“Yes,” said David, trusting in his God to lead him now.

“A person who does this can still go to heaven?” asked Neemal.

David felt his soul reverse and crawl back over itself. “Yes.”

“How?” asked Neemal.

Dear Father, speak through me now.

“It is in His power,” said David.

“But what would the person have to do?”

God help me.

“Ask forgiveness. Lead a life of good acts from this moment forward. Be generous and honest and always help the people around you.”

God will accept those puny acts for what these pictures show?

Neemal stared at David for a long moment. Something new registered on his face but David wasn’t sure what. Connivance? Subterfuge?

“I did it,” said Neemal.

David felt himself vanish. Because Terry Neemal’s soul was in the hands of God, but his body was now owned by the People of California.

“Did what?” asked Nick, glancing hard at his brother.

“What you see in these pictures,” said Neemal.

“Which is what?” asked Nick.

“I killed her and chopped her head off. See?” Neemal nodded at the picture in front of him.

“Janelle Vonn was her name. You killed Janelle Vonn and chopped her head off?”

“Absolutely.”

Neemal started around the table again. Staring at the pictures. Stopped for a moment in front of each of the packinghouse shots. He had his blackened arm up, chin resting on his fist, elbow cradled in his other hand. When he went behind David again, Nick drifted toward them. Lobdell stepped forward, adjusted the tape recorder, stepped back.

“Terry,” said Nick. “Of your own free will, you’re saying you killed Janelle Vonn and chopped her head off?”

“Positively.”

“How did you do that?”

Neemal rounded David and stopped in front of the picture of Janelle’s face. He looked down at David. “I don’t remember.”

“You remember that you killed her but you don’t remember how you did it?” asked Nick.

“Precisely.”

“Tell me about that night, Terry,” said Nick. “I want to know all about it.”

Neemal continued to stare down at David. Tan eyes, the big fan of mustache, his face beveled into light and shadow. “Can I trust you?”

“Yes, Terry, but I-”

“And trust your God? Because the God that got inside my head for all those years was a real bad guy. Made me walk to Arizona.”

“Yes, you can trust Him but He-”

“I don’t remember very much. Just that she was wearing a blue sweater. And boots and a short black skirt. I don’t know what she was doing there. I was looking for something I lost. We talked.”

David looked to Nick, who nodded tightly.

David’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “What did you say to her?”

“I don’t remember very much. She had a very sweet voice.”

“Sit down now, Terry,” said Nick. “Take the seat across from David. “How about a cigarette and a cup of coffee?”

Neemal shuffled over, cuffs and sneakers flapping quietly on the floor. He slid into the metal chair opposite David. Nick took the seat to David’s left. Lobdell stayed in his corner out of sight.

David kept his eyes on Terry Neemal’s face. The images just below his line of sight wavered up into his awareness like bodies in a lake. Beyond them waited the tan eyes. A flame flickered into David’s view and smoke rose from Neemal’s cigarette.

“I was already in when she got there,” said Neemal. “That night. Inside the packinghouse. Looking for some matches I lost.”

“How did you lose matches in the packinghouse?” asked Nick.

“I lit a fire inside a few days before. I got cold. I left the matches there.”

David saw that Neemal was now staring at the coal of his cigarette.

“A book of paper matches, Terry?” asked Nick. “Or a box of wooden ones?”

“Paper.”

“Plain, or some design or company name on the cover?” asked Nick.

David saw Neemal’s brow furrow. Big thought lines across his forehead. He looked at the coal again, then brought the cigarette to his mouth and drew. “Pep Boys. Manny, Moe, and Jack.”

Lobdell cleared his throat. Nick glanced back at his partner.

“Did you locate them again in the packinghouse, Terry?” asked David.

Neemal shook his head. “No. I did not. But I will say…that was when the girl came in.”

“Janelle?” asked David.

“Janelle Vonn,” said Neemal. “Vonn.”

“Then what happened?” asked David.

“She said, ‘Hello, how are you?’ I said I was fine and what a lovely evening it was. After that, I remember nothing.”

“If you don’t remember killing her, maybe you didn’t,” said David.

“Maybe you’re just making up a bunch of shit and wasting our time,” said Lobdell. Lobdell came around to the right of David. Stood behind the last open chair.

“Oh, I definitely did it,” said Neemal.

“Did you chop off her head before or after she was dead?” asked Nick.

“She was still alive.”

“What color was the handle of the machete you used to chop off her head?” asked Nick.

“Black.”

“How come you tossed the machete outside?” asked Lobdell.

“Well, obviously,” said Neemal, stubbing out his cigarette, “so you wouldn’t find it.”

“But we did. Where did you get it?” asked Nick. “The machete?”

“Sav-On.”

“Terry,” said Lobdell. “Are you ready to sign a confession?”

Neemal looked at David again. Took a deep breath. “Yes. I am.”

“I’ll write one up,” said Lobdell. “You can read it and sign it and it will prove what Nick’s other brother wrote about us in the paper this morning was shit.”

“I didn’t agree with that article,” said Neemal. “I think Nick is an excellent detective.”

“See?” said Lobdell, smiling. “Just ask Wolfman.”

David felt half disgusted and half mystified by the proceedings. Man’s law was not his area. But he felt obligated to speak. “Is he competent to sign a confession?” he asked.

No one answered.

Lobdell straddled the bolted chair and huffed down into it. Pulled a pen and a notebook out of his coat pocket. Clicked the ballpoint with a meaty thumb, looked at Neemal with open disgust, and started writing.

David watched the pen wiggle above the notepad, heard the rapid scratch of point on paper.

Nick stood. David saw the darkness in his eyes, the bags under them. Nick glanced at him, then circled the table.

“Do you understand what it means to sign a confession?” asked Nick.

“I’m sane and I do,” said Neemal.

“The confession is going to say that you murdered Janelle Vonn in the packinghouse on October first of this year. It says you will cooperate with us by giving us details and information.”

David couldn’t let this moment go unprotested, either. “But if he’s willing to sign a confession right now, then what’s the hurry? Why can’t you get the details and information first?”

“That’s not how it works, Rev,” said Lobdell. “With all respect, you got your church confessions, then you got your legal confessions. They’re different. Here, Nick. This is ready for Mr. Neemal to sign. He can use my pen. Then you can keep it for your grandkids or something-first murder confession you ever got, the actual pen. Terry, read this over and ask any questions you got. Then sign the bottom.”

Neemal took a deep breath. Arranged the notepad precisely. Read slowly and with apparent concentration.

Then he hung his head and began to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t kill her. I did what I said I did. About the…well, you remember, Nick. But I didn’t kill her.”

“You saw the black skirt and the boots when you went back that second time, though,” said Nick.

Neemal nodded.

David had no idea what this “second time” was all about. Neemal had never said anything about it to him.

“And you didn’t find the Pep Boys matches because they were already in your pocket,” said Nick.

“That’s true.” He sniffled.

“You used them to light the newspapers on fire before you masturbated.”