was I when Esma Hale was killed?" "In bed with me." "But I blew the investigation and eventually ended up in Corbin where Trudy Salter landed in my bed, seen by the waiter from the restaurant. I was at the motel when she died, with no one to verify that I'd stayed put. Then I got myself on video searching Fred's garage, and he got offed." "What are you saying?" she began, but she already knew what he was saying, and it chilled her. "No, Scotty." "Now we've disappeared, and they have everything they need for a frame-up. They're going to tie those murders to me, maybe with you as a helper and Casey as my fall guy."

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"This is crazy. It would never work. What about...what about when Fred died? That was over an hour from Corbin." "And Fred was killed between 10:00 and 1:00 in the morning. Ample time for me to drive to Kenderville and back after I explained to Nordstrom why we burglarized Fred's garage." "But you didn't go anywhere near Kenderville. I was with you," she said. "Somebody left evidence in a ditch and phoned Ray Lammers about it so the murders could be laid on Casey. They'll claim the guy on the phone was me, trying to pin my evil deeds on a fall guy." "But it wasn't you." "Prove it in court." "So you think Ruell and Harlan are going to blame the murders on us?" "Maybe they'll say Edwards was one of us or more likely they'll claim that I was on some kind of crusade against racists, and Edwards got in my way just like Esma and Trudy did." "What are they going to do to us?" she asked. "Ruell and Harlan? If they were smart they'd make us disappear forever, then Ruell could work a case against us and get the investigations dropped. But they'll probably take the riskier path of letting us go so we can get properly arrested as fugitives. By now they'll have salted evidence all over the place." Her eyes were wide. "How did this happen, Scotty?" she said. "You're too good for this to happen." "I got sloppy. All this Jesus stuff mushed my brain." He said it without anger, his voice sounding tired. "You know that's not true."

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"Then what's true?" he shouted. "Don't, Scotty.” She shrank from him. “I hate it when you use that tone." "So tell me what's true,” he said more softly. “Tell me one thing in this sick and disgusting world that's true." "You're forgiven and you can't accept that, because you want to hate yourself until you die." She had no idea where the words had come from, and they startled her. She could feel his eyes staring at her from across the room, but she couldn't look at him. The floor was blurry through the tears forming in her eyes. "Why shouldn’t I punish myself?" he said. "Why shouldn’t I hate -" "You killed your brother. So you deserve to rot in hell? You didn’t want him to die, Scotty. There has to be an end to this, some kind of grace." “Killers don’t get grace. Cheating justice just makes the crime that much worse." He paused. "We were better off before," he said. "No we weren't. You were in your moods and I was planning a life without you. Don't tell me it was better." "So why didn't you leave me?" he asked. "Because I found hope. You did too, but you can't see your way through to accept it. That's why your brain is mush. Jesus didn't mess you up. You did it to yourself." He sat there without words as seconds ticked into minutes amid the silence, with only the distant sound of the generator and a faint hum from the fridge to keep this place from being the end of the world. Maybe that's exactly what it was – an apocalypse - and all the contradictions would be solved. But he knew no apocalypse would keep him from facing what she was saying to him. *

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Casey Stendahl stared out from a narrow gap in the curtain of the motel room and muttered a few curses at no on in particular. Sure it was great that he had a hundred bucks he’d dug up so he didn’t have to sleep in an abandoned park. But since the Esma Hale thing had happened, his life had been totally off course. He'd always needed routine. Chaos made him forget who he was. Now the cop and his wife had gone who knew where, and staring at walls wasn't a cheery occupation. He went back to the TV, wondering how anyone could find profit in daytime television. The talk shows were full of exhibitionists and freaks. The kiddie programs would have numbed the brain of a three year old, probably did. Even if you found a movie, it was some tired thing from the sixties that should have been put out of its misery before it had a chance to bore a new generation. The one thing he wasn't prepared to do was go outside, not with Fred Edwards dead and somebody really bad out there ready to end the short sad life of Casey Stendahl. Let the cops work it out and keep a low profile. It had to be Harlan Smithers behind this somewhere, which was cool because the old guy couldn't have had much juice in him anymore. So chill, Casey, and wait for the monsters to slink back into their den. That was when the door crashed open, frame smashing and hinges shrieking. That was when Ruell Janzen came at him with a gun. *

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Scott woke first, feeling the alienation of strange surroundings, then remembering the whole thing all at once. Bess was clinging to him, her grip on his arm almost painful despite the fact that she was still asleep. Through the curtain he could see a hint of dawn, gray and cold looking. Maybe it would snow.

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Carefully he separated himself from Bess and went to the sink to get a kettle boiling. The only coffee was instant, thank you Ruell and Harlan. At least the cabin had power. He made a cup for himself, then sat where he could stare out the front window at the mountains emerging out of darkness with the coming of the sun. Today Ruell would act. After he'd put the finishing touches on the frame-up, he would come to fetch them and lead a victory procession into town. Quick trials, and the Horselys would do life with no possibility for parole for twenty-five years. It was a mercy at least that Canada had no death penalty. "Scotty?" "Here, Bess. How'd you sleep?" "Bad," she said. "Too many dreams. What time is it?" "Six-thirty." "What are we going to do?" she asked. "Try to find a way out." "You already tried that." She sat up in bed "I'll do it again. Maybe take the kettle apart and find a sharp piece. This Styrofoam cup sure won't do the trick." "Don't waste the effort, Scotty." "I have to do something." He got up, poured her a cup of coffee, then ran the kettle under water until it cooled off. The planked floor was hard enough for his purposes. Grabbing the handle of the kettle, he banged it on the floor until the handle broke and the bottom fell out. There wasn't much to work with wires, a heat coil, blunt screws in the handle. He bent a crease in the metal of the base and worked

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it back and forth until a piece of it broke off. Ten minutes later, he had something that looked like a crude knife, though the blade was far too flimsy and dull to do much good. Clearly his tool wouldn't work as a lever, so he started breaking slivers off one of the planks in the back door. An hour later, he'd chipped away about an inch of the plank from top to bottom. At this rate, in three days they'd be free. Bess watched him the whole time, knowing the futility of his efforts but not wanting to discourage him by pointing it out. In another half hour, his hand was raw with working the crude blade. He wrapped it in a towel and went back to work for a couple more minutes until the tool snapped in two where the metal fatigue had weakened it. Muttering to himself, he went back to the remains of the kettle, still lying on the floor, and fashioned himself another tool. "Maybe you should rest a bit," Bess told him. "No time," he said. Then they heard the sound of a vehicle outside. Before Scott could get himself in position to rush the door, it opened and Casey Stendahl came tumbling through it before the door snapped shut again. From outside they heard Ruell shout, "TV at noon, people." Then he drove away. Casey stared at them for a few seconds, almost an apology on his face, then he sat at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. Bess walked to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, startled. "Everyone thought you did it," she said. "I believe you now." "Thank you." He looked back at the table again, then said softly, "Was it Ruell?" "Ruell and Harlan," Scott said. "Probably Fred Edwards too." "Why?" "I don't know. There's probably something perverted in the mix."

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"Ruell didn't tell me why he brought me here," Casey said. "I think we're about to be framed for the murders," Scott said. "They want us together." "You?" He got up. "They're tying you to me on this?" "Why not?" "Because you're one of those true blues, crusader type,” Casey said.. “People like you don't murder people." "Don't be too sure." "No. Really. I can spot your type a mile away. Ruell must have rocks in his head." "Scotty," Bess said. "It's five to twelve." They turned on the TV and waited. Only one channel came in, fuzzy but discernible. Right at noon the folksy talk show broke away for a special news bulletin. Knowing he'd been right was small comfort to Scott as he watched his future unravel.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Olivier's face on the TV screen showed all the lines of his age, the crows feet near his eyes prominent, his forehead deeply creased. He began hesitantly, aware of the cameras, or the responsibility, or both. "It's with deep regret that I must inform the public that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Inspector Scott Horsely of the Kenderville Police Department, along with his wife Bess, and a Casey Stendahl. They are wanted for questioning in the murders of Esmerelda Hale, Trudy Salter and Frederick Edwards." As the screen flashed to pictures of the three suspects, Bess's obviously from her driver's license, the gathered press erupted with questions. Olivier sounded confused as he tried to choose a reporter to recognise, eventually seizing on the senior editor of Trudy Salter's newspaper. "Are you telling us that a police officer in your employ along with his wife and a suspect you released are now accused of carrying out these murders?" "It would appear so, yes." Another reporter jumped in. "What's your evidence?" "The evidence remains confidential while the case is under investigation. Obviously, if arrest warrants have been issued, there is sufficient evidence." Scott stared at the screen, not surprised yet still finding it hard to believe that he'd been so royally set up. Casey wasn't as patient. "This is crap, man. First they arrest me, then they let me go. What lunatic dreamed up a scene where I'm in league with you two?" "It's a set-up, Casey," Scott said, trying to listen but knowing that Olivier had revealed all he was going to. "We can whine about it or we can try to deal with it."

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"Like how?" Bess pointed toward the back door, but Scott shook his head. "Fools game," he said. "We break out of here and we're only postponing long enough to give some zealous cop a chance to put bullets in us." "They'll just come and get us, Scotty,” she said. “Maybe if we can get out in the open -" "Won't work." "So what will work, Horsely?" Casey asked. "You better think of something because I don't plan to go down with you." "Then you need to tell me what happened." Scott stared at Casey. "With what?” he said. “I didn't kill them." "Before. When you were in high school. When Martin died." "You’re trying to pin Martin on me now?" Casey asked. "You didn't kill Martin. I just want to know what you're hiding from me." "About Martin? Nothing, man." "Look." Scott's voice was louder than he planned. "Something happened to put Ruell Janzen and Harlan Smithers together, to get them killing people. That something comes out of the past, I'm sure of it." "Why are you so big on the past?" Casey said. "You keep making such a big deal about Martin, about Ezekiel. Past is dead. Leave it alone." "The past is never dead. In this case it's the only way to figure out the present. So what are you hiding?"

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"I can't trust you,” Casey said. “People I hang with would use something like that to get themselves off if they were in your shoes. Then who's hung out to dry? Good old Casey, like always." "If you don't tell me, they're going to come and lock us up and we'll go away for a long time. So take your pick." Scott got up and looked out the window, seeing snow and trees, nothing else. No convoy of police cars, no SWAT team. "It's not something I can tell you," Casey said behind him. Scott turned sharply and asked, "Why not? You killed your father. What could be worse than that?" "Scott!" Bess said, her eyes wide. "He needs to understand the situation. I can't help us out of this if he sits on what he knows." "If I talk, I want her out of here," Casey said. "Bess?" Scott said. "Could you..." She scowled at them, then went into the bedroom and shut the door. Scott sat down and stared at Casey ten feet from him. "Shoot," he said. "Martin, he wasn't like other kids." "Jewish." "No, not that. I wanted to be his friend, and we started out like that no matter what Smithers and the rest of the teachers at the school thought. They only saw it later." "So you were his friend." "He reached out to me. I needed a friend what with being in the hospital after my dad beat the snot out of me. So we were pals."

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“Everyone says you hated each other,” Scott said. You baited Martin, called him names.” “It was an act. We started it as a game and then it became useful.” "How did Ezekiel Hawke fit into this?" Scott asked. "I'd started hanging out there, but they wouldn't actually let me join. Claimed it was because somebody saw me hanging with the Jew boy, but I knew it was because they thought I was weird." "Did Martin know about Ezekiel's racism?" "Search me. I didn't talk to him about Ezekiel. Anyway, Martin turned out to be different, you know?" "In what way?" "Different." Casey's face colored. "Do I have to spell it out?" "Yes." "He didn't want to be my friend. He wanted me." "Wanted you?" Scott asked. "Me. My body." "Sexually?" "We were hanging at his house, in that secret room of his in that big house, and he came on to me. I didn't have a clue what it was, but I knew whatever he was fawning over me about wasn't my scene, so I split." "How old was Martin?" "Twelve, maybe. I turned on him for real after that. Called him a bunch of race stuff, but I never bought into Ezekiel's garbage. Then I started hanging with his sister. That drove Martin wild."

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"What did he do?" Scott asked. "Nothing. We just learned not to be in the same place at the same time." "Did you kill him?" Casey tensed. "They..." "Who?" "I started drinking and having blank spots sometimes, even the day Martin died. They told me, Ezekiel and the rest of them like Fred, said I killed him. Said somebody had seen me do it." "So you killed him during a drinking blackout." "No way, man. This is the secret, OK, and if it ever gets out I'm barbecue. I know I didn't kill him because Ruell Janzen killed him." "Ruell? Why?" "I came early one day a couple of weeks after Martin died. Early to Ezekiel's, and they were downstairs - Ruell and Hawke, arguing. So I got closer, and Ezekiel was saying he was only some dumb little kike, excuse the French, and Ruell was crying and shouting all at the same time about how his life was over and everybody would find out." "That Ruell killed him?" "That Ruell had a thing for boys. Ezekiel told him how stupid he was to get involved with a Jew kid and then to let the kid dump him. Ruell said something like, 'I was angry, I wasn't thinking when I shoved him.'" "You're sure about that? He admitted killing Martin Gold?" "Sure I'm sure. Martin used to be my best friend." "You told me you hated him."

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"Never hated him," Casey said. "We disagreed, but he was always my friend. I almost rushed into the room where Ezekiel and Ruell were so I could kill the cop. Martin never did anything to deserve Ruell offing him." Scott brushed the hair back from his forehead. "Look, I've got to ask this, and you need to answer me straight - Did you and Martin have a sexual relationship?" "No." Casey looked at him squarely. "I wasn't prepared to go down that road, all right? That's why we fought, but he never stopped being my friend." "How does Harlan fit into this?" Casey stared at the floor. "I was his spy - Harlan's. I told him." "What did he say?" "He didn't believe me. Said I killed Martin myself. Asked me if I knew the definition of slander." "Did you convince him?" Scott asked. "I don't know, but I noticed later on that Ruell spent more time at the high school, and he treated Harlan like a prince." "Why wouldn't Harlan have turned Ruell in?" "Because he was afraid of Ezekiel." "Come again?" "He knew we were going down there to the Hawke place and getting our precious little minds poisoned, but he didn't know what to do about it. As a cop, Ruell couldn't do diddly either, but he could bend the rules if Harlan told him to." "Ruell was a sexual predator, Casey. What was Harlan thinking of?"

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"Search me. All I know is they formed this kind of - what's that biology thing where both of them need -" "Symbiosis." "Right. Like Siamese twins or something. Anyway, Harlan got Ruell to knock around the kids that got too sold on Ezekiel - threaten them, bash them around with a sandbag. Ruell used to vandalise Ezekiel's place, whatever Harlan had in mind that particular week. Problem was that Harlan was too cowardly to get Ruell to finish Ezekiel for good." "So why are these clowns on a killing spree now?" "Search me." Casey was showing signs of restlessness. "That's all I know, all right?" Scott shook his head, maybe more to register his dismay than to clear his thoughts. None of the relationship between Ruell and Harlan was provable now. Martin Gold's death would stay on the books as an accident, and the nasty deeds of a high school principal and a town police chief would stay their own dirty little secrets. He got up and opened the bedroom door to let Bess out. She gave him a look of frustration, then got a can of juice concentrate out of the freezer and mixed up a batch. Casey seemed spent. He scowled at the floor as if it had betrayed him as Bess handed him and Scott a glass each, then sat down with them. "I've been thinking," she said. "About what?" Scott asked. "If plans go the way they're supposed to, Ruell is going to drive up here any time now and take us in shackles to town. From that point, we might as well give up ever convincing anybody of the truth." "Your alternative?" he asked.

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"Break out. Our car's here. Keys are probably in it. We can find a lawyer or something." "And get shot in the process, Bess. We're murder suspects." "I'm not staying if you've got a way out," Casey said. "That door there. You've got most of a plank off it." "That's a fool's game. People who run always end up the worse for it." Scott rubbed his eyes, feeling intense weariness, probably more depression than anything. "Casey and I will work on it, Scott," Bess said. "You rest." Groaning, Scott got up and went to the back door. It was double planked with a 2 x 4 frame inside it. He'd ripped almost all of one of the inner planks off, leaving a gap of eight inches. Lying on the ground and bracing himself, he thrust his foot through the gap, pounding on the outside plank until the bottom nails broke free, then the top ones, and there was a hole in the door from top to bottom. He reached through and pulled the fallen plank inside. "Help me with this," he said to Casey. The two of them used the plank as a lever until another inner plank broke free. Without speaking, Scott bashed away the outer plank. The sixteen inches of opening that now showed would be ample for them. Turning, he stared at Bess. "Do you know what it means for us if we flee like this?" "There's nothing to keep us here, Scott. We're fighting a crooked cop with all the odds on his side. Let's just get free." They gathered their coats and squeezed through the opening, then tramped through the snow to the car. Another six or seven inches had fallen since the previous day, but the keys were in car, and the gas gauge showed three-quarters full. Casey and Scott brushed off the windows, Casey

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almost grinning. Scott drove, spinning a bit as he started, then getting used to the unplowed powder snow. Their freedom was like that moment of high emotion a suicidal person must feel the second he jumps from a building - intense, false and deadly. Behind the wheel, Scott, in spite of everything, found himself trying to pray.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Jay Simon knew that his life could change radically just about any time he picked up his phone, but he was too jaded at this stage in his career to assume that such a life-disrupting phone call would bring him any good. His lot was to swim in the ugly current of the blighted and desperate creatures of society, each of their pleading faces or stone hard glares revealing the same cry for help. There was little he could do for any of them, because they were always guilty, except for Casey, of course, but then he'd killed his father and probably Martin Gold. Jay was having a rare moment for reflection that morning when his fated call came. A client had stood him up, and he hadn't felt like taking on the paper work that was choking his legal aid practice. Better to smell some roses, if only figuratively. Real roses would have died in protest before he could have gotten close enough to contemplate them. The ring of the phone had no distinctive note about it, no sound of omen or trouble or the end of his career, but Simon picked it up with a sudden feeling of irritation. "What?" he said. "I need your help, Jay." He recognised the voice. "Where are you?" "Doesn't matter,” the voice said. “What are my options?" "I'm required by law to advise you to turn yourself in." "Fine. You've done that. Now, can you help me?" "Your wife and Casey with you?" Jay asked. "Yes." "Are you mobile?" "I'm using my own car. The cops probably have the plate out on their computers."

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"I can't advise you, Scott. From here I suppose you'll borrow or steal another car and head for the hills." "We just came out of the hills. I need an investigator and a place for us to hide out." "All right. My cousin has a house on Anders Road that's empty right now. It's 4598, but you wouldn't be thinking of finding the key under the flowerpot and moving in, would you? I'd advise against it." Jay could feel his pulse through his overly tight shirt-cuff. Person could get high on things like this. "Listen, Jay, I want to give you privileged information, just in case we don't make it through this, so as of now you're my lawyer." As quickly as possible, Scott told him what he knew about Ruell and Harlan. "Ruell and Harlan did these killings?" Jay asked. "Appears so." "I need you to tell me straight out - are you lying to me, holding Ruell and Harlan up as scapegoats?" "Three murders, Jay, and we had nothing to do with any of them. It's a frame. But what does it matter to you - I could still be lying like a sidewalk." "Sure you could,” Jay said. “I just want to be able to tell myself later that I did ask." "So you'll help us?" "Why me?" "Because my former colleagues know I never liked you." Scott sensed Jay bristling at the other end of the line and said quickly, "Don't hang up. Please. Look, Jay, I know you're good, and I know you have a thing for getting at the truth. That's what we need." "With every police force in a hundred miles looking for you?"

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"All the more reason to find the truth before we go down for crimes we didn't commit." Scott felt a tightness in his stomach that contradicted his protest of innocence. But then no one is innocent. Casey had told him so. "You have money?" Jay asked. "Bess has a savings plan in Vancouver - some inheritance thing with maybe ten thousand in it. We've let it sit, but we'll get access to it once the A.P.B. is dropped or we're arrested. You'll have to carry us 'til then." "I've got an investigator I can use," Jay said, knowing he was going to regret all of this. "Where do you want him to start?" "Is he one of these prissy upstanding modern investigators, or can he do some tough stuff if he needs to?" "He's old school,” Jay said. “Lost his license for a few months a couple of years ago for strong arming somebody. If he has to do it again, I hope you have deep pockets." "We've been on this phone line too long, Jay." "Don't worry about it. If I'd wanted to bring in the cops, they'd be swarming you by now. My phone's not bugged. So who does my guy have to lean on?" Scott told him about Ezekiel Hawke and the renovations Nathan had done to recreate his shrine. "Somebody rewrote Ezekiel's journal, probably because the original had nasty stuff in it. I'm betting Nathan did the rewrite and that he still has the original. His uncle was too precious to him to destroy the real journal that summarises his life, even if the contents are too hot for public consumption. How much you want to bet that Ruell and Harlan figure big in the original?" "So this is a 'lean on Nathan and get him to cough up the evidence' kind of gig? You must really be desperate."

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“If your guy can get the original without any leaning, I’d prefer it.” “So would I,” Simon said. "I know it’s along shot, Jay. Just get it done, but no violence. I hope your guy knows how to lean gently if it comes to that." "I do the hiring, Scott, so I call the shots with the investigator. There isn't a gentle way to lean on somebody, so I'm not making any promises." "Piece of advice, Jay," Scott said. "What?" "Don't let this go to your head." Scott hung up, knowing he’d opened Pandora’s Box. Professional ethics were taking a licking, and he was sorely tempted to call Simon back and cancel the request. He didn’t. The car was parked down the road from the country store pay phone he'd been using. Trying to smile at Bess, he took her hand and they walked down the narrow paved road. Casey had chosen to stay with the car. "I'm disappointed, Scott," she said. "With what?" "There are better ways to do this than to hurt somebody." "And it turns out,” he said, his face sad, “that I was a monster all along. Surprise." "Don't mock me. We found a better way to live, and you know it. You found forgiveness–“ "No, I didn't. I just started carrying my dead brother Terry like an albatross. Forgiveness is a mind game. The reality is that you are what you are. Everything else is a cop-out. So if we have to bend Nathan a bit, then bring it on."

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She said nothing for the rest of the walk, her silence condemning Scott. He told himself that she was right, but it did no good at all, because ever since the death of Esma Hale nothing had been what it should have. He remembered his feeling of utter rage when he'd seen what the killer had done to Esma, anger that had turned numb, as if his tired psyche could not afford to feel such things again. Now he was bending all his training into unrecognisable nastiness, and he still couldn't drum up the energy to feel anything. Nathan deserved what he was going to get. The little fascist was the only door of hope anyway. They got into the car, and Casey said sleepily from the back seat, "What?" "We've found a safe house for awhile. If I remember it, there's only a couple of houses on that part of the road, and I'm betting ours is the one with the big hedge around it and likely a shed or garage where I can hide the car." "Oh, goody. Life is sweet," Casey said. "Don't be sarcastic," Scott told him mildly. "If you want, we can cut you loose." Casey shut up. True to their hopes, the house was just about perfect, one of two on acreages just outside of town, lots of trees and a hedge that would block out any sign that they were occupying the property. There was even a garage, though Scott and Casey had to spend half an hour clearing out trash before there was room for the car. The house itself was tiny, a key conveniently where Jay had hinted it would be. Inside they found a small kitchen, living room and two bedrooms. The place was sparsely furnished, but the power and water worked, even the furnace after Scott lit the pilot light. All the comforts except for a phone, TV, radio, and any convenience invented after 1940.

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Casey pleaded exhaustion despite the fact that it was only three in the afternoon and went to his room. Scott glanced at Bess, saw a cold barrier, and decided to pick up an abandoned Readers Digest from 1986 before flopping in an armchair and burying his face in "Campus Comedy." Bess ignored him in favor of banging around the kitchen for awhile, then disappearing into their bedroom. The sound of a door closing was a fitting commentary on the depth to which their lives had fallen. Ruell and Harlan - an unlikely duo for sure. Ruell was probably capable of the hard edge needed to commit three murders, but Harlan was a weak sister despite his good health and seeming vitality. Just how had a retired principal and a cop found the motivation to become killers, and vicious ones at that? The killing of Esma Hale hadn't been an unemotional hit, nor was it the work of a burglar surprised by the owner of the house. It was slaughter, and slaughter demanded both strong emotion and drive. What was driving those two? How had they even forged a bond, let alone a bond around horrible murder? Harlan, for sure, was too tall to match the profile of the killer, but Ruell was about the right size. Where did Harlan fit in then? He seemed to have no obvious connection with Esma Hale and a tenuous one at best with Trudy Salter. Still baffled, Scott went back to his reading, feeling the frustration of knowing that his future hung in the balance while he read jokes from an old magazine. About five-thirty, after Bess had returned sullenly from the bedroom and shoved Scott out of the kitchen for making a mess, the doorbell rang. Bess and Scott formed a tableau for a few seconds, blood frozen and the reality of their precarious situation taunting them. The bell rang again, and Jay Simon's voice came from outside, "Let me in. It's cold."

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Scott opened the door. Simon, as usual, was dressed far too formally for his occupation, his London Fog topcoat making him look like Philip Marlowe at a funeral. Scott motioned him to a chair, then banged on Casey's door, getting a hostile groan for his trouble before Casey emerged, dishevelled. "What have you got?" Scott asked, apparently too abrupt in his tone. Simon frowned. "I'm not your lap dog, Horsely. Near as I can figure this, you're dependent on me, not vice versa. The most baffling thing to me is why I'm helping you at all." "So what have you got?" Scott repeated. Simon sighed, seemingly satisfied that he'd made his point. He reached into the briefcase sitting beside his chair and took out a two inch loose-leaf binder with a thick cover. "This is what you wanted," he said, handling it like it was a decaying corpse that had to be moved, but not happily. "The journal? The original?" Scott asked. "Just as he wrote it." "How did you get it?" Bess asked. Simon gave her a look and said nothing. She frowned. "Did you have to hurt someone for this?" "No. Let's just say that my guy borrowed it." "How did he know where it was?" Bess asked. "We don’t want to know," Scott told her. "No, let me tell it," Simon said. "You paid for the job, so you should know how it went down. My guy broke into Nathan's house while he and his wife were out, scattered some things around, then waited where he could look into a window without being seen. Nathan took one look at the mess and went straight for the place where he'd hidden his treasure. My guy holed up for

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awhile, waiting for the cops to come and go. Later Nathan and wife went out for groceries, seeing as how my guy had destroyed all theirs. My man broke in, got the journal, and here we are." "So you committed a crime to get this. Several crimes." Bess's voice was edgy, and Scott knew the warning signs all too well. "The end justifies the means, Scott?" "What else could I do?" Scott said. "My own people are hunting me. This is no time to go soft." "How I got it doesn't matter," Jay said. "Now that we have what we need, it's time to do some reading." He opened the binder and gave each of them, including himself, a portion, turning the most recent part over to Scott. For an hour, each of them read, occasionally making comments to each other, all four unsettled by the poisonous words of Ezekiel Hawke. He had obviously been an intelligent man, well-educated and deeply analytical if you ignored the presuppositions that had turned his mind into an alien thing. The power of his hatred clouded the room. Even Casey, well used to hearing the audible rants of the man himself, fidgeted uneasily as he read. Finally they finished their portions. Each, in turn, reported on what they'd read. The story of Ezekiel was fuller in the original account, though there was little that seemed new. The manuscript was just a rougher, nastier version of Nathan’s sanitized copy, reflecting the paranoia and scheming that had been the man's food and drink. It was in the later portion, the part that Scott had read, that all the surprises came. Scott had a light in his eye as he explained: "Harlan contacted Ruell soon after Casey started spying for him. He wanted Ruell to shut Ezekiel down. Never happened."

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"Because Ezekiel knew something that Ruell didn’t want made public," Casey said. Jay Simon's mouth opened, but he said nothing. "Could be," Scott went on. "What evidence he had is really cloudy, but he probably scared the life out of Ruell with threats to go public. That was the end of any effective police investigation." "What about Harlan?" Bess asked. "The man was a high school principal, and his students were turning into little Nazis because of this Hawke person. Why didn't he just go over Ruell’s head, maybe contact Crown Counsel somewhere? I can't see why the man would let Ruell get in the way of stopping Ezekiel from poisoning kids’ minds." "Why don't you be the one to tell it, Casey?" Scott said, turning to him, staring at him with all the intensity he used on a perp under interrogation. "Me? What do I know?" "Harlan didn't hire you to spy on Ezekiel because he was worried for his students, did he?" "No." "So what was his reason?" "He had a secret. Ezekiel knew about it. So did Janzen. They kind of did this dance Ezekiel could do what he wanted as long as he didn’t go overboard. Ruell couldn't touch Ezekiel, but Harlan could get Ruell to scare any of Ezekiel’s boys who got too involved with the race thing. Problem was, he couldn't press Ruell too hard because Ruell knew Harlan's secret. Harlan wanted me to make sure Ezekiel kept his boundaries, the ones they never talked about, but both of them understood." "What was Harlan’s secret, or Ruell’s for that matter?" Scott asked. "I don't know."

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"Casey." "I don't know. Nobody ever told me." "What does the journal say?" Simon asked. Scott read, "Harlan Smithers is a dirty man, and I know all of it. Sanctimonious wretch better stay off my back or I'll turn broadcaster and he'll wish he'd died at birth. Some secrets are big and serious. Some are just dirty. Dirty man." "That's all?" "Nothing else here," Scott said, "Unless he hid a fuller account somewhere else. What I want to know is what set Harlan and Ruell off killing people." "What does the journal say about Ruell?" Bess asked. Scott found the place. "So I know what the cop is under that impressive uniform - little girly boy only interested in kids. Too bad he got too close to Gold. One Jew kid less to do. Any time that cop comes yapping around here again, he knows I'll dump the evidence where it will hurt him the most. One picture's worth a thousand words, they say." "Picture," Jay said. "Somebody got a photo of Ruell and Martin. So where is it?" "Not here." Scott put the binder down. "The old goat's evidence probably died with him." "You better figure out how to resurrect it then," Jay said. "The only hope you've got is to discredit your accusers." Bess picked up the new empty binder. It was a solid thing – cardboard covered with leather. “I wonder,” she said. “What?” Scott asked, his mind on the paltry evidence they had, all of it hearsay. “Nathan rewrote the whole journal. But he left the original in the original cover.” She went to the kitchen and came back with a knife. Carefully, she cut through the leather on the front of the

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binder, peeling it away to reveal the cardboard underneath. A couple of 8 X 10 photographs slipped out, and a wide envelope. Scott picked up the top photograph, and a light came on in his eyes.

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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN Ruell Janzen looked younger, but there was no mistaking who he was, one of his arms flung wide. The other figure was a boy teetering on the edge of a cliff, one foot in open air. Someone must have followed them there and recorded the key moment. This was what Ezekiel held over the chief of the Corbin police detachment. The second photograph at first looked like a school class picture – about 20 boys in two rows, the front ten sitting cross-legged and the boys in the back standing. One person, in his twenties, stood at the side. Under each face a name on its own little piece of paper had been crudely glued on. Fred Edwards was there, but no Casey Stendahl, no Martin Gold. The other names meant nothing until Scott came to the man in his twenties. He sat down, feeling the others’ eyes on him. Then he put his hand across his forehead, squeezing hard as if his sinuses were bothering him. He couldn’t speak, because the enormity of it was too overwhelming. “Scotty?” Bess came up behind him and gripped his shoulder. “What?” Then she saw it too, looking down at the photo in his lap. “Oh no,” she said. “I missed it.” Scott’s voice was hollow. “I should have had him, and I missed it.” “You planning to keep it to yourself, Scott?” Jay said, sounding like a lawyer. Scott handed him the photo, then turned to Casey. “You didn’t tell me about Walter.” “Wally? What’s he got to do with anything?” “He’s in the photo, Casey,” Scott said. “And he’s Esma Hale’s son-in-law, and he was part of a child porn network, using her house for filming and internet contacts.”

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“So? Nobody told me that.” Casey was growing belligerent, feeling the accusation but not understanding it. “Wally was Ezekiel’s sidekick. He was always there but he was really quiet. I never had much to do with him. His last name is what? “Scolari,” Scott repeated. “I’ve got nothing,” Casey said. “Hardly remembered what he looked like until I saw this photo.” “We’ve had it all wrong,” Scott said. “I thought Ruell and Harlan were covering their butts because they were afraid Ezekiel’s secrets would get out. That’s not it at all.” The whole thing suddenly made sense. Walter was at Esma’s house a lot, doing all kinds of home repair, maybe visiting along with his wife Alice. The computer was there and it would be no trouble to make excuses to use it. She had Internet access, so he could impersonate her, even get his own credit card in her name. He’d set up film shoots in the hidden room under her kitchen late at night. It would be easy, since he could get access from the barn. “Walter’s the missing link,” Scott said. “He’s been part of a child porn ring for years, but Esma must have found out what he was doing with her computer, or suspected something. He got Ruell to kill her, maybe backed by Harlan.” Jay looked doubtful. “You can’t just make people do things for you, Scott. Not murders, anyway.” “You can if the stakes are big enough. You can if you know the secrets and you have the evidence. He’d wanted to keep his own hands clean. Then Trudy Salter started nosing around. Who knows what she found, but Casey could be an easy patsy for the killing, especially when she told Fred that Casey had hit her. Fred was a weak link, so goodbye Fred. All of them done with violence, because that’s what you’d expect from Casey.”

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“Ruell and Harlan were working with Walter?” Bess asked. “They’d commit murder just to keep their secrets pure?” “They both had access to kids.” “Wally never seemed like much of anything,” Casey said, still defending himself for not mentioning Walter earlier. “I think he was Ezekiel’s Golden Child,” Scott said. “I think Ezekiel groomed Walter to replace him while Walter was there for the kids.” “So how did they do it?” Casey asked. “The old lady, I mean. How did they arrange it?” Scott smiled without humor. “In those mystery movies the killer always tells all at the end, but actual killers tell mostly nothing.” He could feel Bess’s hand still on his shoulder, and the warmth of it encouraged him. “It probably went something like this – They planned to kill her that night, had the cow’s blood and everything, but they needed a patsy. That was you, Casey.” “The storm brought me there, not Ruell or Walter.” “They knew the route you’d take. Probably bribed your co-workers to book off. They planned to follow you and give you a knock-out dart from one of those air-pistols. Ruell no doubt handled animal control in a small town like Corbin, so he’d have access to one. Then the storm came, and they knew they couldn’t follow you properly, so they blocked the road you would have taken, and you had to take Esma’s road. You got stuck and they darted you, took you to her place. If you hadn’t, they probably would have waylaid you somewhere. Lucky break on their part.” “I remember thinking I saw headlights behind me,” Casey said. “So you were out cold in the barn. Then Ruell, probably, got himself through her front door on some ruse, killed her –

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“And they brought Casey up, unconscious, through the trapdoor in the kitchen,” Jay said. “The room underneath connected to the barn. They got the blood on Casey, and someone, wearing his boots, carried him back to his van. It could have been done by just Ruell and Harlan. Harlan stayed down in the room a few days afterwards then left the scene when there was only a light guard on the house. Ruell dropped Casey off and walked out to wherever Walter picked him up.” “What about tracks?” Simon asked. “It had stopped snowing, but Ruell could have used a broom or something to cover up his footprints,” Scott said. “He only had to walk a hundred yards or so to the main road. Once our people found Casey, nobody was looking too closely for other tracks. “All this for what?” Bess said. “Was the money that important?.” “Three people dead.” Scott walked over to the front window and peeked through a gap in the curtain. Then he turned. “There’s a deeper secret buried here. Something that would make Walter want to risk everything he has. I can see him putting the screws to Ruell and Harlan, because whatever they’ve done, Walter has a full dossier. I can even see Ruell killing with that kind of violence to make it look like the work of a madman like Casey here.” “Thanks,” Casey said. “There’s this envelope,” Bess said, holding it up. Scott mentally kicked himself for not having paid attention to it when she cut it out of Ezekiel’s book. But that was the way this whole case was going. Bess opened it carefully. Inside was a two page document. Bess started reading aloud. “Wally knows I know what it’s about. He’s a good boy, but I’m writing it down anyway. He gets a copy. The other one gets hidden in here just in case he turns on me any time. Somebody will find it, maybe my idiot nephew Nathan, if he’d ever get his head out of his blessed derriere.

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“We could have had something to purge this place of the mud people and all their cronies, but no – Wally had to get himself involved with a Jew girl. What did he want her for anyway, because I know he had a thing for boys? I know that. Martin found out about Wally and his sister, and he was going to blow us all, shut us down, because of you. You, Wally. I sent Ruell to off him Martin. I followed him and got a photo, but that wasn’t enough, was it Wally? Your blessed Keri, now without a brother, goes off to college, that stupid Casey mooning all over her, and she gets to thinking. “She gets to thinking, Wally, about Martin, about us. She knows we had something to do with it, because Martin fought with you, wanted you away from his sister. She phones Casey… Bess stopped, looked at Casey. “She phoned you?” Casey looked away and said, “Yes.” “What did you tell her?” “I told her all about Ezekiel and his guys. She wanted to know about Wally. I didn’t know they’d been seeing each other. Honest.” “What did you tell her?” Bess asked again. “Wally. He…” “What?” Bess was pressing him hard. Scott found himself hanging back, because somehow she was reaching him. “I told her about Wally and the animals he used to torture and kill. Wally was sick. Scarey. Ezekiel didn’t do anything to stop him. I think he enjoyed Wally talking about it.” Bess went back to the document:

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“Whatever Casey told her, she became convinced that Wally had killed Martin. I should have told him Ruell did it, but I failed to do so. It’s not my fault though, Wally, that you killed Keri. Doctored her car and she ran into a building. You came crying to me then, Wally. “But you’d compromised us. Compromised us for nothing. Were you afraid they’d pin Martin’s death on you, or were you just burned that Keri was dumping you? “I don’t want Keri’s death coming back on me too. Martin is enough. So, Wally, you’re going to sign both copies of this, admitting your guilt, and I’ll keep one hidden. You will do what I tell you from now on, or this goes to the cops, and I don’t care if it implicates me. You’re the only hope I have of keeping this movement going, anyway, so if you go rogue on me there won’t be any point in going on myself. One of the recipients has a sealed photocopy of your confession that goes into the mail if you don’t keep sending everybody their blessed materials.” Bess paused, then continued. “It says, ‘I, Walter Scolari, killed Keri Gold by cutting a hole in her brake line.’ It’s signed by Walter, and Ezekiel’s witnessed it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

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They called Wayne Nordstrom in the end, because Scott judged him least likely to turn their surrender into a fire fight. Scott, Bess and Casey were waiting for him and his men on the front lawn. Jay Simon made himself scarce. They let themselves be arrested and brought back to Kenderville. The three of them spent half a day in cells before Olivier and Nordstrom came together to let them out. They met in Olivier’s office, Olivier, Nordstrom, Scott, Bess and Casey. “Your methods are pretty unorthodox, Scott,” Nordstrom began. “How did you get the photos and the confession document?” “Friend of a friend,” Scott said, feeling weary of it all, weary of what he had done. He looked across at Bess, but she was staring at the floor, her feet drawn up under her chair, a sure sign of high tension. “That’s interesting, because a citizen just reported to us that he had given you the book at your request. Name of Nathan…” Nordstrom paused, looking down at his notes. “That’s not exactly what happened,” Scott said. “I arranged to have the book stolen.” “That would make it unusable in a criminal proceeding,” Olivier said. “If this Nathan person says he gave it to you, and there’s no report of it being stolen, then I think we prefer to believe him rather than you, especially if you never mention your version of it again.” Scott looked at Bess but couldn’t read her face. “What about Ruell and Harlan?” Scott asked. “Ruell’s arrested for Martin Gold’s murder. We’ll probably get the other murders on him too. Harlan’s free for now.” Olivier looked relieved, but there was some anger in his voice. “And Walter?”

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“They picked him up trying to leave town. With a signed confession to Keri’s murder, he doesn’t have much room for a defence.” Scott looked at Olivier. “I blew this case. I know it. If you want my resignation – “ Nordstrom interrupted. “You blew nothing. Without your work in Corbin, following a lead your superior thought was nonsense, we’d have nothing right now. I suspect you didn’t have a clue what you were doing, but you seem to have a divine navigator or something.” “I agree,” Olivier said. “The force couldn’t stand more than one of you, but your arrest record is the best I’ve ever seen. You are going to have to work within legal guidelines, though.” Dodged a bullet. Why then, Scott said to himself, do I feel like this? Casey had been silent through the whole discussion. As they left the building, Scott took Bess aside. “You want to take the car home? I’ll pick up a squad car and join you later.” “Sure, Scotty,” she said, touching his arm, seeing something almost like hope in his eyes. Scott turned to Casey. “Need a lift?” he said. “Bread shop’s just down the street,” Casey said. “I have to get back.” His face, as usual, was blank. “It’s a decent day. Want to take a cup of coffee over to the park?” “No. I gotta go,” Casey said. “As a favor to me?” Scott said. “I need to talk to you.” “Don’t like talking to cops.” “I’m not a cop today. I have to tell you something.” “Coffee’s on you then, man,” Casey said, “and you’ve got half an hour. After that, I book.” Scott bought them coffee and they walked silently to the park, finding a table near the playground. Scott sat on one side, Casey opposite. For a few seconds, Scott tried to find the

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words, then he said, “When I first saw you there in the cell, I had this gut feeling that you didn’t do it. I followed through and you got off.” “I got off because the crime scene was rigged.” “They would have gone after you for Martin and Keri and Trudy, probably even Fred,” Scott said, putting his coffee down. “I followed through, and you’re free.” “You think I’m free, cop?” Casey’s mouth twitched. “Nobody’s free. Bet you’ve got a few skeletons yourself.” “That’s why I’m talking to you now, Casey. I’m no freer than you are.” “You going to tell me your sad story?” Casey asked. “Not interested.” “My brother Terry, he was a real pain, you know,” Scott said. He looked across the park. A couple of boys on their lunch break were climbing on the playground equipment. “When we were kids, you know? One day my brother did something stupid – got caught in a culvert on a flooded creek. I got hold of his hand and he said something, and I let him go.” “Let him – “ “I let him go. I killed him, Casey. He went in there, in the culvert, and they pulled him out later. Too much later.” Casey stared across the park, not looking at Scott, not wanting to see the turmoil on Scott’s face. “Why tell me?” he said. “Why do you have to dump this kind of garbage on me? Don’t you think I have enough to deal with?” “I need absolution.” “And I’m no priest. Look, I have to get to the shop.” He started to get up. “Wait, Casey. I’m telling you because you know. You know what the burden of a life is.” “And I live with it, cop. It’s my burden. You need to live with yours.”

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“There’s forgiveness.” “I heard some rumor about you getting all religious,” Case said, sitting down again. “Didn’t take, did it?” “Not really. But that’s because of me, because I couldn’t believe that what I did is forgivable. It’s made me do stupid things. Things that I’m ashamed of as a cop and as a person. Instead of taking a free gift that could have rescued me, I’ve been carrying the burden of this until it’s nearly killing me.” “So you thought you’d confess it to me to relieve the burden?” Casey asked. “Confessions don’t do much for burdens.” “I know,” Scott said. “I wanted – I don’t know what I wanted. I wanted to take you with me on a journey. I want to try again with God, and I thought maybe you could come too.” “Me? I don’t want any part of religion.” “No religion, Casey. Just the two of us and God. That’s not religion. It’s life. You know what you did, I know what I did. We take it to him and we find a way to connect.” “Connect with God? You’ve got to be kidding.” Casey scowled. “God and me, we got this mutual hate-hate thing going on.” “Doesn’t have to be. Look, Casey, I had a taste of it, and it was good, then I stopped believing. I want to try again. I’d like to take you with me. No pressure, one day at a time.” “You going to get into all that tell my sins to Jesus stuff? Born again stuff?” “Maybe.” “Why would I want any part of that?” “Because you want to be free just as much as I do.”

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To the west, beyond the park, the clouds were forming, and it was likely the air would be colder by tomorrow, maybe even snow. But for the moment, the weather was fine.