"Could I give you some. advice? Something to think about?"

Dessusdelit stopped with her hand on the doorknob, looked carefully at LuEllen, then nodded.

"I was once involved in a situation. well, it wasn't the best situation, and there were some police involved. I don't want to say more. But I will tell you something about the American legal system: It's quite difficult to convict anyone of anything, and when time passes, it becomes almost impossible. You know what I did, when I had my. trouble? I went away. And nobody really looked for me. It was too much trouble, I guess. I went back four or five years later, talked to some people who were involved with me, and it was like. nobody even remembered that the police once were looking for me. Nobody cared."

"You're saying I should go away?"

"I don't know what your problems are exactly," LuEllen said. "I'm just saying that. there are options. There are some really wonderful places in the world and here in the United States. Longstreet isn't everything."

Dessusdelit nodded a last time, stood silently for a few more heartbeats, then said, "Thank you," and walked out.

When she was on the levee, LuEllen turned to me and said, "She told Hill to kill Harold and the woman, Sherrie."

"Yes. I think that's what she was telling us," I said. "What was all that bullshit about running from the cops?"

"Give me the car keys," LuEllen interrupted. "C'mon, quick."

I handed her the keys. "Where're you going?"

"After Dessusdelit," she said hastily. "You call Bobby. Ask him to monitor Dessusdelit's phones. We want to know if she's going anywhere tonight or if anybody's coming over."

LuEllen was gone for four hours. I filled the boat's diesel tanks and got some gas for the auxiliary generator, then climbed up on the top deck with a sketchbook. John called in the early afternoon.

"Two things," he croaked, as though he were losing his voice. "We identified Harold and Sherrie. Marvel and I stayed away, though. Sherrie's brother did it. He freaked out and told the cops that Sherrie was screwing Hill and about how all this weird shit was going down in Longstreet. I suspect the deputies will be calling on Hill – or the Longstreet cops will."

"You didn't tell her brother?"

"We didn't tell him anything except that we'd heard it on the radio. I told him that he had to make the identifications because Marvel couldn't stand to do it, and I didn't know either one of them. He went along."

"Was it bad?"

"Man, Marvel is fucked up. I'm going to have to take some time with her."

"Jesus, John, I'm sorry."

"And there's the other thing," he said. "The council's called another special meeting, but it's not until tomorrow night."

"Hmph. I would have thought. I guess that's OK, but I would have thought they'd do it quicker."

"Maybe stalling for time. Maybe trying to figure out who knows what. You take care."

"Yeah," I said. "You, too."

When LuEllen returned, she was wearing the intent look she develops when she's working, when she's turning a job in her mind.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"Greenville," she said. "I shadowed Dessusdelit back to her place and waited for a few minutes, to see what she'd do. She came back out, got in her car, and drove down to Greenville."

"To do what?"

"Visit a bank," LuEllen said. "She had a briefcase with her when she came out of her house. She was carrying it by the handle and threw it in the backseat of the car. When she came out of the bank, she was carrying it with both hands."

"She took something out of the bank," I said.

"Yeah. Out of the safe-deposit box in a town where she's not known."

"She had some money stashed."

"She had something stashed, and now she's got it in her house. She's thinking about running."

"And you."

"I'm going to hit her again. She killed Harold and Sherrie, and she's got to pay."

"You weren't that close to Harold, and you never even knew Sherrie."

"They're fuckin' Nazis," LuEllen snarled. Then, in a milder voice, she said, "Besides, there's some bucks in it. Truth be told, she's the kind of fat cat I'd hit just for the money, and the first time around we never really touched her."

Bobby reported a flurry of calls between Dessusdelit, Hill, St. Thomas, and Ballem, all cryptic but increasingly testy. Ballem had gone to the chief of police about the burglary of his house but hadn't formally reported it, Bobby said. And he'd gotten the murder photos in the mail, delivered while Dessusdelit was in Greenville.

"He didn't tell her what the pictures were, but he wants to see her tonight. They're meeting at his house after dark. He's only about three blocks from her, so she's going to walk over. Hill's going to be there, but they haven't said anything about St. Thomas. I think they're cutting St. Thomas out."

"Or planning to set him up for the murders," I said.

Hill was insisting that the "goddamn artist" had something to do with the machine's problems, but the others weren't listening, Bobby said. "Dessusdelit told him she knew all about the problems between you and Hill. She said that if they wanted to get out of this trouble, they had to stop fantasizing and understand that they caused the problems themselves, by making a mistake, and now they have to straighten it out themselves."

"Sounds like she's recovering herself," I said to LuEllen when I passed on Bobby's information.

"It also sounds like she's going to be out of her house tonight," LuEllen said.

We argued about whether to hit Dessusdelit, and LuEllen won.

"Look," she said, "the heart of the machine is Ballem, St. Thomas, Hill, and Dessusdelit. We know we can take Hill and St. Thomas, because the cops have the bodies, and we have the photos. We already ripped Ballem for those stamps, and now we're siccing the IRS on him; plus he'll be tarred with the killings whether or not he's convicted of them. But Dessusdelit-Dessusdelit slides free, unless the IRS gets her for evasion or the state gets her on a corruption charge. That's not enough. But if we take her stash, we take her heart out. Everybody says that she lives for money. Even the cards said so, didn't they?"

"The cards are bullshit," I said.

"Yeah, right."

LuEllen took Dessusdelit by herself. The house was an easy target the first time, and it was easy the second. It was, however, a little tough to watch, so we watched Ballem's instead.

Dressed in navy blue sweats and running shoes, we parked in the country club lot – there was a dance going on, and the lot was full – and jogged along the edge of the golf course to a small copse of trees off the third tee. From there we were looking right down at Ballem's front door. Hill arrived first, a little before nine, and then Dessusdelit walked in. We jogged back to the car, called Dessusdelit's place from a pay phone, and, when we got no answer, nipped off the receiver.

As we drove down to Dessusdelit's, LuEllen unscrewed the car's dome light, so it wouldn't come on when the door opened. I took the car into the cul-de-sac, as though lost, and slowly rolled through the turning circle. When we passed Dessusdelit's driveway, I stopped just for a second, said, "Go," and LuEllen rolled out the back door. She pushed it shut before she crawled away, and I continued out onto the road.

LuEllen said ten minutes max. I drove back to Ballem's house and parked on the street near the entrance to the country club. Hill's car was still in Ballem's driveway, and I once saw a shadow on a curtain, moving across the living room.

Eight minutes. I started back. At nine minutes, forty-five seconds, I was a block from the entrance to the cul-de-sac. I stopped at a corner, reached back, and opened the right rear door. The only turn I had to make was a right turn, so it shouldn't swing open.