"I wouldn't go doing that, miss. He's not looking for brunets that we know about. Your hair looks real nice just the way it is." He smiled. "Sexy too."

"I'm scared, Officer." Her brittle voice cracked. "I gotta drive home at night and Earl he's my husband's shift's not over till eleven. Sitting there in the trailer for three hours! By myself… I can't watch TV, for the noises outside. I can't read. I just sit. I'm too addled to even knit and I'm going to miss my niece's birthday with the vest I promised her." She cried, grim and silent, for a moment.

"We're doing everything in our power to get this son of a gun. Now I was asking about Tuesday?"

"I can't help you, I'm afraid. We close at seven on Tuesday."

Well, there you have it. Dead end. "Tell you what, give me a quarter pound of those jelly beans. What flavor'd they be?"

"The watermelon ones?"

"Yeah." Slocum paid. He took the change and smiled a flirt at her. "I get by here on occasion. Ill look in on you and see how you're doing."

She swallowed and lifted away a tear with a corner of her sleeve. "I'd rather you was out catching him."

"Well, we're doing that too," he said stonily and took the candy, walking to the door. He glanced at the Halpern boy. "You want a snack, eat apples," he snapped.

Slocum ambled through the recession-battered wasteland of the mall until he came to the last store on his list. Floors for All. Inside a young man with trim hair sat at a desk, carefully writing in an order book. "Afternoon," Slocum said.

"Howdy, Officer, what kind of carpet you interested in today? We got a special -"

"This place here open late on Tuesday?"

"Yessir. Lot of carpet stores close down weeknights but we're number one with carpet, number one with service. Nights're important. We get men come in after work to check out the carpet their little ladies've chose earlier in the day."

"You working this last Tuesday?"

"No sir, that'd be Mr. Trout. Amos Trout."

"Will he be coming in today?"

"Oh, he's in. He's not here right now because he got car problems. He took a late lunch. Should be back any time."

"I'll stop back later."

Slocum left the store and halfway to the exit nearly walked into Adeline Kraskow. "Well, well, well." Slocum circled her.

"Hey, Jim," she said in her husky voice. She was young and might have been pretty if she'd forced her salt-and-pepper hair into staying put. The strands reminded him of BX cable. She also needed to move some of the boob weight down to her toothpick legs (a rearrangement Slocum never thought he'd recommend to any woman). Addie had dry skin and high cheekbones and she wore little makeup. This made Slocum think that she was desperate for a man.

He asked, "What's happening?"

"Doing a story on how this cult murder thing is affecting business."

"Bad?"

"Yep. People're scared. Staying home and not spending money. What are you doing here?"

"I can't really talk about it."

They stood for a minute, silent. Slocum had a fast series of thoughts: that he'd been promising to bring the wife to the mall, that he could do that on Sunday and that while she did her shopping he could talk to this guy Amos Trout at the carpet store. He asked, "I'm taking kind of a break. You interested in getting a drink?"

Adeline Kraskow said, "Sure. I guess." And she stuffed her notebook into her huge purse and together they strolled through the mall.

They had known each other for exactly one year, ever since she started covering the police beat for the Harrison County Register. The top-heavy Ms. Kraskow didn't know that Slocum regularly had acrobatic sexual intercourse with her and had been fellated by her dozens of times – each instance of course in his Technicolor imagination while he was engaged in considerably more mundane sexual activity with his wife of eleven years, or with his right hand. He supposed that if in real life Addie had ever stubbed out one of her chain-smoked cigarettes and unzipped his fly he'd have gone limp as month-old rhubarb but still he liked to sit with his knee pressed accidentally on purpose up against her thigh while she asked her reporter's ever-serious questions. Now he maneuvered her into a dark corner booth of the mall's only full-fledged restaurant, T.K. Hoolihan's.

"You're on duty?" she asked.

"I'm undercover. I can drink."

"You're wearing a uniform. How can you be undercover?"

"Well, I'm wearing Jockey shorts. No, that's underwear not undercover." He laughed to show it was a joke. Addie smiled with flirtatious contempt. They ordered neat scotches and he paid.

"Thank'y." She lit a cigarette, inhaled and shot out a stream of smoke at the plastic Tiffany lampshade decorated with robins. "So, you got any leads yet?"

"I told you -"

"Is there a connection with the Susan Biagotti killing?"

"Bill wouldn't want me talking on that."

"I'm sure he wouldn't. But I can't ask only questions people want me to ask. The Biagotti killing never got solved. Here Steve Ribbon's revving up for reelection and he flubbed that case bad. Now there's a second girl dead."

"Addie."

She said, "You don't know how persistent I am. Tell me something. Anything. I promise your name won't appear anywhere in the story."

Slocum sighed.

Addie leaned forward, strategically, and whispered, "Cross my heart."

The warmth she denied the parents she spent on the children.

Diane Corde could at least say that for the woman.

"Hello, Sarah," the woman said ebulliently. "I'm Dr. Parker. How are you today?"

In the silence that followed, the three of them standing in the veterinarian waiting room, Diane said, "Honey, you know how to answer."

"I'm not going to take the spelling test," Sarah said in a dour, snappy voice. "And I'm not going back to school."

"Well, now Sarah," the doctor said cheerfully, "We've got some other things to talk about. Let's not think about your spelling test today, all right?"

"Sarah," Diane barked, "I won't have you behaving this way."

Dr. Parker didn't intrude between mother and daughter; she simply kept the smile and extended her hand. Sarah shook it abruptly then stood back, looking, Diane thought sadly, like the little brat she'd become.

"Come on inside," the doctor said. "I've got some things I'd like to show you." She motioned the girl into her office. Diane looked through the door and noticed a number of dark green boxes on her desk. The letters WISC-R were stamped into them.

She then glanced at Dr. Parker to appraise today's fashion choice. A close-fitting red silk dress. With dark stockings. In New Lebanon! Didn't some famous gangster's moll wear a red dress when she turned him in?

Diane stepped forward after Sarah. But Dr. Parker shook her head and nodded to the couch in the waiting room. "Just Sarah and me today."

"Oh. Sure."

Diane, feeling chastised, retreated to the couch and watched the receptionist open a pack of Trident and slip a piece into her mouth. The woman noticed Diane staring at her and held up the package.

"I don't chew gum, thank you."

As the doctor's door closed Diane caught a glimpse of her daughter's face staring fearfully down at the boxes. The door latch clicked. Diane sighed and aimlessly picked through a basket of wilted magazines. She lifted one to her lap with substantial effort and turned the pages.

A few minutes later Diane closed the unread magazine and slumped on this rec room couch, awash with defeat.

Defeated by her husband, in whose presence Sarah relaxed and laughed – her husband who could speak Sarah's flawed, tricky language while Diane could not.

Defeated by Sarah herself with her wily tactics of tears and panic.

By this harlot of a shrink, who was taking their scarce money so eagerly.