"Listen, whoever did it… I'm so sorry to tell you… whoever did it apparently went north and killed your father, too. Sheriff Stephaniak up there says whoever did the shooting took the top off a septic tank out back that was dry, and that there were a bunch of boxes where we think somebody hid the drugs. That's what they were after."

She was talking fast, trying to reel him in.

"Listen, Joe: we need to know what you know. We know you didn't do this, and we know you didn't kill Jill MacBride, because we got DNA from her body that says somebody else did it, not you. We need to know who you think did it. We need-Joe, okay, I'm on Lyle's cell phone, call me back. Call me back…"

She looked up at Lucas: "He's gone."

"He listened for a while, though," Lucas said. "Maybe he'll call you back." JOE MACK SAT STUNNED, and Eddie, a gray-faced forty-something man with a red ponytail and acne-pocked face, said, "Maybe they're bullshitting you, man. Maybe they were trying to keep you on the phone, so they could see where we are."

He looked up in the sky, as though scanning for black helicopters.

Joe Mack said, "I don't think she was bullshitting me, man. I don't think so." He began to weep, sitting in the passenger seat, both hands wrapped around the phone. Eddie didn't know what to say, because he'd never seen Joe Mack weep. Joe stopped, after a minute, and wiped his eyes, and said, "We gotta go back there."

Eddie said, "Aw, Jesus, man, we're halfway there. We gotta be in Brownsville tomorrow."

"Got to go back," Joe Mack said. "I got business I gotta do."

"Man, the cops are looking for you all over."

"Eddie, goddamnit, I know who done it. If they're dead, I know who done it."

Eddie exhaled, then said, "Look, do me a favor. Throw that fuckin' phone out the window. We can use mine. We can get another one at Wal-Mart… but throw it out the window before somebody pulls us over and shoots our asses." JENKINS CAME IN from the front room: "Phone company says it came out of a cell on the Kansas Turnpike north of El Dorado… so he's still headed south, and pretty fast."

"Need to figure out where he got a car," Lucas said. "We saw him selling his van to that skinhead. He must've had a way to get another car. We need to run it down."

"That bartender… Honey Bee? She seemed pretty tight with the brothers," Jenkins said. "Why don't I pick her up, see what she has to say?"

"Good idea," Lucas said. "I'll come with you."

"You know where you're going?" Marcy asked. "And how'll I get back to my car?"

"Shrake can take you. And Honey Bee-there've gotta be employee records here somewhere, with her address," Lucas said, looking around the office. "The thing is, we've got to stash her somewhere. If she knows anything, this guy, or these guys, will think about it, and go after her." ON THE WAY SOUTH, to Honey Bee's house, Lucas called Virgil at the hospital and told him what had happened, and about the powder on Lyle Mack's body.

"You think our guy at the hospital is taking out witnesses?" Virgil asked.

"Don't know. But we need to find him."

"We got nothing to work with, except that accent thing," Virgil said. "I'm thinking about it, but I got nothing right now."

"How about the kids? Are they working?"

"They're meeting now. We'll find out in a few minutes." HONEY BEE WAS SHOVELING horseshit when the cops arrived. She heard the car, looked out through the crack between the door and the jamb, and saw the dark-haired detective, the one who'd been questioning Joe when he ran, walking toward her front door. He stopped, stooped, picked something up, looked at it, and put it in his pocket. What?

For one second, she thought about hiding; or running: she had an image of herself riding across the back pasture and into the trees. A dream. Stupid.

They'd be coming, and she licked her lips, and said to herself, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything." Should she smile at them? Or look scared?

She took a breath, saw the dark-haired man knocking on the door, took another breath and pushed open the barn door and called, "Hello?" HONEY BEE CAME walking across the driveway with a guilty look: that is, her face seemed to be searching for an appropriate expression, and not finding it. She was wearing a torn nylon parka, knee-high green-rubber barn boots, and rubber gloves, and said, "I was shoveling… manure."

"I do that a lot," Jenkins said.

Lucas introduced himself and Jenkins, again, and then said, "I'm afraid we've got some fairly harsh news."

Her mouth dropped open, and she said, faintly, "Joe?"

Lucas shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, but Lyle Mack was killed last night."

She froze, then slowly lifted her hands to the sides of her head, then broke and screamed, "Lyle? Lyle died? Oh, God…" She sank to the ice-covered ground and began sobbing, and Lucas squatted next to her and said, "We know you were close friends. But we need to get you inside, now, and we need to talk about this. We think there are some reasons for you to be worried."

He wasn't sure she'd heard him, or understood him. She continued sobbing, then looked up and cried, "You're sure? Lyle?"

Lucas said, "Yeah." His eyes drifted away from her, and he picked up several pieces of straw from the ice, twirled them in his fingers, and put them in his pocket. "Yeah, it's him." THEY GOT her inside, and somewhere along the way she stuttered, "We thought we might get married someday," and "Was it a heart attack? He always ate those goddamned hot fudge sundaes."

They sat her in the kitchen and Jenkins asked if he could make her some coffee or tea, and she said yes, and Jenkins got cups and Folgers instant and stuck them in the microwave. Lucas said, "Ms. Brown? I know you're upset, but listen, Lyle wasn't killed by a heart attack. He was murdered, apparently after the bar closed. We need to know who you think might have been involved with Joe, and Lyle, these last few months."

She asked the dreaded question: "Should I have an attorney?"

Jenkins jumped in, trying to kill the question: "We know Joe didn't do it, because we talked to Joe, and he's down in Kansas somewhere. We think he's running for Mexico. Also, their father, Ike, was killed."

"Ike? They killed Ike? Oh my God, who are they?"

"We were hoping you could give us some help," Lucas said. "For one thing, it looks like they're eliminating people who knew about the hospital robbery. We think they'll try to get Joe, we think they'll try to get the witness at the hospital. We've got to stop this, right now."

A little chip of flint appeared in her eyes, as she looked up at him: "I don't know," she said. "I don't know if they were involved. I know they were scared of you. Listen, are you sure it was Lyle?"

"I was looking at him a half hour ago," Lucas said. "It was Lyle."

She stared into the middle distance for a moment, chewing on her lower lip, then said, "I don't know if they were involved with this hospital thing-it sounds crazy to me-but I heard them talking a couple times about a guy they called the doc. Like doctor. But I don't know if the doc was at the hospital, or was just a guy named Doc."

"Do you know anybody named Doc?" Jenkins asked.

"You know, there's about one in every bar. But there wasn't one at Cherries, as far as I know," she said. "How did they do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill Lyle?"

"He was shot to death," Lucas said.

She clouded up again, but after a moment, said, "Well, at least he probably didn't feel anything. It was quick, huh?"

She was looking right at his eyes and Lucas flinched, and she looked at Jenkins, and she said, looking back to Lucas, "Oh, no." Then, "What did they do?" LUCAS FUDGED, but she got the gist of it, and began sobbing again. They waited until she was rained out, and Jenkins brought up the coffee, still hot, and she warmed her hands around the cup.