There was some nodding of heads, but then another deputy said, "Do we know for sure that the guy who killed the Sorrells and West had anything to do with the kidnappers? Or that the guy who killed the Sorrells is the same guy who killed West?"

Lucas smiled. That was a new thought, that everything was unconnected. "We believe there's gotta be some connection-if there isn't, we're really out in the dark."

Another deputy said, "I talked to the doc this morning, the medical examiner, and they X-rayed Martha West and she's got a slug in her head. You know about this?"

"I haven't talked to the ME today," Lucas said. "Good slug?"

"Most of it's there. So if it's the same guy who did the Sorrells, you could get a match."

"All right. Listen guys, I want you all to go out and question everybody you know. I don't mean interrogations, just ask around. Was there anything weird going on up in Broderick? Anything that's sort of undercover around Calb's place? If you hear anything, from anyone, that seems like it might be real, give me a call. The comm center here has my number."

"So what're you gonna do?" somebody asked. "Wait for us to call?"

"We're gonna go back up and walk the town again. The FBI is up there now-there are rumors about a second kidnap victim, I'm sure, and I can tell you that it seems likely that there were at least two girls, not just one. So… ask around. Let me know."

BEFORE THEY LEFT, Lucas asked a woman in the comm center if there was any place that they might eat a late lunch that didn't involve the Bird. She suggested they try Logan's Fancy Meats, which was down two streets and around the corner, on the right. They tried it, and found a slow-talking thin man standing behind a meat counter. He was wearing hawkish black-plastic-framed glasses, the kind that New York authors wear, and was reading a copy of The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. He sighed when he put the book down, and said, "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

Lucas asked, "Those pretty good poems?"

The thin man's eyebrows went up; he was skeptical. "You read poetry?"

"I do," Lucas said. "I've seen the book, but haven't had a chance to look through it."

"It's very good," the thin man said. "Do you know Kubla Khan?"

"Of course," Lucas said. "Maybe the best beginning of a poem ever written. It's wonderful."

Without prompting, the thin man lifted the book, and read, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph the sacred river ran… "

When he finished, his eyes gone dreamy behind the black glasses, Lucas and Del shuffled their feet, as cops will do when caught listening to poetry, and then Del cleared his throat and said, "Could I have a cold chuck roast sandwich?"

THEY LEFT WITH heavy sandwiches on thick rye bread, chuck roast for Del and hot sliced chicken for Lucas, along with bottles of cream soda, and ate in the car on the way back to Broderick.

"Gonna walk the place again?" Del asked.

"No choice-things have changed since the fire. This time, we try to scare them into talking… if there's anything worth talking about."

WITHOUT THINKING MUCH about it, Lucas headed for the Cash house, where they could at least be inside. When they pulled up, Cole, the lead FBI agent, coatless, was walking out of the house. A black Lexus sedan was parked in the yard behind the federal cars. A fiftyish couple had apparently just gotten out and were standing passively next to a sheriff's deputy.

"Aw, man," Del said, as they pulled into the yard. "Must be that Burke kid's folks."

"Worst goddamn thing I can think of, having your kid snatched and killed," Lucas said. "You want to talk to them?"

"Maybe to see what they have to say," Del said.

"Good. Go talk to them. I don't want to. I'm gonna start hitting all the houses again. Find me when you're done with them."

"All right. We going after Calb? Looks like there are people over at his shop."

Lucas looked down the highway. There was smoke coming out of the shop chimney, and a half dozen cars were parked around the lot outside.

"Maybe wait one day," Lucas said. "Do the whole town today, and jack him up tomorrow."

18

LOREN SINGLETON HURT. The pills helped, but they wouldn't last. The bleeding, at least, had stopped, but a bruise was growing across his chest, from his breastbone to his armpit. The bullet hole looked like a black mole, clogged with hardening blood. He had a fantasy: drive to Fargo, buy some women's makeup at a Wal-Mart, paint his chest so it looked okay, then go bare-chested for a minute or so in the deputies' locker room.

Then he thought, Why? If they wanted to look at his chest, they'd look at it, whether or not somebody had seen it in the locker room. If they looked at it deliberately, body paint wouldn't help.

He thought about calling Katina Lewis, but dismissed that after a moment. They were falling in love, but there was no way that she'd go for the killing of Martha West, no matter how necessary it may have been. He might, in fact, have to break it off with Katina-he could fake the flu for a few days, but if they stayed together, she'd have his shirt off soon enough. He couldn't bear the idea, couldn't stand it.

He had to do something. Something to fix it all. Something that would fix the whole deal.

That guy Davenport, at the deputies' meeting, asked everybody to nose around. If everybody did talk to everybody else, they might finally figure out that Loren Singleton had been closer to the Kansas City people than anybody had really appreciated. If somebody had seen them here, and somebody else had seen them there, and if they put it with what Katina knew, and what Gene Calb knew…

That was the trouble with a small town: too many people knew your business, knew your life.

In the end he called Mom.

MARGERY SAT AT the kitchen table with her head in her hands. "You dumb shit. You dumb shit. What were you thinking about? Now they've got to look up here. When the Sorrells were killed, it could have come from anywhere. From Kansas City. Now… you're sure the kid didn't recognize you?"

"I'm still here," Singleton said. He added, after a moment, "So are you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" She didn't yell it at him-she growled it.

"It means, we need a way out."

She looked at him for a few seconds, then said, "There's only one way out. We've got to give them somebody else who did it."

"What?"

"If they look at you, with that hole in you… if they even suspect, all they have to say is, 'Take off your shirt.' That's it. Then you're done."

"I know it," he said, miserably. He touched his chest and tears came to his eyes. "Jeez, I hurt."

"I don't know why I help you," she said. "I just oughta go to work and forget about it."

"They'd find out what happened. You'd go to jail right along with me."

"Who's gonna tell them?"

Silence. Then: "I would. You got me into this, you… witch. You're the one who thought Jane was so fuckin' wonderful, you're the one who thought Deon was so fuckin' smart, you're the one who thought of stealin' the little girls, for Christ's sake. I ain't hanging for that. I ain't hanging for the little girls. I'll take them out where the bodies are, they'll dig them up, and you know what they'll find? They'll find all that shit from the nursing home that you pumped into them, that's what they'll find."

More silence. A full minute of it, the locks closing down again, just like when they lived together years ago, locks on all the doors.

"You gotta do what I tell you."

"If it makes any goddamn sense." More tears. "Goddamn, I hurt."

SHE TOLD HIM what to do, and Singleton staggered off to bed, pulling at the hair on the sides of his head. His head was burning, not from the wound, but from what his mother had said. Once facedown, he blacked out. He woke from time to time, to find Margery in the living room, watching TV, watching him.