The sheriff knew this, since he'd sent the deputy to do just that. "And?"

"A coupla folks saw him with Sam Torrens. At the festival."

"So?" Tom was exhausted. A blown-up car, drugs, arson, fights. And now a high school boy murdered. Life in small-town America. Crap.

"It was just before the kid got sick."

"Kid? Which kid? Explain it to me, will you?"

The deputy said, "I'm saying that it looks like Ned was the one who gave the drugs to Sam Torrens. That heroin shit."

"Oh." The sheriff closed his eyes and rubbed them with his knuckles. "What aren't I going to like? You said before I wasn't going to like something."

The deputy continued. "Keith Torrens got his boy a.22 for Christmas last year. I seen him buying shells."

"When?"

"I don't mean recent. I just mean I know he's got a.22 in the house. And had some shells."

"Come on, Randy. Everybody in town's got a.22. They practically come with the house when you buy one."

"I'm just saying."

"And we don't know for certain it was a.22 killed Ned. Could've been a.25 or a.222."

"Maybe. But you'd think there'd've been more damage-"

"We. Don't. Know."

The deputy nodded. Finally he said, "Closest thing to justifiable I've ever seen."

The sheriff wondered where the hell that was coming from. The deputy had worked on exactly one murder in his four years on the force and that had been when Barnie Slater's wife used a deer slug in his sleep to keep him from taking the lamp cord to her anymore. She had fresh coffee for the deputies when they'd arrived. The sheriff said, "Justifiable's the prosecutor's decision, not ours."

After a moment Tom asked, "When was the time of death?"

"About ten this morning."

"Church time. Meg was here bailing out that movie guy-now that's a fact I don't want to think too much on. What about Keith? He do church?"

"I don't know," the deputy answered. "We can call. They're in First Presbyterian."

"Who's that? The Minister?"

"Jim Gitting. Good man. Gives a good sermon."

Tom didn't care whether he was the devil's own brother. "Call him. Find out if Torrens was there today."

The deputy picked up the phone. "Reverend Gitting please… Hey, Reverend, how you doing? Look, I'm real sorry to be-"

Tom took the phone from his hand. "Reverend, this is the sheriff. Was Keith Torrens in church this morning?"

"Uhm, no, Sheriff." The voice was whiny. Didn't sound like he'd give a good sermon at all. "Can I ask why?"

"Just looking into some things. He usually attend services?"

"Hardly ever. He was working this morning-like usual."

"Wait. You said he wasn't there. How'd you know where he was."

"He wasn't in church. He just dropped off Sam for Sunday school. Is this about that thing with Sam this morning? It wasn't a big thing. Just gave the teachers a little fright is all."

"What 'thing' with Sam?"

"Well, the boy disappearing. Is that what you're calling about?"

"What happened?"

"The boys had a study group outside, the weather was so nice. About a half hour later the teachers noticed Sam was gone. We called Meg but she wasn't home-"

Bailing out that asshole from the movie company.

"-and we called Keith."

"At his office?"

"Right. He was about to leave but then Sam came back. He was upset about something but wouldn't say what. Mrs Ernhelt had a talk with him about going away without saying anything and he seemed okay. It really wasn't anything."

"What time was this, Reverend?"

"I don't know for sure. About nine forty-five or ten."

Brother…

"All right, sir, thank you."

"Can you tell me what this is all about?"

"Nothing important. 'Night."

The deputy finally said what he'd apparently been eager to say for some time. "Tom, if somebody gave my kid drugs like that I'da done something to him too. Maybe not killed him. But I'da done something. You can't hardly blame Keith."

"The minister called Keith when Sam disappeared. He was in his office." Before the deputy could nod in relief Tom said, "But his boy wasn't accounted for."

"Sam? Come on, you're not thinking…" But the man's voice faded.

Trash.

The mystery of what lay behind the stockade fence at R &W was solved: not surplus, not salvage. Forget about antiques. Not even good junk.

Robert and William owned a trashyard and nothing but.

Pellam had circled far around the back of R &W and was slowly moving through the woods. Unlike the pristine woods surrounding Ambler's house, the air here was raw, pungent, ripe. He smelled garbage and methane, which filled his throat and made him gag. Several times he had to swallow down nausea. Under the dim moonlight, halved by mist, he felt he was plodding through a dead animal's viscera. The ground under his boots was slick and pasty.

He came to the foothills of the junkyard: A doorless refrigerator on its side then ten yards further along, amputated pieces of laminated furniture, plush toys, books, tangles of wire, hunks of iron losing shape to oxidation.

Twenty yards more and he came to the boundary of R &W. He'd brought a small bolt cutter and though he saw now at one time there had been a cheap chain link enclosing a portion of the yard it had long ago sagged or been pulled down by vandals or gravity. Pellam stuffed the cutter into his back pocket and hopped over an indented portion of the fence.

He paused and listened for dogs.

Nothing. No voices either. Just the sour smell and a tangle of vague moonlight reflecting off a thousand varied surfaces. Pellam walked forward slowly toward the shack that must have been the office of the place, looking for footholds through the maze of scabby, broken trash.

Pellam pressed his back against the shack. He looked quickly in the window then ducked below the sill. Empty. He looked again.

A filthy place. Fast food cartons, empty beer cans, more magazines (he expected Penthouses but all he could see were National Geographics, Cosmopolitans and Readers' Digests), moldy and stained clothes. Books, dishes, newspapers, slips of paper, boxes.

He also saw two leather guncases in the corner.

He looked around, then tried the window. It was locked. Pellam took the bolt cutter and whacked out a pane of glass, reached up and undid the latch. He lifted the window and after a struggle to boost himself up, the pain shooting from his thigh to his ribs to his jaw, he half-fell and half-climbed over the windowsill.

He listened for a moment. And heard nothing but the rustle of a car moving by. He walked quickly to the corner, and hefted one of the gun cases. Inside was a Colt AR15, the civilian version of the Army M-l6.

The other case held the.300 magnum Beretta.

A simple-looking gun, a bolt-action. Walnut stock, dark blued metal, a black shoulder guard, a high-riding telescopic sight. There were no iron sights; it was a sniper's gun. The shells Sam had found fit it perfectly.

Cinderella's slipper.

Was it proof enough? Pellam didn't know. His only bout with the law had been on the other side (and from there it looked pretty damn easy to get yourself arrested and convicted). Pellam replaced the gun then began looking through desk drawers, the closet, the battered olive-drab rucksacks stacked on the back wall.

Which is where they had the drugs hidden.

Thousands of little tubes like the kind crack came in. Must've been five, six thousand of them. And inside each one was a little crystal like the doctor had showed them, the crystals someone had given Sam. A little piece of rock candy.

That solved the probable cause problem. If the gun didn't do it then this ought to.

A car went by. It seemed to slow and he quickly shoved the bags back into place, drew his pistol. Then after a moment, when the car was past, Pellam knelt and opened the rucksack again.