West turned into the driveway and a gas-station bell announced Mr. Fluck had company. A curtain in a window moved, and immediately a man emerged from the house. He was fat and didn't have much hair, his round head and small eyes bringing to mind a smiley face that wasn't. Mr. Fluck looked depressed and bereft, as if his wife had just walked out or come back, depending on how he felt about her.

'Uh oh,' Brazil said, unfastening his seat belt.

'No kidding,' said West.

Bubba followed his uneven brick walk to the driveway, where the unmarked white Chevrolet Caprice had pulled in. His mind was dark with ruined dreams, cruel predestination and bad karma.

His father, Reverend Fluck, had always disapproved of Bubba's fondness for guns, and Bubba was suspicious that his father had prayed for such a thing to happen. It was just too coincidental that, for the most part, only guns had been stolen. His expensive tools had been left. The burglar had not tried to break into Bubba's house or Honey's station wagon.

A tall, well-built blond man in uniform climbed out of the Caprice. The driver was a woman in plain clothes, a detective, Bubba assumed. They walked up to him, radios chattering.

'Are you Mr. Fluck?' the woman asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'Thank God you came. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.'

'I'm Deputy Chief Virginia West, and this is Officer Andy Brazil,' West said.

Bubba felt better. He sighed. The police had sent a deputy chief. This had to be Chief Hammer's doing. She was looking after Bubba. Somehow she had been touched as had he, their destinies entwined. Chief Hammer knew that a terrible injustice had been perpetrated against Bubba.

'I sure appreciate Chief Hammer contacting you,' Bubba said.

Both cops looked mystified.

'She did, didn't she?' Bubba's faith wavered. 'Just now, when I called nine-one-one?'

'Actually,' Brazil faltered. 'Well, yes. How did you know she just called me?'

Bubba looked heavenward and smiled, despite his pain.

West started walking toward the workshop. Brazil followed. Both of them stood on the driveway, looking at the mess. Brazil recorded the month, day, year and victim's name and address on the offense report attached to his clipboard.

'What a disaster,' Brazil said.

'It's unspeakable,' Bubba said.

'Do you have any idea when the B and E occurred?' West asked.

'Sometime between eight o'clock last night and seven-thirty this morning.'

'I need your home and business phone numbers.' Brazil was writing.

Bubba gave them to him.

'I got home from work and found this,' Bubba said, almost in tears. 'Exactly like this. I didn't touch anything. I didn't move anything, so I'm not a hundred percent sure what's missing.'

West's expert eye skimmed over stand-alone tools such as a drill press, a drum sander, bench grinder, jointer, thickness planer, shaper, and all the expected chisels, Forstner bits, wire-brush wheels, brad-point bits, plug cutter, countersink set. There was protective gear of every description, and more hand tools than Bob Vila probably had in his workshop.

'It's interesting that you have so many expensive tools, yet the burglar or burglars didn't take them,' West observed.

'He was after guns,' Bubba said. 'I know they're missing.'

He pointed to the cabinet and its severed padlock on the floor.

'You got bolt cutters?' West asked.

"Toolsmith, eighteen-inchers.'

'Still have them?' Brazil said.

'I can see them from here,' answered Bubba.

'What kind of lock was on the gun cabinet?' West asked.

'Just a plain Master lock.'

'Case hard?'

Bubba looked ashamed.

'I was meaning to get around to it,' he said.

'So it wasn't case hard,' Brazil wanted to make sure as he took the report.

Bubba shook his head.

'That's too bad,' West said with feeling. 'I've never seen a pair of bolt cutters that can go through a case hard Master lock. And considering what you had in your cabinet, you should have had the best.'

'I know, I know,' Bubba said as his shame deepened. 'I know how foolish I was.'

West walked in to inspect more closely, noting that Bubba had painted his initials in white on all tools and equipment. She stepped over dozens of step-by-step books on plumbing, deck and patio upgrades, painting and wallpapering, pruning, and home repair problem solving.

She picked her way around a Stanley thirty-foot heavy-duty tape measure and its Nicholas leather holder, a Makita tool holster, a McGuire-Nicholas wide saddle-leather belt, a top-grade cowhide Longhorn hammer holder, red Nicholas heavy-duty suspenders, and a foam rubber knee pad with double straps that had become separated from its mate.

West recognized top quality. She knew all the brands and how much they cost. She was curious. She was envious.

'And you have no alarm system,' Brazil said.

The "No Trespassing" sign and the bell in the driveway. I can hear anybody drive in.'

'I didn't know they used those anymore,' Brazil said.

'Muskrat's Auto Rescue has a bunch of them,' Bubba said.

'What about your dog?' West asked.

'Half Shell bawls all day and night. Nobody listens to her anymore.'

'So Half Shell and the gas-station bell were your only alarm system?' West gave him a skeptical look.

Bubba could tell she wasn't impressed with him. He was suddenly conscious of how pretty she was. Bubba felt fat, dirty, unattractive and inferior. He felt the way he had most of his life. Deputy Chief West saw through his guns and tools and home repairs. She saw Bubba as a persecuted little boy with an awful name and a world that ridiculed him. Bubba could see it in her eyes. It suddenly occurred to him that she might have gone to school with him.

'Are you from around here?' he asked her.

'No,' she said.

'You sure?'

'What do you mean, am I sure?'

He was paranoid and obsessed. He had to be convinced.

'So you're not from Richmond,' he said.

'No.' She was getting curt with him.

'It's just that you look like someone I went to school with whose name was Virginia,' Bubba lied.

'We didn't go to school together,' West told him.

'Did the burglar or burglars urinate in here?' Brazil asked.

'Yes.' Bubba pointed. 'Does that mean something?'

'Oftentimes burglars urinate or defecate in the place they've broken into,' West explained. 'It's part of an MO, and may or may not matter.'

Brazil made a note of it.

The sort of thing your police computer might have picked up on if it didn't have the fish virus,' Bubba said. 'I heard about it on the news when I was driving home. So you won't be able to check for a pattern.'

'Don't you even worry about it.' Brazil avoided the subject. 'You got a list of the guns and their serial numbers?'

'I got them all at Green Top,' Bubba said. 'Never buy guns anywhere else.'

'That helps,' Brazil said. 'But I want to list on the report what's missing so the detective can follow up.'

'I guess you won't be able to use the computer to see if someone else got broken into like this,' Bubba said, disappointed. 'Because of the fish problem.'

'Don't worry about how we do our jobs,' Brazil told him. 'Now, about the list.'

'One Browning Buck Mark Bullseye.22,' Bubba recalled, 'a Taurus eight-shot M608.357, Smith and Wesson Model 457 alloy frame.45 ACP and its Bianchi Avenger holster, a Pachmayr pocket cleaning kit, a mini-Clock G26 nine-millimeter with night sights, Sig P226 nine by nineteen millimeter, same thing used by Navy SEALs. Let's see. What else?'

'Jesus,' West said.

Brazil was writing at top speed.

'A Daisy Model 91 Match pistol, air gun, in other words. Ruger Blackhawk.357 revolver, and a couple Ruger competition handguns.'

'Are you a competition shooter?' West asked.