“It’s a short editorial,” said Nick.

“Use Old Dutch cleanser and some steel wool,” said Lobdell. “Get that ink right off before your date tonight.”

When they got in the elevator Nick looked at Lobdell’s heavy face. Had to laugh. Lobdell did, too. Lit a cigarette.

“That was dumb,” said Nick.

“Yeah.”

“Harloff’s going to kill us. I just got…pissed off.”

“Me, too,” said Lobdell. “Look, Dessinger won’t say anything. It’d ding his pride. Watch out for him, though.”

“How can you find out your lover was murdered and show absolutely no feeling?” asked Nick. “There’s people who didn’t ever meet her who feel worse than that guy.”

“The shrinks got some name for it. Some kind of ‘path.’”

“I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Homicide gets you the winners,” said Lobdell. “Wolfman. Newspaperman. You never know who’s next.”

They stepped out of the building and into the crisp evening. Red leaves swaying on a box elder. Sky an unlimited blue. A new black Mustang flashed down the boulevard.

“Makes me hope his alibi is bullshit,” said Nick. “Makes me want to bust him all the way to the chamber.”

“It’s never the guys you want it to be,” said Lobdell. “Usually some drunk little prick, loses his temper. Or thinks a gun makes him tough. Or some guy who’s spent half his life in the slammer, doesn’t care if he goes back or not. Dessinger couldn’t hate anybody enough to do what we saw. Wouldn’t mess up his clothes.”

Nick only just now worried that he’d done something to damage his brother. Andy had come up with good information-the FBI and the narc payroll-and he’d given them both to Nick. Pronto. In return Nick had helped mutilate Andy’s boss. Maybe Dessinger hadn’t been paying enough attention to connect Becker to Becker. Maybe Dessinger didn’t have anything to do with the reporters. Better give Andy a heads-up either way.

NICK GOT Terry Neemal out of protective custody and into an interview room. Tossed the smokes on the table. The jailers had shaved his hair and beard for lice but left a gigantic mustache. The former Wolfman looked like a toy-breed dog trimmed for hot weather. They’d shaved down the wolfish arm hair, too. The skin was still almost black, like it was burned or paved. Terry rubbed it, frowning.

“They hacked me up.”

“It’ll all grow back.”

Nick made small talk for a minute. Asked about the food and the exercise room and the other inmates. Neemal told him he’d met Nick’s brother, the jail chaplain.

“Nice guy,” said Neemal.

“Let me see your hands again, Terry.”

Neemal held them out. Turned both over. Then turned one over, then the other, but flipped the first one back. Smiled at Nick like it was a magic trick.

“How’d you get the cuts and scrapes?”

“I told you. I don’t know.”

“They were deep enough to bleed. To hurt and get infected and make scabs. But you don’t know how you got them?”

“That’s the truth. But I will say…”

Nick waited. On his first morning here, Neemal had been attacked by a trustee who said his sister had been a beauty queen. Hit Neemal across the shins with a broom handle. Deputies had overwhelmed the trustee but the incident seemed to have made Neemal feel important.

Since then, Neemal had kept a collection of newspaper clips about himself and allowed some deputies to photograph him, freakish arm prominently displayed. His posture was better. He was hurling back insults at the other inmates, who chided him whenever they could. Wolfman. Head Chopper. Hairy Motherfucker Werewolf Man. He ate every bit of his bad jail food and often asked for more.

Nick noticed that Neemal had developed a love of dramatic conversational pauses. He liked to set up his statements with the phrase “But I will say…” He had changed minor details in his story several times. Nothing substantial. Nick had spent a half hour or so with Neemal every day since his arrest. Kept thinking the Wolfman would come up with something truly useful.

“What will you say, Terry?”

“That I saw the girl twice that night.”

Nick considered. “Are you counting when she was on the man’s back? The man who carried her into the packinghouse?”

“Actually not.”

Nick lit a smoke for Neemal and one for himself. “Talk to me, Terry.”

Neemal crossed his arms and looked down at the table. Blew out smoke. “I saw her once. Like I told you. Then I went back an hour later.”

This was new. “Why?”

“I wanted to confirm what I thought I’d seen.”

“Confirm.”

“That means make sure.”

“I know what it means. And?”

“She was there all right. No head. Underpants.”

“And what did you do?”

“I don’t remember anything until the police woke me up.”

“Not one thing?”

“No.”

“Not even walking out, sliding open that big heavy door, finding the way back to your lean-to in the dark?”

“No.”

“You went back and looked at her.”

“Correct.”

Nick stood there and watched Neemal smoke. “You didn’t take the saw blade?”

“No.”

“Kept it, put it somewhere for later?”

“Why would I do that?”

Nick shrugged. Had no idea why. “What did the shrink say today?”

“Said I could have my old meds back if I wanted. I said no. I may see and hear stuff that isn’t there but at least the reception is clear. With all the drugs from Atascadero it was like being underwater.”

“I’d like to know more about why you went back to see Janelle that second time.”

“So would I.”

Nick shook out another cigarette and handed it to Neemal. “Did you kill her, Terry?”

Neemal looked down at the table again. “I didn’t kill her, I’m pretty sure. But I will say…that sometimes my memory falls behind, then jumps ahead and catches up.”

“Terry, after five days and everything we’ve been through, you tell me you’re only pretty sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Next time, you tell me why you went back to see her.”

“Sure. Okay, Nick, I’ll give it some thought. Thanks for the extra cigarettes. Would they put that in the paper?”

“Put what in?”

“If I had some reason why I went back and saw her.”

Nick looked into Neemal’s mad tan eyes. Considered the possible answers. Then chose the one that would help him most. And would help Terry Neemal probably not at all.

“The newspapers would be interested in that. Yes.”

And I can get you an interview with the Journal’s best crime reporter, Nick thought.

“Good night, Terry. The deputy will be right in.”

BY SEVEN that night Nick had talked with Deacon Mike Shaffner, who said he’d picked up the worship programs at six o’clock last Tuesday night. No, he had not given one to Janelle Vonn or to anyone else. Hadn’t seen Janelle.

Shaffner was very tall and thin, blond hair, gentle hands. Nick couldn’t cast him as Red or Ho. Or anybody who would do the kind of violence he had seen.

Shaffner said he’d taken them home and put the mailing labels on, rubberbanded them into stacks, and set them in a paper Market Basket bag to take to the church in the morning for postage. There was a postage machine in the office, which saved him licking stamps. Though it still cost the same six cents for each one, which hit the Grove Drive-In Church pretty hard. He said he finally dropped them off at the post office in Orange Wednesday morning around ten.

Shaffner didn’t know for sure, but he guessed the programs were printed by five o’clock. The job was done at the Tustin Times building, by a man named Gunnar.

“NICK BECKER? I’m an old friend of Andy’s,” said Gunnar.

He smiled a jagged smile at Nick. Held out a blackened hand. He was short, late sixties. Oddly tanned for this time of year. Sharp eyes and thin brown hair combed from one side of his head to the other.

“Oh, Andy was one of the best reporters we’ve had. I was glad to see him go. He needed to try bigger things. These little weeklies, you know, you stay too long and end up like me.”