“The insurance company contested the settlement,” said Mallory. She had raided the local agent’s computer, but the investigator’s report had been sloppy and incomplete. It contained only bare bones of dates and physical evidence. It had been no more helpful than the data she had stolen from the sheriff’s computer.

“The company man did make a fuss at first. But he finally paid the claim in full.” Augusta held up a narrow strip of leather. She looked at Mallory’s large gun and discarded the flimsy belt with a shake of her head. “Darlene had to use all the policy money to buy her own house back from the New Church. Seems her husband had signed over the deed as a donation and a tax deduction.”

“I thought the New Church was all Laurie family.”

“Most but not all. I don’t know that Ira’s father was that religious. I think he was just looking for a way to avoid taxes. If you gave up your house, you got to live in it rent-free till you died.” She had found a broad belt with an ornate buckle and held it up to the light. “Now that’s promising.” She handed it off to Mallory. “That was how Malcolm wound up with all that prime property on the lower bayou. He convinced a lot of fools that the best way to hold on to something was to give it away, and the best way to save money was not to earn any.”

Mallory threaded the belt through her holster. “But why did the insurance company contest it? There must have been – ”

“It was just a formality is all. It’s a common thing when there’s an alteration in the paperwork a few days before a death. The original policy favored the New Church, and then he changed it to name Darlene as the sole beneficiary.”

So Ira’s father had a falling-out with the New Church before he drove his car into a telephone pole, head-on, according to Deputy Travis’s accident report. He had made no attempt to break his speed.

The air was colder this morning. Charles buttoned up his new denim jacket as he stood on Darlene Wooley’s porch and watched the town square coming to life, people walking by, cars slowly driving past the fountain, friends hailing friends, open and gregarious in asking after one another’s health.

Ira would never be part of that flow, not entirely. Autism was the cult of one, the self-involved, but Charles wondered which of these outward-looking folk would have noticed the loss of one of their stars, if not for Ira.

The door opened behind him. He turned to see the tired but smiling face of Darlene Wooley.

“Well, Charles Butler. I thought you’d left town.” She opened her door wide and stepped back to allow him to pass into the foyer. “I was just getting ready for work. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? It’s already made. Won’t take a minute to set out another cup.”

“Yes, thank you.” He followed her into a wide room of perfect symmetry. The couch and coffee table were placed dead center against one wall and flanked with a balance of identical armchairs. Matching incidental tables were centered on the side walls, and paintings were hung with an eye to pattern, large pieces accompanied by smaller works of equal size on each side. Mallory would have approved, for it was very neat, each thing in its place, though some pieces of furniture showed wear at the arms and the cushions.

“I’d like to see Ira, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind. He remembers you very well. He says ‘sandwich man’ over and over, every time we have lunch at Jane’s. Well, you have a seat, and I’ll get us some coffee.”

He settled into a large armchair with a prominent darn in the upholstery.

“This house hasn’t changed in twenty years.” Her voice was apologetic. “I never redo the furniture or move anything around. It makes extra work for Ira. If you were to move something just a hair out of place, he would notice that, and then he’d have to memorize the room all over again. When he’s not at school, he spends most of his time in the house.”

“I’ve seen him in the cemetery.”

“That used to be his favorite place. Until recently, the stones never moved.”

“He’s seen the statue?”

“No. I told him to stay away for a while, till the sheriff can figure out what’s going on out there. So you came to see Ira. Well, isn’t that nice. I don’t think he’s had a visitor since he was six. Back in a minute.” Her voice trailed off into the kitchen. As she had promised, a minute later she was back and handing him a cup of coffee. “Black, with three sugars, right?”

“Yes, thank you. Actually, I have a professional interest in Ira. I’ve been on the phone with the director of the Dallheim Project in New Orleans. They explore the gifts of the savant with a view toward learning more about the brain itself. They have a young adult program for autism. It would take years of work, but he might have an independent life.”

“I know all about the Dallheim people.” She sank down on the couch and stared at her coffee cup. “That was my big dream, Ira with a life of his own. The way he is now – ” She looked up at him, her face sad, casting around for words. “If anything should happen to me, he’d wind up in an institution. I begged those people to take him. They told me not to come back until Ira could hold simple conversations.”

“The director told me Ira never sang for them.”

“No, he only does that when he wants to. It’s easy to get him to play the piano. He did that real nice. He played Chopin for them.”

“I told them about his singing. Multiple talents made Ira more interesting. There’s still a long waiting list. It may be months or even a year before they take him, but I have to get his paperwork in before his twenty-fifth birthday. That’s the cutoff age for the program.”

“There’s no point in taking him back if he can’t talk to them.”

“You don’t have to take him anywhere. I have the credentials and their permission to do another screening test – right here.”

“He won’t talk. He might talk at you, but it’s nonsense.”

“Not entirely. Sometimes the echolalia is an effort at direct response. When he echoes what you say, don’t you feel he’s communicating?”

“Well, yes, and I did tell them that, but they said it didn’t count.”

“I faxed them pages from Cass Shelley’s journals on Ira’s therapy. He was remarkably articulate for a small child. No difficulty with personal pronouns – that’s atypical. He showed a normal grasp of grammar and syntax. She rated his intelligence in the upper ten percentile. The Dallheim people didn’t know about that, either.”

“But the screening test – ”

“One simple conversation. There’s a way to get a quick result. It’s a method Cass Shelley used when Ira had his setback. She forced him to talk. It may be very rough on him. I have to get him to focus for a while, but I won’t do anything Cass wouldn’t have done. The director suggested I go for a traumatic event, like the violent death of his doctor. He’ll talk to me just to make it end, to get rid of me, but he will talk. I only need a few direct responses to questions and the screening requirement is satisfied.”

Anyone would talk under torture. Given Ira’s fear and revulsion of the human touch, what he planned to do to the boy was very cruel.

She nodded, looking more hopeful now. “But he stopped talking before that happened. It was the faith healing that did the damage. Cass was real upset with his father for taking him to that freak show.”

He had agreed with the sheriff that it would be a bad idea to mention the certainty that Ira had witnessed the murder. But this should have come out long ago. Ira could not wait forever.

“The death of a mentor is a major trauma, but I could try another approach. I understand Ira lost his father within a year of Cass Shelley’s death. That would have been a devastating event.”

“No, not really. That last year, his father didn’t spend much time with him. He tried taking Ira to a doctor in New Orleans for vitamin therapy. When that didn’t work, I guess he just gave up on the boy. He gave up on everything.”