It, too, was barren, a monk's quarters. A single window high on the wall let in a little light. There was an iron bed, a hand-hewn wooden table, a small chest of drawers, and a chair. An old plank had been nailed to one wall to hold a modest collection of paperback books. Manchild in the Promised Land and The Invisible Man butted up against some science-fiction novels. A pair of fishing rods were stacked in the corner, along with a scratched cheap plastic tackle box.

Cowart sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the soft mushiness of the springs. He let his eyes roam over the meager items in the room, searching for some sign. What should a killer's room look like?

He didn't know. He looked about, remembering how Ferguson had insisted to him that coming to Pachoula after Newark, New Jersey, was like stepping into a summer camp, that it was warm and special, some sort of Huck Finn-like adventureland. Where the hell is that? Cowart thought, staring around himself at the blank walls, the passionless items of furniture.

Where to start? He couldn't imagine that something as potent as evidence of a murder would be obvious, so he started in on the drawers of the bureau, feeling foolish, certain that he was simply going over well-searched territory. He rifled through a few changes of clothing without finding anything that he imagined could help him. He ran his hands down behind the bureau drawers, to see if something was concealed there. You're some detective, he thought. He climbed down on his knees and did the same with the bed. He felt the mattress. Then he tapped the walls, looking for a hollow spot.

To conceal what? he kept asking himself.

He was on his hands and knees, tapping at the floor when Ferguson's grandmother hovered in the doorway.

'They done that,' she said. 'Way back when. Now, ain't ya satisfied yet?'

He stood up slowly, close to embarrassment. I don't know.'

She laughed at him. 'You finished now?'

He straightened his clothes. 'Let me talk to the detectives.'

She cackled again and trailed him back through the house and onto the front porch as he walked across the dirt yard to the two detectives.

Tanny Brown spoke first, but his eyes reached past Cowart, up at the old woman, before returning to settle on the reporter. 'Well?'

'Nothing that seemed like evidence of anything except being poor.'

'Told you so,' Wilcox said. He looked over at Cowart, his voice softening somewhat. 'You go into Ferguson's room?'

'Yeah.'

'Not much there, right?'

'A couple of books. Fishing pole. Tackle box. Few clothes in the drawers, that's it.'

'Wilcox nodded. 'That's how I remember it. That's what bugged me so damn much. You know, you walk into most anybody's room, no matter how rich or poor they are, and there's something in there that says something about who they are. But not in there. Not in that whole house.'

Brown rubbed his forehead. 'Damn, he said. 'I feel stupid and I am stupid.'

Co wart broke into his thoughts. 'The trouble is, I don't know what you did when you were there before, and what's different now. I could be picking something up that might mean something to you, but not to me.'

Wilcox seemed to have let some of his antagonism slide away in the growing heat of the day. 'That's what I thought would happen. Here, maybe this will help.'

He walked around to the trunk of the vehicle and opened it. Several accordion paper folders were stacked inside, next to a riot shotgun, a pair of flak jackets, and a large crowbar. He rifled swiftly through the files, finally seizing several stapled sheets of paper. He handed them to Cowart.

'Here's the inventory from the search back then. See if that helps.'

The papers started with a list of items seized from the house and their disposition. There were several articles of clothing. These were noted as 'Returned after analysis. Negative findings.' Some knives had been taken from the kitchen as well. These, too, were marked 'Returned.'

The inventory also listed what items had been taken from what part of the house. There were brief descriptions of the methods used to search each room and the locations searched. Cowart saw that Ferguson's room had been exhaustively processed, with negative results.

'You see anything inside we missed?' Wilcox asked.

Cowart shook his head.

'Tanny, we're wasting our time.'

Cowart looked up from the papers to see that the police lieutenant had stepped aside while he was reading, fixing his eyes on the old woman. She stayed on the edge of her porch, glaring back at him, their eyes locked onto each other.

'Tanny?' Wilcox asked.

The policeman didn't reply.

Cowart watched the detective and the old woman try to stare each other down. He was aware of the sweat streaking down beneath his shirt and the clammy damp that matted his hair to his forehead.

Brown spoke after a moment, without removing his eyes from the old woman. 'Look again,' he said. I think we're missing something obvious.'

'Christ, Tanny…' Wilcox started again, only to be cut off by the police lieutenant.

'Look at her. She knows something and knows we don't have a clue. Damn. Keep looking.'

Wilcox shrugged, muttering something under his breath which dissipated in the midday heat. Cowart dropped his eyes to the sheets of paper, trying to process them as carefully as the policeman had once processed the house. He went over the sheets, room by room, talking out loud toward Wilcox as he did. 'Front room: fingerprinting, all items inspected, none seized, floorboards loosened, walls tapped, metal detector used; grandmother's room: searched and examined for hidden items, none found; storeroom: cutting shears seized, cleaning rags seized, towel seized, floorboards removed; Ferguson's room: clothing seized, walls and floors examined, vacuumed for hair samples; kitchen: cutlery inspected and seized, stove ashes examined, sent to lab, crawl space inspected… ' He looked up. 'It seems pretty complete…'

'Hell, we spent hours in that place, checking every damn loose nail,' Wilcox said.

Brown continued to stare up at the old woman.

'It seems to be the same today,' Cowart said, 'except I guess she turned the storeroom into a toilet. Little room between hers and Ferguson's?' he asked.

'Yeah. More like a closet than a storeroom, really,' Wilcox said.

Cowart nodded. 'Toilet and basin now.'

Wilcox added, 1 heard Ferguson put that in. Used some of the money he got from some Hollywood producer who wanted to tell his life story. Progress reaches the sticks.'

In that moment, it seemed that the sunlight pouring down on top of them redoubled, a sudden explosion of heat that sucked all the air out of the yard.

'So before, where did they…'

'Old outhouse way 'round the back.'

'And?'

'And what?'

'It's not on the list here,' Cowart said slowly. He could feel a sudden pounding in his temples.

Brown spun away from Mrs. Ferguson, eyes burrowing into his partner. 'You searched it, right?'

Wilcox nodded, hesitantly. 'Ahh, yeah. Sort of. The warrant was for the house, so I wasn't sure if it was covered, exactly. But one of the technicians went inside, sure. Nothing.'

Brown stared hard at his partner.

'C'mon, Tanny. All it was was smells and shits. The tech went in, poked about and got the hell out of there. It was in the search report.' He pointed down to a sentence in the midst of the sheets of paper. 'See, he said hesitantly.

Cowart stumbled away from the car. He remembered Blair Sullivan's words: 'If you got eyes in your ass.'

'Goddammit,' he said. 'Goddammit.' He turned toward Brown. 'Sullivan said…'

The policeman frowned. 'I recall what he said.'

Cowart turned abruptly and started walking around the side of the shack, toward the back. He heard Ferguson's grandmother's voice driven across the heat toward him, penetrating like an arrow. 'Where you heading, boy?'