"What about Emmie?"

"What about her?"

"Could she have known about Darden?"

"I'm sure Emmie would like to see justice done, but Lollie's death has never preoccupied her."

Tess leaned forward. "I thought today was the day you weren't going to tell lies. If people associate you with your husband's death to the exclusion of almost everything else, then the murder of Emmie's mother must be the central fact of her existence as well."

"That sounds logical, but it didn't work that way. Enunie didn't have a before and after. Her life is all aftermath. She never knew Horace, and she accepted the family's explanation that he died in a hunting accident. When Lollie died, she was only two. The truth is, she doesn't even remember her mother. She's like a child who had a bad dream and woke up to find herself safe and warm in a house where everyone loved her. Gus did a very good job of protecting her while she was growing up. It was her mother's absence that scarred Emmie. Gone is gone."

"However you want to "plain it, she's clearly disturbed. Did she ever get professional help?"

Marianna sipped her tea. Tess had worded the question as carefully as she could, but it obviously was too blunt for Marianna's sensibilities.

"When she was a teenager, Emily began…acting out in various ways," Marianna began cautiously. "She saw various counselors and doctors. One decided she could recover Emily's memory of what happened the night of the murder. I'm sure she thought she'd solve the crime and be a big hero. At any rate, she put Emily under hypnosis. When Emily couldn't remember anything, she became hysterical, convinced something was wrong with her. Gus gave up on doctors after that."

"How was she ‘acting out'?" Marianna's habit of casting other's words in invisible quotation marks was catching.

"Pardon?"

"You said Emily was sent to all these doctors because of her behavior. What was she doing?"

"Oh, typical adolescent rebellion. Truthfully, I think Gus over-reacted. His son, Clay, is so well-behaved, he makes normal children look out of control. Emily is a Sterne through and through, very headstrong. Clay's genes were watered down by his mother. She was a Galveston girl, pretty enough, but weak-willed. I think eating all that shellfish thins the blood."

"‘Was'? Is she dead, too?" Jesus, how many "accidents "could one family have?

"Oh no, she and Gus divorced about ten years ago, and she settled in California. Another blow for Emmie. She ended up losing two mothers before she was thirteen."

"I don't imagine it did much for her son, either."

Marianna lifted one shoulder in a tiny, ladylike shrug, as if Clay's problems were of little interest to her.

"Would Emmie go to her uncle if she were in trouble?"

"I told you the first time we met that they haven't spoken for five years."

"You told me lots of things the first time we spoke," Tess reminded her.

Marianna Barrett Conyers's face had a way of clicking off abruptly, like a coin-operated television set in a bus station.

"Waste your time if you like. Sterne Foods is on the Austin Highway, not that far from here. It runs off Broadway, near an old Mobil Station, the one that was a dress shop. You'll find it easily. But don't be surprised if you have trouble getting in. Security is very tight just now."

"Why does a restaurant chain need security? Is someone trying to get the recipe for the secret sauce?"

"I wouldn't know." And Marianna Barrett Conyers tilted her face toward a nonexistent sun, her part of the conversation clearly over.

Tess liked roads that told you where they went. Back home, it was York Road, Frederick Road, Harford Road-not to be confused with Old York Road, Old Frederick Road, and Old Harford Road. They weren't the fastest routes to their namesakes, but they were always more interesting than the interstate. Here, it was Fredericksburg and Blanco and Castroville. And if the Austin Highway was no longer much of a highway, it seemed cheerful about its demotion. Tess stopped for lunch at a place called the Bun and Barrel, on the theory that any restaurant configured to look like its namesake was always worth a visit. Although only the barrel was present here, and it was just a little decoration on the roof, the theory still held. It was almost two when she finished her burger and drove a little farther up the highway, to the fortress that was Sterne Foods.

One of the older buildings along this stretch of road, it had a fierce spick-and-span quality. The squat stucco rectangle was blinding white, with a red trim that was so shiny it looked wet. The cyclone fence-and the razor wire stretched across the top-shimmered in the midday sun. The grass was bright green and sharply edged, the flower beds severely symmetrical. No risk of E. coli here, Tess thought. Sterne Foods put the process in processed foods.

The only scruffy note was a slow-moving line of protesters in front of the fence. With union members on both sides of her family, Tess automatically assumed these were disgruntled workers. But their placards told of a much deeper dissatisfaction with Sterne Foods. SAVE YOUR OWN SOUL-DON'T EAT MEAT, read one sign. COWS DON'T DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY. HUMANITARIANISM DOESN'T STOP WITH HUMANS. And, a little mysteriously, CHRISTMAS IS CARNAGE. Tess couldn't let that one go.

"Christmas? It's not quite Halloween."

"It's from Babe," said the picketer, a stringy woman with yellow-orange skin, the color of an expensive pepper. "You know, the movie about the pig who wants to herd sheep."

"A classic," Tess agreed. She and Esskay had watched it on video several times. "So what's your beef with Sterne Foods?"

The picketers looked alarmed, as if even the metaphorical use of the word was forbidden to them.

"We've been out here every day for a year, since the city gave Gus Sterne permission to stage the All Soul Festival," said the stringy woman, who seemed to be the leader. "He calls it a celebration of food and culture, but it's really just a way to promote his chain of barbecue restaurants. Oh, sure, he'll give all the profits to local charities, but he's still responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cows. He's made his millions off animal genocide, but no one ever talks about that."

"Eating meat is legal."

"That doesn't make it moral. Or safe."

A young man leaned into the conversation. "Cigarette smoking was acceptable, too, once. We want to marginalize meat eating in the same way, with additional taxes and more truth in labeling."

Tess had a sudden image of the office building of the future, with workers standing in little clusters, some smoking, others hunched over roast beef sandwiches.

"You didn't pick an easy state to start your fight, I'll give you that much."

She had meant to appease the group, but the stringy woman took offense.

"We aren't interested in easy battles. San Antonians think it's not a celebration unless meat is consumed. We're petitioning city hall for meatless, cruelty-free venues at all the major festivals here."

"Life is cruel. Existence is predicated on destruction."

"Those are very fancy rationalizations for being a flesh-eater," sniffed the human yellow pepper. I wouldn't want to be in the Donner Party with you, Tess decided. Although her lack of body fat would probably doom her early on, she'd be much too lean to support those left behind.

"I had a cheeseburger for lunch," Tess announced sunnily. "Medium rare."

Some of the people in the group took a few steps backward, as if they might catch something from her, but the stringy woman held her ground.

"This isn't a joke," she said. "We're willing to go pretty far to press our agenda. I wouldn't plan on having too good a time at the All Soul Festival, if I were you."