By the time Parker McGraw got there to take us to his mother's lake house, the media had discovered the police were at the old barn and were swarming around like flies on a carcass, though they were kept at a distance by the town cops. They were yelling my name from time to time.

After a handshake with Tolliver, Manfred led Xylda out to draw them off us. "Grandmother loves the photographers," he said. "Just watch." We did. Xylda, her flaming red hair outlining her creased round face like a scarf, strode off across the empty meadow with Manfred in colorful attendance. She paused by her car, with a reluctance so fake it was almost funny, to give the eager reporters a few well-chosen words. "She's ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille," Manfred said. He leaned over to kiss my cheek and followed her.

While Xylda was enjoying her moment, Tolliver and I did an end run around the mob to reach Parker's truck. Though I had only a faint recollection of what the truck looked like, Tolliver had admired it when we'd seen it in Twyla's driveway and he led me right to it.

Twyla's son was big and burly, dressed in the usual jeans and flannel shirt and down vest. His boots were huge and streaked with dirt. His mom hadn't had enough money when he was young to take him to the orthodontist.

He shook Tolliver's hand heartily. He was a little more tentative about shaking mine, as if women in his milieu didn't often offer to shake.

"Let's get out of here while the getting's good," he said, and we slid into his truck as quickly as we could. Tolliver had to give me a boost. We were really jammed in, since Parker had brought his son Carson. He introduced us, and even under the circumstances, Parker's pride in the boy shone through.

Carson was a dark boy, with a husky build. He was short; he hadn't gotten his growth yet. He had a broad face like his grandmother, and his eyes were clear and brown. He was subdued and silent, which I guess was no wonder, since the body of his brother had been discovered.

"Our car's at the back of the police station," Tolliver said, and Parker nodded. He seemed friendly enough, but he was a man of few words.

However, once we were clear of the media traffic Parker said, "I didn't get a chance to thank you the other day. We didn't show you any hospitality, either, but I guess you can understand why."

"Yes," I said, and Tolliver nodded. "Don't think twice about it. We did the job we came here to do."

"Yes, you did it. You didn't take my mama's money and run for the hills with it. She's a woman who's always done what she thought was right, and she thought calling you two in was right. I don't mind telling you, I disagreed with her real strong, and I told her so. But she knew her own mind, and she was right. Them other two…" He shook his head. "We didn't know how lucky we was with you-all until we saw those two."

He meant Manfred and Xylda. I glanced to my side to see how Carson was taking all this. He was certainly listening, but he didn't seem upset.

"I'm glad you have a high opinion of us," I said, struggling to find a way to express myself tactfully. "But you really can't judge a book by its cover, at least in Xylda Bernardo's case. She's the real deal. I do realize that the way she looks and acts does put some people off." I hoped I'd been conciliatory enough to coax him into listening to me.

"That was real Christian of you," Parker McGraw said after he'd thought over my words for a few minutes. Just when I was beginning to think the subject was closed he added, "But I guess we'll be coming to you for all our supernatural needs." He had a sense of humor after all. But it went back behind the cloud of his grief as soon as I'd glimpsed it. "It don't seem right, enjoying anything, when our son is gone from this earth." In a gesture that just about broke my heart, Carson laid his head on his dad's shoulder just for a second.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I wish I could tell you who did it."

"Oh, we're going to find out who done it," he said, without a shadow of a doubt in his voice. "Me and Bethalynn, we got to. We got Carson here, he deserves to grow up without being afraid."

Carson's eyes met mine. He didn't seem afraid right now, but he had his dad beside him. The boy's calm eyes told me that Carson had been brought up in the expectation that adults would protect him from harm. Nothing had happened to shake that expectation. Even though his brother had been taken, Carson was sure he would not be. I hoped he was right.

Parker seemed to think that Doraville would be safe if he discovered and eliminated the man who'd killed his son. He seemed to think it would be easy to do this. For a moment, I jeered at him in my head; but then I reminded myself of what this man had gone through. He had a right to any fantasy he chose if it would help him get through this life.

We all have our fantasies.

Seven

THE cabin at the lake had been used by the Cotton family for forty years or more. In recent years, the McGraw family had enjoyed it. Parker said that at first they'd felt like intruders, but the surviving children of Archie Cotton were well into their sixties and had no children of their own living in Doraville any longer. They seemed content to let the children of their dad's wife enjoy the old place.

"Jeff loved it out there," Parker said. "Me and Carson, we'll stay out there and go fishing in the spring, won't we, Carson?"

"Sure," Carson said. "We'll catch some fish for Mom to clean. She loves to clean fish so much." That startled a smile out of his dad.

The deputy on duty had buzzed us into the fenced parking lot behind the police station. Tolliver and I scrambled out of the truck and got in our car. We followed Parker out of the parking lot.

Pine Landing Lake was about ten miles out of Doraville in a northeastern direction, and those ten miles were up a twisting, narrow two-lane road. We had met light traffic along the way. The lake seemed to be close to a community much smaller than Doraville, a dot on the map called Harmony. We didn't drive all the way around the lake, but at some points I could see its farther shore quite clearly. There were dwellings scattered around the lake, ranging from homes that looked year-round habitable to structures that were little more than open-air pavilions.

"This would be beautiful in summer," I said, and Tolliver nodded.

We followed Parker's truck at a respectful distance, and when he turned into a narrow driveway we followed, going sharply downhill for a few yards until we could park beside the truck at a broad flat spot by the shore.

The Cotton property was on one of the larger lots. It was a two-story building of very modest size, and you could tell it had been there a lot longer than some of the others because of the huge trees around it. Maybe it had just been built with more landscaping care than the others. Appropriately rustic, with cedar shingles on the roof and cedar siding, it blended into its surroundings better than most of the others we could see.

The bottom level appeared to be a storage area for the boats and other recreational miscellany. There was a heavy padlocked set of doors on this ground-level entrance, facing the lake. Stairs went up the south side of the building to a landing outside the main door. The outer door was screen, of course, the inner a heavy wooden door. Parker unlocked this door and gestured us in.

"Lots of the cabins out here don't have heating or cooling," he said, "but this one does. Mr. Archie did things right. Now, if the electricity goes off, which it does out here with some regularity, you've got your fireplace there, should be in working order. We had the guy clean it out last month."

I looked around. The interior was pretty much one big room. There were two double beds set up with their heads against the west wall, and there were several folding beds rolled up against the wall by them, covered with plastic cases. The air in the cabin felt musty, but not unpleasant. The smell of old cedar was strong. The fireplace was in the east wall, and it was faced with natural rock. The walls were unpainted cedar boards, adding to the feel that we were really roughing it. There was a small stove, an ancient refrigerator, and a couple of cabinets by the door where we'd entered, and a walled-off west corner indicated a tiny bathroom. Besides the fireplace, the east wall facing the lake was almost all glass, and through the glass we could see a screened-in porch inhabited by a few heavy wooden rocking chairs.