"I didn't have nothin' to do with the drivers," he said. "I was always back in the sanding booth; I ain't management. I don't think I talked to Cash more than once in my life. Never did meet his old lady, except to nod at her in the store. She never came to the bar. Talked to Joe, once or twice. He was interested in the prep business, he wanted to paint his own car. Don't know anything about him, though."

They bounced a few more questions off him, looking for an edge, and found nothing but genuine ignorance.

"You ever meet any of the nuns, er, whatever, over at the church?" Del asked.

"Never saw them, except at the cafe and maybe at the store. Call them the rug-munchers, over to the shop," he said.

"I thought they drove for Calb?" Lucas said.

"Not that I know of," Block said, his eyes shifting away, momentarily. He was lying. "You have to talk to Gene about his employees. I mean, I ain't in management, and I don't want to piss anybody off. I'd like to keep the job."

He had nothing more to say, except that he hoped to build a kennel and breed pit bulls.

"Nice tats," Del said, as they backed away from the door.

The man glanced at his dagger tattoo and for the first time showed a hint of a smile. "Sometimes I wished I'd gotten Mom. But I was in the Army, and only Navy guys get Mom."

THE MAN STEPPED back inside and closed the door behind himself. "Why would he lie about the nuns?" Del asked, as they walked away. "He was doing good up to then."

"I don't know," Lucas said. "Let's try some more."

There were a half-dozen trailer homes scattered around town. One had unbroken snow around it, and was apparently not being lived in. Of the others, three were being lived in, but nobody was home. At the other two, they talked to men who worked for Calb, but seemed genuinely confused about the killings. One of the men, who smelled strongly of beer, said, "We're sittin' here with a gun, tell you the truth." He reached sideways onto a table, picked up a heavy-frame revolver, waggled it at his ceiling, and said, "I dare the motherfucker to come in here. He'll be walking home without a couple of pounds of meat."

"Make sure who you're shooting it at," Lucas said.

"I don't know-I think people get more scared when they think that you're crazy and maybe drunk. Tend not to fuck with you," said the man, smiling in a distinctly crazy way.

"You could be right about that," Lucas said.

As they walked away, he looked at the patch of white skin on his arm. "Let's go get Letty."

LETTY WAS OUT on the dump when they got there, a small figure in dark clothes, kicking through the trash pile. Letty was concentrating on something, and didn't see them pull in. Lucas got out and yelled, "Hey. Letty."

She turned, waved, and skidded down the side of the pile of trash, and clumped across the dirt pan between the edge of the trash pile and the gate. When she got to the gate, she passed him the.22 and the empty gunny sack, then climbed the gate. When she dropped down beside him, he got a whiff of aged garbage.

"You oughta stay out of the trash," he said. "You don't know what might be in there."

Letty said, "Nobody knows what might be in there. Phil gets all kinds of good stuff out of there."

"Who's Phil?"

"Drives the Cat," she said, nodding at the bulldozer. "He gets about one good computer a week."

"Won't do you any good if you die of some weird disease," Lucas said. "You better take a shower when you get home."

"Water kills cancer?"

"You're also a little stinky," Lucas said.

"Yeah? It'd be worth it, stinky, if I could get a good computer out of it," she said. "My computer is worse than this old piece-of-crap.22."

They were loading into the Acura as she said it. Del asked, "If the gun's a piece of crap, why don't you get another one?"

" 'Cause they cost money, and this one works," she said. "I mean, it's a piece of crap, but that's all I need. My computer… that's just a piece of crap." As they were backing out, she added, "You know what I'd do if I was a cop? I'd tell the guy at the dump to turn in all the computers he found. Most of them work, they're just old. When people throw them away, they leave all their letters and stuff on them-he finds out the neatest stuff about people, messing with the old computers. It's his hobby. One time he found, uh… " She suddenly colored, and snapped her mouth shut.

"What?" Lucas asked.

"Never mind."

They both looked at her, and then Del said to Lucas, "I need to get my old computer back."

14

SINGLETON COULD NOT remember feeling exactly like this: unable to breathe, unable to think. He'd driven out of the dump, down the gravel road, and straight through the stop sign onto the highway. He was heading south before he realized he'd missed the stop. He might have died right there, he thought, if there'd been a Molson truck coming through from Canada.

Goddamn Letty West. She was out there all the time, trapping the goddamn 'coons. He was sure that she hadn't been out there when he'd buried the girls. Except that he hadn't checked. He had the same sense of uneasiness that came when he was sure he'd unplugged the iron before leaving town, or when he was sure that he'd locked the doors before going to bed…

He was sure, but he wasn't sure.

He knew she was often out there, even late, because he'd seen her walking along the highway in the evening, carrying her rifle and her bag.

If she had seen him, hauling the garbage bags that held the girls' bodies, she would have assumed that he was getting rid of his own household trash. Though it wasn't legal, people did it-did it all the time, after hunting and fishing trips, to get rid of fish guts or deer remains.

But: the girl had been dragging around town with the two state cops, had apparently helped them reach the unbelievably quick conclusion that the Sorrells had been involved in the hanging of Deon Cash and Jane Warr. Now she had taken them out to the dump.

Did she know something? Were the state cops looking at him? Maybe he shouldn't have left so quickly, maybe he should have stopped and chatted. He could say that the dump was part of his check-route. But if they started to ask him questions, what would he have said? He wasn't ready for that.

Then: if the state cops were looking at him, why hadn't he felt anything at work? There hadn't been any curious looks, or veiled questions. Could the state cops be holding it that close, not even letting the sheriff in on it?

Or-how about this-they'd found out that he'd been hanging around Calb's, and in the process of checking on him, they'd talked to Letty and she'd mentioned seeing him at the dump, dragging the bags. Of course, putting him with Calb wouldn't get them to Deon and Jane, because he'd kept that connection very quiet.

Think.

All right, here's another possibility: it was all a coincidence. She was out there trapping, and the cops had taken her out. But why would the cops do that? It wasn't like they were a taxi service.

Think.

Better talk to Mom.

THE DAY HAD started simply enough. He'd slept late after a strenuous evening with Katina Lewis, had then gotten up, gotten dressed, and had gone into the office to see if anything had happened with the murders of the Sorrells.

Micky James was working the comm center: "The state boys are back," James said. "They've been asked in to cover the Sorrell murders, too. They're going to be up around Broderick. What the hell you think is happening?"

"Dope dealing up at the res, if you ask me," Singleton said. "It's all gotta be tied together."

Back home, he'd decided that snooping was probably more dangerous than doing nothing-and his thoughts turned to the Caddy out in his garage. He needed to do some fine sanding on the last clear coat, and doing that kind of work always smoothed him out, along with the car. Gave him a chance to think.