"You'll get a free ride to jail if the state patrol sees that truck parked out back," Wolf grunted. To Ruth: "She's driving her mom's truck again. Little goddamn juvenile delinquent."

"Little goddamn juvenile delinquent who's gonna be on Oprah," Letty said. She looked at the wall clock. "Four-thirty. I gotta be out of here in ten minutes. They're telling me that we'll be on at five."

"Movie star," Wolf cackled, sliding a half-slice of cherry pie down the countertop.

WHEN RUTH GOT back to the church, she told Katina about Letty, smiling as she recounted the girl's enthusiasm. Katina wasn't so amused. "That kid's all over the place. If she's talking to the police, I hope she doesn't talk about us. Or about Gene's place."

"Not really much for her to know," Ruth said. "Bunch of cars getting fixed."

"I suppose. Just the way that she's always hanging around. I mean, Ruth-we're criminals. We should act like criminals, at least part of the time."

"She's having a good time. I don't think she's a danger to us," Ruth said. "She's a kid."

"If you say so," Katina said, letting her skepticism show.

"Besides-we've talked about this-sooner or later, one of us is going to get caught crossing the border. Or somebody will tell some ambitious little creep prosecutor what we're doing, and they'll come get all of us. We could go to jail, Katina. It's a fact of life."

Katina shook her head. "I never believed that. If we're careful. If we're really, really psychopathically careful, I don't think we will."

THE DISCUSSION HAD not quite been an argument, and nothing was resolved. Later on, Katina crossed the highway when she saw Singleton pull into Calb's parking lot. Singleton had a remote that worked the overhead door, and the door went up, and he pulled inside-to get the car out of sight, Katina supposed. There were still two cop cars and a state van at Cash's house, though it was so cold, all the cops had gone inside the house. Singleton saw Katina coming across the highway and held the door up for her, dropping it when she was inside.

"Gene's in the back," Singleton said.

Calb was in his cubbyhole, staring at an aging Dell computer. He looked up and said, "Loren," when Singleton came in, leaned back to look around him and said, "Hey, Katina."

"Talk to the state guys yet?" Singleton asked.

"Two sets of them. This afternoon. One set was okay and they were here for an hour, taking notes. The other set was just two guys who stood around with their hands in their pockets. Like the fuckin' gestapo."

"Davenport and Capslock," Singleton said. "Supposed to be heavy hitters. What'd you tell them?"

"The truth," Calb said. "I talked to Shawn down in Kansas City before they came in, told him what I was going to do, which was, tell the truth. That I knew Shawn in the Army and knew he had this troubled cousin and when the cousin got out of jail, I hired him as a favor. Then I told them I was about to fire him because he was a screw-up, and I suspected he used the drugs, but not that he sold them. I told them I thought the trouble might be coming from Jane's casino job… "

"Good," Singleton said. "I was going to suggest that. We've gotta reinforce it now that you got them thinking about it."

Katina pulled at her lip. "I'm worried about Letty West. She's spending a lot of time with the police, and she hangs around here."

Calb shook his head. "Nothing to worry about. She comes in to get warm, and I don't let her go in the shop because I don't want her getting hurt, all the shit laying around here. I don't believe she ever talked to Deon."

THEY CHATTED FOR a few more minutes, then, as they left, Singleton deflected a hint from Katina-she could have used some comforting in these troubled times-and headed back to Armstrong. He stopped at Peske's market to pick up a six-pack of caffeinated Coke, and ran into Roger Elroy, who was also looking into the cooler at the back of the store. "Anything happening?"

"They got him," Elroy said quietly.

"They got him?"

Elroy was young and eager and full of news. "They know who it is-those two BCA guys figured it out up at the casino," Elroy said. Singleton thought, the casino, and a wave of relief washed through him, and he leaned into the cooler for a six-pack. "It was that guy whose kid was kidnapped, Hale Sorrell, that guy from Rochester. Remember, last month?"

Singleton almost gave it away then. Might have, if Elroy had seen his face, but his face was in the cooler, as he reached deep inside. He stopped, got a grip both on himself and the six-pack, backed out, and said, "Where'd they come up with that?"

Elroy told him, briefly, then shook his head. "Anderson talked to the governor. They think the Sorrell girl's body might be out there at Deon Cash's place. You knew those guys, right?"

"Knew who they were," Singleton said. "Talked to Cash a couple of times… Jeez. So have they grabbed Sorrell yet?"

"Not until tomorrow. They're trying to run some stuff down-they've got a line on the car he used, they're running some pictures by a witness. They don't want to tip him off."

"Jesus."

"These BCA guys, they're heavy duty," Elroy said. "I met Davenport a couple of years ago, when he was on another job. I'm telling you, he's the smartest cop in the state. He's the guy who set up that ambush on that assassin woman down in Minneapolis. If he thinks it's Sorrell, then it is."

"Maybe not so smart. Maybe just lucky."

"You haven't met him," Elroy said. "He is something else. When I met him, he was up here with this policewoman, fuckin' her, she had a set of knockers… "

SINGLETON HAD A lot to think about, and he prowled down the streets of Armstrong, doing just that. Thought about Letty West. Thought about her for five minutes, tried to remember exactly where he'd seen her around the farmhouse. He knew he'd seen her out around the dump, but not when…

He sat on a street corner for a while, tapping a Marlboro into his hand, lit it with an ice-cold Zippo. Thought about Hale Sorrell. Finally, disturbed and a bit angry at the unfairness of it, he drove over to Logan's Fancy Meats, used the phone on the outside wall, dialing a number from memory.

A man answered, "Hello?"

He hung up, walked back to his car. Unraveling sweaters. He lit another Marlboro, thought about it.

SINGLETON DIDN'T THINK of himself as a killer, because he'd never actually killed anyone-not that the law cared. The law would say he was a killer, because he was there when the girls were killed. It was all really gentle: Mom had gone into the room with them, and told them that they were being taken back home, but that they weren't allowed to see it. So she'd give them a shot, and when they woke up, they'd be back with their mom and dad.

They never woke up, of course. Singleton had carried them out in a black plastic garbage bag, still warm, out through the night, the burial spade rattling in the back of the truck. They'd gone quickly, quietly, mercifully. They never felt a thing.

He'd like to go like that. In a way, they'd been lucky.

NOW THEY HAD the Sorrell problem. It wasn't Joe; it was Sorrell. And there was only one way, as far as he could see, that Sorrell could possibly have found out about Deon and Jane, and that was through Joe. Sorrell had gotten him.

Had Joe given up his name as well? Or Mom's? Had Deon or Jane given them up?

Damn. Like a sweater unraveling. He thought about it for a few more minutes, and then called Mom.