Brazil finally had to get a judge to grant permission for treatment, which would have resolved the matter had there not been a school-bus accident midafternoon. The E.R. could not get to Weed until almost eleven P.M., when a nurse cleaned Weed's cut and put a butterfly bandage over it.

'I don't get it,' Brazil was saying to Weed as they drove back to headquarters. 'Are you sure you have a mother?'

The remark hurt Weed. Brazil could tell.

'She don't answer the phone very much, especially when she's sleeping, and she sleeps a lot in the day.'

'Why wouldn't she answer the phone otherwise?' "Cause Daddy's always calling. He says real mean things to her. I don't know why, and he has to have the number 'cause I stay with him sometimes.'

They parked in the back lot and Brazil escorted Weed inside the police department. They walked past the information desk and Weed didn't seem to care where he was being taken. His mood continued to sink.

'You know something,' Brazil told him. 'You know something big. Something so big you're scared, real scared.'

'I ain't scared of nothing,' Weed told him.

'We're all scared of something,' Brazil replied.

Handcuffed prisoners drifted in and out, heading to lockup, muttering, staggering and swaggering, some wearing sunglasses and cool clothes, many of them high or drunk. The air smelled of body odor, alcohol and marijuana. Brazil turned right, passing through another set of double doors. He opened one leading into a small drab room with desks built into the walls, and plastic chairs, and ugly green upholstered benches stained with unpleasant, recalcitrant life.

Brazil went to a phone and dialed the pager number of the intake officer on call. There was an old radio on a table and Brazil tuned it in to 98.1. He sat on top of a desk and looked at Weed.

'Talk to me,' Brazil said.

'Got nothing to say.' Weed sat on a bench.

'Why did you decide to paint the statue?'

'Felt like it.'

'Did someone tell you to do it? One of the Pikes?'

'I don't know nothing about Pikes.'

'Bullshit,' Brazil said. 'Where'd you get that number tattooed on your finger?'

A radio announcer was going on and on about the ATM homicide, and at first the news and the name of the victim did not penetrate Brazil's fatigue and frustration. Then he caught it.

'… confirmed her identity as a seventy-one-year-old Church Hill woman named Ruby Sink…'

'Wait a minute!' Brazil turned up the volume.

'… made a withdrawal at the ATM, was abducted and shot to death in her own car. A gang known as the Pikes has claimed responsibility. This is the same gang that claimed responsibility for the vandalism of Jefferson Davis's statue in Hollywood Cemetery…'

Brazil was beside himself. He paced furiously, his fists clenched. He was confused and disbelieving as he envisioned Ruby Sink and remembered when she had called him last.

'No!' he exclaimed. 'No/'

Brazil pounded the wall and kicked the trash can. It clanged across the floor, paper, fried chicken boxes and fast food wrappers spilling.

'How could someone do that to a helpless old woman!'

His last conversation with her sounded in his mind. He could hear her voice. He had used her to make West jealous. Brazil clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms. He grabbed Weed by the shoulders.

'You know them, I know you do!' he said in fury. 'They just murdered someone, Weed! Someone I knew! Someone who never did anything to anybody! A human being with a name and a family and now people who loved her have to deal with what happened just like you do with Twister!'

Weed stared at him in shock.

'You're going to protect monsters like that?'

Brazil let go of Weed and walked across the room. Brazil tried to control himself. He was trembling, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his neck.

'I tried to tell you on the computer,' Weed said sadly.

Tell me? Tell me what?'

The fish map.'

Brazil's mind had an electrical outage.

'On AOL. A map with pikes on it,' Weed explained.

'Pikes as in fish?' Brazil came back.

'Uh huh. I did a papier-mache pike in Mrs. Grannis's class. Trying to tell somebody where they are.'

'Wait a minute.' Brazil pulled up a chair and sat down. The fish on the map. That's where the Pikes have their clubhouse?'

Weed nodded. 'In the back of Southside Motel. Behind a big piece of wood.'

'You've been there?'

'I didn't wanna be. I swear. But Smoke made me go and he hit me, too.' Weed wouldn't look up.

'Who is Smoke?' Brazil said.

'He broke in the garage and took all them guns. He made me go along and I held pillowcases for him. So I guess I get locked up for that and everything and I don't care 'cause if I go out, Officer Brazil, Smoke gonna kill me. I know it. He's looking for me now. That's why I told you to lock me up.'

'Do you know Smoke's real name?'

'He's just Smoke. Never heard no other name.'

'He go to school with you?'

'Uh huh.'

'And you don't know his real name?'

'He's a senior and I don't know no seniors except the ones in art class, and Smoke never been in one of my art classes. Not the band, either.'

'He get in a lot of trouble in school?' Brazil asked.

'I never even noticed him until he come looking for me and found me after school in the band room. He asked if I wanted a ride to school in the morning and something told me not to tell him no. And next thing he's talking about guns and the Pikes and how nobody in the school deserved to be a Pike except the ones he picked. He said he had special things to do.'

'Did he tell you what these special things were?'

'All he kept saying was everybody was going to know him. He'd be more famous than Twister ever was, 'cause there's still pictures of Twister and trophies in the glass cases so I guess that's how Smoke heard about him.'

'Think hard, Weed.' Brazil put his hands on Weed's shoulders. 'Was Smoke planning something that might make him famous? Maybe something bad?'

'I think he wants to shoot people,' Weed said.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brazil tried to figure out what to do. If Smoke was planning to show up at school with semiautomatics and take out as many people as he could, Brazil had to do something fast. He grabbed the phone and called West, waking her up.

'Get down here right away,' Brazil said. 'Don't ask why, just come.' "Where's here?' she asked groggily.

'HQ. We need to get as many cops as we can at Godwin tomorrow to make sure Smoke doesn't show up, and we need to get that going now.'

West tried to wake up. Brazil could hear her moving around.

'I'll meet you in the detective division in maybe two hours,' Brazil said.

'Yeah,' she said.

Weed was getting increasingly frightened. He picked at his jersey and kept sighing as if he was having a hard time breathing.

'He made me do things. He put a gun to my head and said he'd shoot me if I didn't. Then a couple weeks ago he stopped showing up at school.'

'So he didn't give you rides anymore.' Brazil was taking copious notes.

'He'd drop me off and leave. Then he started making me late, started dragging me around, making me miss band practice. And I was supposed to play in the Azalea Parade on Saturday.' The light went out of his eyes. 'I been practicing all year. And now I guess I can't.'

The phone rang, startling both of them. Brazil answered it. He was wired and somewhat impatient as he explained Weed's transgressions to Intake Officer Charlie Yates.

Brazil charged Weed with violating Code 18.2-125, Trespass at night upon any cemetery, a class 4 misdemeanor, and 18.2-127, Injuries to churches, church property, cemeteries, burial grounds, etc., class 1 misdemeanor, and 182.2-138.1, Willful and malicious damage to or defacement of public or private facilities, a class 1 misdemeanor or a felony, depending on how much damage was done.