Nick found out that after he’d arrested Lenny and Casey, Janelle had started drinking more and taking more pills. When that Tustin Times story came out about the arrests, the names were all changed but some people still figured out who was who. Tustin was small enough for that. Janelle had to give statements and that was hard. She got really sad and withdrawn. When the charges against Lenny and Casey got knocked down to one assault for Casey and possession of illegal substances for Lenny, Janelle got almost suicidal. Then, David and the Drive-In Church congregation got her some doctors and gave her a place to live and some money and cleaned her up and got her back in school. Grades went up and one of the Chamber of Commerce guys saw her after class one day when he was picking up his daughter and thought Janelle should enter for Miss Tustin because she would be exceptionally beautiful if she was cleaned up and dressed right. And she’d come through a living hell with her mom and the rat poison and those brothers of hers. And if she was Miss Tustin, she’d get a good college scholarship and some cash and lots of opportunity, and the Vonns weren’t exactly rolling in it. He talked her into it and sponsored her.

Janelle liked being Miss Tustin. Thought it was kind of funny, but harmless. Enjoyed people. Enjoyed the attention. No pills or booze. Made a run down to Baja with three truckloads of clothes from the Drive-In Church, gave them to people poorer than she ever was. Got her picture taken a lot. Tustin people thought she looked like the old SunBlesst girl, so they did up a poster of her with oranges, an old-fashioned kind of picture that made her look really pretty and made it seem like Tustin still had orange groves.

But all that only lasted two or three months. Then she got on the cover of Playboy. Wore almost as much clothing as she did for the SunBlesst girl poster, but the Tustin City Council demanded a new queen. She split Tustin for Laguna and started UCI same month. Didn’t talk to any of them after that. Didn’t want to see a Tustin face or hear a Tustin name. Felt like that part of her was dead. Said she wouldn’t go back to that town if you gave her a million dollars.

But she did, thought Nick. One last time.

It was mostly Karl and Lenny who talked. Casey just sat there on the cooler with his back to Nick. Getting more and more tense the more he heard, Nick could see. Shoulders moving in. Head hunching down a little. Hands in front of him. Moving now. Nick eased his hand under his coat and popped the holster snap. Casey caught the sound. Big dirty head turning Nick’s way.

“Just to keep things fun and fast, I’m going to need alibis from you, Lenny, and you, Casey. What were you two princes doing two nights ago? Tuesday.”

“We got drunk and watched TV,” said Lenny. “Right here. Right, bro?”

“Right.”

“What shows?” asked Nick.

“Fuckin’ Mod Squad,” said Lenny.

“It Takes a Thief,” said Casey.

“Fuckin’ Twilight Zone,” said Lenny.

“Then Alfred Hitchcock and we fell asleep,” said Casey. He didn’t turn but his hands were still moving in front of him. Like they were doing something small.

“Now get off my property,” said Lenny. “You got what you need.”

“You know Red and Ho?”

Casey turned. Blank stares. Like three empty glasses on a shelf.

“You should probably go, Nick,” said Karl. “They were here. I was, too. The kitchen faucet was dripping bad and I’m a fair plumber. The Twilight Zone was the one where the world ends and the guy’s in the library with all those books and he breaks his glasses.”

“That’s a good one,” said Nick.

“Yes, it is,” said Karl Vonn.

Nick heard something click and saw Casey’s shoulders move.

He took two steps forward, held one foot over the Hessians emblem on the back of Casey’s vest. Pushed hard. The cooler tipped up and Casey went over and rolled onto his back. He lay there for a moment, looking up the barrel of Nick’s gun. Sunglasses still on. Roller in one hand with the paper already in it, a bag of tobacco in the other. Yellow-brown flakes and strings spilled onto his stomach.

He aimed the roller at Nick, pulled a trigger.

“Someday,” he said.

“Never,” said Nick.

“Lunatic pig,” said Lenny.

THAT EVENING Nick watched part of the autopsy. It was performed by Dr. Warren Gershon at the Meak Brothers Funeral Home in Santa Ana because the Coroner’s Department had no autopsy room. Certain county funeral homes allowed the autopsies to be performed on-site, no charge. But Nick knew they pressured the next of kin to have the embalming and funeral arrangements done there, too. Wives and husbands crazy with grief. Made some good money that way. Meak Brothers was located downwind of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and Nick went from the smell of deep-fried thighs to formaldehyde as he walked in the embalming room door.

Nick watched the doctor and his assistants make the big Y incision with the scalpel. Cut the ribs with loppers and pull apart the cage. Tijuana Brass playing quiet on a radio, a perky little number Nick would detest for the rest of his life. The crack of bones loud above the music.

Watched them cut out her organs. Cut out her heart. Examine and weigh and record.

Tutu and a guitar.

He noted Janelle Vonn’s head, partially wrapped in a white towel and placed faceup in a plastic cooler of dry ice. Skin blue-white. Vapor wafting over the top, then down to the floor like horror-movie fog.

They got scrapings from under three fingernails and the right thumbnail.

When Gershon was done with that Nick asked them to amputate the thumbs and three fingers that had had flesh and blood under the nails. Bag and label them separately. Freeze them for evidence.

“That’s very unusual,” said the doctor.

Nick left the room without excusing himself and drove to Angel’s Lawn cemetery to be near Clay. Shivered and heard the traffic blasting by on I-5 while he thought about his brother.

Then to Sharon ’s place in Orange.

SHE LET him in and they talked awhile in the near dark. His eyes burned as he felt the awful collapse of his will. His will to ignore. His will to put aside. His will to call it a job and leave it at the office. He just couldn’t make himself do it. Maybe homicide wasn’t his thing, he said.

It would pass, she said.

Nick said he’d be all right. Don’t worry. Said this is what homicide detail was about.

Sharon understood all of this. Her dad a cop and her ex a cop and she took Nick into her room and talked to him and held him and did the things that made him forget and feel better.

When he was finished, he left for Millie’s bar.

Two doubles and two bowls of pretzels later he was ready to go home.

“DAD’S HOME! Dad’s home!”

“Be quiet, kids. QUIET!”

Nick could hear their voices on the other side of the door. Katy unlocked the deadbolt from inside and Nick fell into the deafening family he loved with such frustration.

“WILLIE SLUGGED ME IN THE STOMACH!” screamed Katherine.

“SHE BIT MY LEG!” Willie screamed back.

Steven racked his plastic Thompson submachine gun with spring-loaded noisemaker, then lowered the barrel into his family with a gleeful smile. Pure Clay, thought Nick.

Klat-a-klat-a-klat-a-klat-a-klat-a-klat!

Katy hugged Nick and smiled hugely. She was large and beautiful and Nick felt the crack in his heart get bigger. Sometimes pictured it going across his whole heart at once, breaking it in two. Did his own heart even count after what Janelle had gone through?

“My hero,” she said.

“MY HERO!”

“MY HERO!”

Klat-a-klat-a-klat-a-klat-a-klat!

“I love you guys,” Nick said quietly. He touched them one at a time. Katy on the arm and Willie on the head and Katherine on the cheek. Perfect precious parts. All in place.