"It was under some palmetto," Jim Tile said, "maybe thirty feet from where the truck was parked."

"You didn't find anything else?" Decker asked.

"No, sir."

"Did you report this?"

"Report what?" Tile said. "A truck parked in the bushes? Show me the law against that."

"But you found this notebook and it belongs to a missing person."

Skink shook his head. 'The basketball team says he's missing but nobody's filed a report yet. The sheriff may or may not get around to it."

"What are you saying?" Decker asked.

"The sheriffs name is Barley Lockhart," Skink said, "as in Dickie. As in uncle. And, for what it's worth, he has a twelve-pound bass hanging behind his desk. Jim, tell Mr. Decker about your outstanding relationship with the Harney County sheriffs department."

"No relationship," Jim Tile said. 'Tar as they're concerned, I don't exist. Wrong color. Wrong uniform."

Skink said, "Jim and I go way back. We depend on each other, especially when there's trouble. That's why Jim brought me the Armadillo's notebook."

"But how do you know he's dead?" Decker said.

Skink stood up and turned off the Coleman. Out on the porch he picked up one of his spinning rods. "You wanna drive?" he said to Jim Tile.

"Sure," said the trooper, "give Mr. Decker a ride in a real po-leece car."

"I've had the privilege," Decker said.

"Who was the guy in the truck, the one who recognized you?" Decker asked.

He was sitting in the back of the patrol car, behind the steel grate. Jim Tile was at the wheel; he glanced over at Skink, a crinkled orange mass on the passenger's side, and Skink nodded that it was all right.

"Man named Ozzie Rundell," Jim Tile said.

"Halfwit," Skink grumbled.

"Has he got a brother?" R. J. Decker had heard of Culver Rundell. Ott had mentioned him at Bobby Clinch's funeral. He'd said he was surprised not to see Culver at the service.

"Yeah, Culver," Jim Tile said. "He runs a bait shop on Lake Jesup."

Decker thought it was probably the same one he'd stopped at a few days earlier. Culver could have been the man behind the counter.

"He's smarter than Ozzie," Skink remarked, "but mildew is smarter than Ozzie."

They were on a two-lane blacktop, no center line, no road signs. Decker didn't recognize the highway. Jim Tile was driving fast, one hand on the wheel. Through the grate Decker could see the speedometer prick ninety. He was glad there was no fog.

"How'd you meet the captain?" he asked Jim Tile.

"Used to work for him," the trooper said.

"In Tallahassee," Skink added. "Long time ago."

"What kind of work?" Decker asked.

"Scut work," Skink said.

Decker was too tired to pursue it. He stretched out in the back seat and started to doze. He kept thinking about Ott Pickney and wondering what he was about to see. Skink and Jim Tile were silent up front. After about fifteen minutes Decker felt the patrol car brake and pull off the pavement. Now it bounced along with the sound of sticks and leaves scratching at the undercarriage.

Decker opened his eyes and sat up. They were at Morgan Slough.

Jim Tile got out first and checked around. The cool darkness was ebbing from the swamp; another half-hour and it would be dawn. Skink took his fishing rod from the car and went to the edge of the water, which was the burned color of black tea. The slough was a tangle of lilies and hydrilla, dead branches and live cypress knees. In the tall boughs hung tangled tresses of Spanish moss. The place looked prehistoric.

Jim Tile stood with his hands on his hips. Skink started to cast, reel in, cast again.

"What's going on?" Decker said, shaking off his drowsiness. The crisp winter air had a faint smoky smell.

"The plug I'm using is called a Bayou Boogie," Skink said. "Medium-fast sinker, two sets of treble hooks. I sharpened 'em earlier, before you got here. You probably noticed I put new line on the reel since you and I went out."

"I didn't notice," Decker muttered. All this way for a goddamn fishing lesson. Didn't these people ever just come out and say something?

"Fifteen-pound test Trilene," Skink went on. "You know how much weight this stuff'll lift?"

"No idea," Decker said.

"Well—there we go!" Skink's fishing rod bent double. Instead of setting the hook, he pumped slowly, putting his considerable muscle into it. Whatever it was on the end of the line barely moved.

"You're snagged on a stump," Decker said to Skink.

"Don't think so."

Slowly it was coming up; somehow Skink was pulling the thing in. He pumped so hard that Decker was sure the rod would snap, then Skink would slack up, reel fast, and pump again. The line was stretched so tautly that it hummed.

"You're almost there," Jim Tile said.

"Get ready!" Skink's voice strained under the effort.

He gave a mighty pull and something broke water. It was an iron chain. Skink's fishing lure had snagged in one of the links. Jim Tile knelt down and grabbed it before it could sink back into the slough. He unhooked the fishing lure, and Skink reeled in.

By now Decker knew what was coming.

Hand over hand, Jim Tile hauled on the chain. The wrong end came up first; it was an anchor. A new anchor, too, made of cast iron. A clump of hydrilla weed hung like a soggy green wig from the anchor's fork.

Jim Tile heaved it on shore. Wordlessly he started working toward the other end, the submerged end of the chain.

Instinctively, R. J. Decker thought of his cameras. They were locked in his car, back at Skink's shack. He felt naked without them, like the old days. Certain things were easier to take if you were looking through a camera; sometimes it was the only protection you had, the lens putting an essential distance between the eye and the horror. The horror of seeing a dead friend in the trunk of a Seville, for example. The distance existed only in the mind, of course, but sometimes the inside of a lens was a good place to hide. Decker hadn't felt like hiding there for a long time, but now he did. He wanted his cameras, longed for the familiar weight around his neck. Without the cameras he wasn't sure if he could look, but he knew he must. After all, that was the point of getting out of the business. To be able to look again, and to feel something.

Jim Tile struggled with the chain. Skink knelt beside him and loaned his weight to the tug.

"There now," Skink said, breathing hard. The other end of the chain came out of the water in his right hand.

"Get it done," said Jim Tile.

Tied to the end of the chain was a thin nylon rope. Skink's massive hands followed the rope down until the water was up to his elbows. His fingers foraged blindly below the surface; he looked like a giant raccoon hunting a crawfish.

"Ah!" he exclaimed.

Jim Tile stood up, wiped his hands on his uniform, and backed away. With a primordial grunt Skink lifted his morbid catch from the bottom of Morgan Slough.

"Oh God," groaned R. J. Decker.

Ott Pickney floated up dead on the end of a fish stringer. Like a lunker bass, he had been securely fastened through both lips.

They were driving back toward Harney on the Gilchrist Highway.

"We can't just leave him there," R. J. Decker said.

"No choice," Skink said from the back seat of the patrol car.

"What do you mean? We've got a murder here. Last time I checked, that's still against the law, even in a shitbucket town like this."

Jim Tile said, "You don't understand."

Skink leaned forward and mushed his face against the grating. "How do we explain being out in the slough? A spade cop and a certifiable lunatic like me." And an ex-con, Decker thought. From under the flowered shower cap Skink winked at him. "It's Jim I'm really worried about, Miami. They'd love a shot at State Trooper Jim Tile, am I right?"