This is Cathleen�s space. In every issue of Hitchcock for two decades, she used this column to share something with you. She�d tell you about the issue�s stories; she�d list the latest awards; in the January issue, she�d even send you a wry Season�s Greetings card. But what she loved was to present new writers to you. �We are glad to introduce a new writer,� she�d say, or, �Now we are delighted to bring you,� or, �Welcome to,� and in this limited space she�d give a face to the name.

I wish she were here to introduce her latest find, but, sadly, she�s not. So I�d like to return a favor and tell you about Cathleen Jordan from the viewpoint of one of those new writers.

As an editor, Cathleen respected her readers, her writers, and the writing craft. After she accepted my first story, I taped the letter above my desk and dared think of myself as a �writer� � sometimes. Cathleen helped me think that way more often. When I came gawking to New York for the first time eighteen years ago, I knew the magazine would be busy with Edgar week and famous writers dropping by, but I hoped at least to meet Cathleen and thank her. She not only took time to meet me but to introduce me to the editors of the other magazines at Davis Publications and to sit me down for a long and relaxed conversation. Each year that I went back, I saw new writers getting that same respect and attention.

The Hitchcock office was a wonderful place to visit. Cathleen was charming and funny and generous, and we�d talk about the problems of writing and editing short stories, discussions often joined by her terrific editorial assistants. Cathleen would prod and probe, asking for another story with recurring characters or bugging me to do a novel. What Cathleen gave me and other writers was support, encouragement, and respect for writing.

While the Edgar Awards dinners are important and enjoyable, Cathleen preferred things less formal and more intimate. On the day after the Edgars, she�d take a group out to dinner to honor a new writer who had won the Robert L. Fish award or a writer whose Hitchcock story was nominated for an Edgar. For writers, new or old, it was extraordinary � Cathleen and husband Nick, an editorial assistant, two or three other writers and spouses, a long evening of wonderful food and wonderful conversation.

In her columns, Cathleen gave you details about a writer�s likes and dislikes, pets and hobbies, to help round out the portrait. Cathleen liked tight writing. She loved her cats. She loved New York. She knew where good little restaurants and book shops were tucked. Her apartment was crammed with books. She asked for reading recommendations and offered her own. She liked to hear stories told, stories about the oddities of our hometowns, and she liked to tell stories herself � Texas stories and New York stories and South Dakota and Italy and family and cat stories. The stories, given and received, were acts of sharing.

Cathleen was open, witty, smart, generous, sophisticated, unpretentious, thoughtful, comfortable, determined � as one of her assistants said, she was someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life getting to know.

We all miss her. I started that novel a month before she died. I had counted on talking to her about it in progress. But when it�s finished, I�ll know I wouldn�t have written it without her influence. A lot of writers owe her more than we can repay, and all of us � publisher, staff, writers, and readers � are incredibly fortunate to have known her.

Prologue: Editor�s note � The story of the great good fortune by which the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century Cranefield Manuscripts came into my hands being so well known, I will not repeat it here. Suffice it to say that my excitement has only increased with the time and effort spent with the all-too-often-elusive hand of Adam of Cranefield.

Adam, if I may be allowed the liberty � I feel that I know him well enough to call him �Adam� � is not a chronicler with an eye to posterity or political ingratiation, as is Froissart, nor does he observe so meticulously (and tediously!) as do the Paxtons. His writing is fragmentary and elliptical, highly subjective and at times shamelessly roguish, exhibiting a curious mixture (one hesitates to say �blend�) of Northern and Midland fourteenth century dialects and sensibilities � crude and cultured, savage and sensitive by turns. But he possesses a keen intellect and a visceral interest in being (or sometimes in simply staying) alive, taking delight in almost everything, especially the follies of mankind, his own included.

The role of the translator � or, more modestly, the modernizer � requires apology without ceasing, so here I make mine. In this modernization, I hope to make Adam of Cranefield accessible to the twenty-first century General Reader while remaining true to his voice. I sought to keep my own interpolations to a minimum, but I have been required by my editor to eliminate all footnotes!

Under this restriction I am forced to take liberties with the text that are at best presumptuous, in order to clarify material best explained by (and rightly belonging in) footnotes, endnotes, annotations, appendices, and other scholarly apparatus. For example, rather than offering explanatory notes on fourteenth century slang, I have been forced to substitute roughly equivalent modem slang in its place, and while such substitution does in some sense capture for the modern reader the flavor of the original, one cannot help lament what is inevitably lost in translation. (One must also draw a line somewhere. I have refused, for instance, to render the phrase mea culpa as �my bad.�)

In any case, I hope that Adam�s stories will be as enjoyable and gratifying to the reader as they are to the modernizer, but I must close with one final word of caution: Adam is a man of his time and can be candid in his description and colorful in his opinion. While I intend to be circumspect and sensitive, I will not bowdlerize his story � a reporter must, as Chaucer says, �reherce as ny he can/Everich a word, if it be in his charge/... Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrew.� Judge nothing that I say, Gentle Header, as of evil intent; I must rehearse his tale whole, for better or worse, or else falsify some of my material.

And therefore, whoever desires not to hear such things should �turne over the leef and chese another tale.�

��WBC, New York, Santa Fe, Due West, 2001

You�d have to convince me that cats have special powers. I�d rather believe in luck or coincidence. And yet I might have been robbed, even killed � without knowing why � if it hadn�t been for a cat, a drag queen, and a bag of donuts. To begin with, there was Benita, my cat, and her love of sparkling things.

I am not surprised when I emerge from the kitchen nook at the Westbrook Hotel and find Tommy Hightops waiting for me in the lobby, which is a grand name for that small room where there is a tiny front desk, a cigarette machine, a pay phone, and not much else. There he stands glancing fiercely about, and when he spots me, he legs it right for me.

�It�s about your friend,� he snaps, �Narvel Moist.�

Now, I object to Narvel Moist being described as my friend, which he most certainly never was, the guy being shoved onto me by High-tops as a sort of job in the first place.

�We�ve got to talk,� says High-tops, steering me into the bar.

And there follows a similar scene to that which occurred about a week and a half ago...

There are three detective agencies listed in the River City, Indiana, phone book. Two of them have ads with pictures and slogans and big logos. One of them is just a line of text: �Erie Investigations, 1451 Hart Road,� and then the phone number.

Larry Erie�s friend Bass thought that was a big mistake.

�It pays to advertise,� Bass said. �No one�s gonna hire you to find their car keys when all you�ve got�s that dinky little line there.�

Erie just shrugged. He wasn�t so sure about this private detective thing, anyway. He was a retired cop living alone. Wasn�t he a bit old to be playing Sam Spade?

He framed his detective�s license and hung it in the living room � a room he almost never went in anymore � and tried to forget it.

So when Frank Ault rolled up Erie�s driveway in his silver 199��Cadillac, Erie assumed he was an insurance salesman. Or lost.

Erie�s cats told him Ault was coming. Erie didn�t get many visitors. When he did, Mae and Goldie would jump up on the couch near the bay window at the front of the house to watch what was going on in the driveway. Erie walked over to the window, and he and the cats watched Ault. The man sat in his car for a moment, the engine running. He looked confused. He glanced at a piece of paper in his hand, then looked back up at the house. Finally, he shut off the engine and got out of the car. He was a tall man, fortyish, thin and balding. He wore gray slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt with pinstripes and a wide blue tie.

Erie stepped out of the house, careful to shoo the cats away from the door with one foot. �Can I help you?� he asked.

Ault still looked confused. He glanced at the piece of paper again, then looked back up at Erie, who stood there watching him in his sweatpants and wrinkled, ketchup-freckled shirt.

�This is 1451 Hart Road?�

�That�s right.�

Ault turned and looked at the street. �Is there another Hart Road around River City?�

�No.�

Ault looked at Erie�s house. He seemed baffled by what he saw.

�Why don�t you tell me what you�re looking for and maybe I can help you find it.�

The man�s eyes snapped back to Erie. He looked stricken. �No, that�s okay, thanks. I�m just... I�m looking for a business.� He was backing up as he spoke, starting to turn and go back to his car.

Erie wondered what kind of business this nervous-looking man could be searching for. A porn shop?

And then it hit him.

Oh, my Lord. I have a client.

�You wouldn�t be looking for Erie Investigations, would you?�

The man stopped. He looked at Erie for a moment, mouth half open, obviously calculating some noncommittal answer.

�What makes you ask that?� he finally replied.

�I�m Erie. If you want to come inside, we can discuss whatever it is that brings you out here today.�

Ault looked both relieved and skeptical. �Okay,� he said.

Erie opened the door for him.

�Be careful,� he said. �Don�t let the cats out.�

When I heard you were coming I was in two minds about talking to you. You�ve got to understand, I�ve had people out here asking questions for what, sixty years now? You can�t kill your dad when you�re only twelve years old and not have some people come by from time to time asking why. And here I am in prison, well, I�m a sitting duck. You can always find me to home, you betcha.

And the questions, they�re all pretty much the same: Why�d you do it? Was your pa a violent man? Did the loneliness get to you, out there on the prairie? You ever kill small animals? How about your ma, what was she like? Yeah, I�ve been asked them all, and I�ve answered them every way you can think of. But I�m not answering any more questions, I can tell you that right now. What I�m going to do is tell you as best I can what happened and, well, you can do with it what you will. I don�t care.

Now you know what the record says. My parents were both killed at their claim shanty. My father was found sprawled across the table, shot to death with a double-barreled shotgun right in the chest. My mother... well, she was lying out in the yard. Only footsteps around were theirs, and mine. They tracked me down and found me two miles away at Dark Hollow, curled up and sleeping at the edge of the pine trees. First thing I said when they woke me up was, �I shot him.�

The trial didn�t take long. Only reason they didn�t hang me was �cause I was twelve. Instead, they gave me life without parole, and here I am. And that was fine with me, believe it or not. But then, I never figured life would last so long.

Don�t worry, I ain�t gonna start blubbering about how hard it�s been. The way I see it, most things are hard, but all you got to do is just last through it, because most things end. I�ve only known a couple of things that didn�t, and none of them are here. They�re outside.

You know, that�s the only thing that�s ever really bothered me: I�ve never been outside since. I mean outside. With no walls or fences or buildings, nothing but you and the land and the sky. That�s what I miss.

I loved it out there. We had a half-section in the middle of miles of grassy hills. Lord, I loved those hills. Tall grass as high as my belly. In high summer it would bleach out, and the wind would move the grass around until it looked like the earth was this huge tawny animal and God was stroking its fur with His fingers.

I�d go running out in the morning and play all day long. Didn�t have any chores back then, other than to fetch water and pick up chips for the fire. There were still buffalo chips on the hills. Buffalo dead and gone for God knows how long, and there were still chips, that�s how many buffalo there had been. I tried to think of what they must have been like, before they killed them all, but I couldn�t do it. I never did have much of an imagination.

But what I liked best was the silence. No such thing nowadays. Not like that. The wind blew, the grass whispered, the birds called, I breathed, my heart beat, but hanging thick, running deep, and welling up was a silence that none of it could touch. It was what held the land and sky together.

I remember it clear, real clear. You get up to my age, you don�t keep track of much of anything else but your childhood. That comes back clear as a bell. And I haven�t had all that much else to remember. I was born in the claim shanty my father built the first year he got there. My earliest recollection is him standing in the doorway, looking out. The door faced east and the sun was rising strong, but the place was so small and my father was so big, he blocked out the light and it had to shine around him. I can still see him like it was yesterday, dark as pitch, outlined with beams of light.

He was a dark man. Wasn�t easy to know. Wasn�t easy to love. I loved him, but he was my father, and children�ll love anything that raises them. You don�t think that�s true, talk to some of the boys around here. You�d be surprised what they love. It�s the liking that�s hard to earn. My mother was easier, but she had her dark sides, too. Like the one that would stare out at the hills every morning, waiting, and when you called her name she wouldn�t answer back. And when you touched her, she jumped. Then at night she�d tell ghost stories and scare the crap out of you. She�d laugh when you flinched, and tell you more.

They fought all the time. Words, fists, pots, knives, anything. Worse was when they quit fighting and there was dead silence. That was the worst of all. That silence I was talking about, out on the hills, that was a living thing. Things grew out of it. But in our house, when the talk and shouts and crashes stopped, it was like another piece of them had died, and it wasn�t coming back again. I used to wonder how many silences it would take before they both just vanished.

Me, I�d take off, every chance I got. Out of the house. Up on the hills. Day was no problem, but at night they�d try to stop me. I�d say I had to visit the outhouse. Then I�d take off, go far enough away so that the light in the window was just a dot in the dark. There was one place I�d always go, this outcrop of rock. From there, you could see the house on the one side, with that warm dot of light, and on the other the hills stretching out forever. Sooner or later, Dad would come out the door and call out, �Johnny! Get back in here right now! It�s bedtime!� That meant they were done for the night, and I�d have to go back. If I didn�t, he�d track me down. I�ve always been real easy to track down.

One night, my mother came out.

�Johnny!� she called. And I shivered worse than in a blizzard wind. �Johnny!� she called again. She couldn�t see me, but I could see her. The light from the fire was blazing behind her. �Johnny!� She staggered out into the yard, and her head was all wrong. �Johnny!�

The next thing I knew I was running like wild Indians were behind me, straight over the hills, my feet hammering into the ground, the tall grass cutting at my legs.

�Johnny!�

I couldn�t stop running. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn�t stop running. I wanted to do something else, cry maybe, I don�t know, but I couldn�t stop running. And then the earth dropped out from under me, and I was skidding on the grass, and over stones, and down a steep hill, and all around me were trees, and in I went.

I crouched like a dog in those pine needles, sore and gasping. It was quiet and dark and I could hear my heart pounding. Way up the wind was blowing, but down where I was it was still. And there was the silence hack. Like a warm, soft blanket. After a long while I curled up under it and slept.

It was the voices that woke me up.

�He would drown in sleep if he but could.� A woman�s voice, strange and slow. �How did he come here?�

And a voice, more like a rumble of thunder than a man�s: �He ran. From what he could not bear.�

And behind my eyelids, I saw my mother, a wrong shadow outlined in burning light, staggering in the yard. I shuddered as the woman said:

�Is she... all right?�

�I do not know. Do you want me to find out?�

�Yes.�

I opened my eyes. It was just at dawn, the light slanting through the long row of tree trunks. Outlined with long, blight, dusty beams of light was a huge dark figure that would�ve made even my father look bright. I clamped my eyes tight shut. When I opened them again, there she was.

After a stretch of silence, she asked, �Are you all right?� She was young, with long black hair that hung to her knees and a face like carved pine. �Are you all right?� she asked again. I nodded. Her eyes, bird dark, bird clear, bird bright, looked me up one side and down the other. She nodded, turned around, and started walking away. Then she stopped and called to me over her shoulder, �Come.� I just stared at her. �You must be hungry. Come.�

I got up and ran after her.

She fed me berries and parched corn, groundnuts and honey in the comb. I was starving, and gobbled it down. The same gourd that was my plate she rinsed out in the small dark pond and filled with water for my thirst. The whole time she hadn�t said a word, and I was too busy eating to say anything myself but, �Thank you, ma�am.�

Now I was used to eating quiet, because children should be seen and not heard, and I�ve spoke about the silence in my house already. But this was a third kind of quiet. It was in her. Her tongue was still, her hands were still, her body was still, and her face was still. Only her eyes were alive, and I started to think that any minute she might take off her face, like a mask, and I wasn�t any too sure what would be under it. I�m still not sure. All I can say is it spooked me, spooked me bad. Once I finished my gourdful, I reckoned I�d better sprout some talk.

�My name�s Johnny Olson,� I said. �What�s yours?� She didn�t say anything. �You�re an Indian, aren�t you?� She still didn�t say anything, so I hurried on. �My folks are settlers. We�ve got a claim...� I realized I didn�t exactly know where the claim was and skipped it. �We come from out East. My dad and my mom�� I stopped again, a cold sweat breaking all over me. I saw Mom again, staggering in the yard, with her head...

She cupped her hands around my head. �Hush,� she said. �All is safe. Rest.� And I was warm and safe and sleepy. I lay down on the soft moss by the pond and looked up at her sitting beside me, and at the long stretch of tall firs rowed behind her.

�Those trees sure are nice,� I said.

�I planted them,� she began, and everything she said I saw as clear as I see you. I saw her brown hands cupped around them when they were like ferns, just broken from the cone. �It was a growing spring, that year,� she said, and I saw plum and chokecherry, waterleaf and crowfoot, primrose and meadow rose breathing out light and color. �They were in a dark place. Too dark.� I watched her move the seedlings, one by one, until she had two long rows of small green crosses. I blinked, and those dots of green became the great firs above our heads; I blinked again, and they were seedlings. �Dark that Rides laughed that I made a path of them.� I watched the seedlings grow tall and strong and straight. The path grew between them, bedded deep in soft brown needles. I saw her walk the path, the red owl fly it, the deer stand in it, and through it ran streams of sunlight flowing out onto grass so green I could almost smell the sweet of it. It would be warm in summer, safe in winter, sheltered always. �And at the end of it, Dark that Rides.� Her voice was very happy, but I shuddered. That dark figure I had seen so briefly, that living nightmare, was for her a love and protection as sweet as honey, as absolute as death. She passed her hand over my hair. �Sleep,� she said, and stood up.

�You�re not going away, are you?�

Her dark eyes blinked once, slowly. �There is no place here where I am not.� I closed my eyes.

Here�s where I can�t be certain if it�s what I heard or what I dreamed, but either way, it�s true. That dark thing came back, and she called to him.

�Dark that Rides!�

�Crow Woman. Here.� From behind her, he put something into her hands; when they opened, out came yet another voice, singing:

Crow Woman closed her hands, and the voice stopped. �Whose song is it?� she asked.

�Not mine.�

�The woman�s?�

�I am not sure. It was there waiting to be heard, and so I brought it. But I am not sure it came from her.�

In my head I saw a fire burning. The flames were running a river of warmth up the air, the sparks dancing on the dark night. The smoky smell setting off the crisp air. �She was never the same,� a voice was saying. An old woman�s voice. �They found her sitting there, rocking like a child, singing the same thing over and over again...� And the moccasins stamping dust.

�Has she lost her mind?� Crow Woman asked.

Dark that Rides spoke: �I am not sure of what her mind was like before.� A dread was gathering in me like a storm, and I could feel my whole body shaking. �The boy must go back.�

�If he goes back...� Crow Woman whispered.

�He is not a plant to be moved, even at your will,� Dark that Rides whispered. �He cannot be made into a path. He must follow the path already made.�

�If he goes back...� she said again. And I saw it, in the distance, leaping up the way a fire leaps into the dark.

�You saved me!� she cried.

�He could save her.�

The woman, staggering in the firelight. The darkness behind. My mother. Above us the wind ripped the leaves loose from the trees and sent them tom into the night.

A fly settled on Glen Laszlo�s chili and began to explore it with the air of a connoisseur. Laszlo took a swipe at the fly with a paper napkin but missed and splashed chili over the plastic tablecloth. �You left the screen door open again, Kyle,� he grumbled, repeating a well-worn formula.

�It sticks,� drawled his brother-in-law into his beer. �Don�t make much difference if it�s open or shut, with the screen half busted out of it.�

Maxene Laszlo, who had her brother�s rusty hair and bulky frame, shifted in her chair and fixed her husband with a resentful scowl. �We wouldn�t need a screen door if you�d get the air conditioner fixed.�

�Don�t start that again, Maxene. You saw the estimate. Business isn�t that good right now.�

�When was your business ever good?� asked Kyle Givens.

�At least I earn what I spend,� retorted Laszlo.

�That�s easy for you to say. As far as I�m concerned, I just live for the day when I see the last of you.�

�Hey, Kyle, you can get out of my place any time you like.�

�If he goes,� said Maxene, �I go.�

Her husband looked up in genuine bewilderment mixed with hurt. �What�s that supposed to mean?�

�It means I like to eat once in a while.� (Laszlo smothered a sarcastic retort.) �It means Kyle�s disability check is buying us more groceries than what the shop is.�

�Right now, maybe. But business is bound to get better. I�ve got some new leads, and things are going to pick up.�

�That�s what you said when you bought all those eight-track players and tapes,� said Maxene. �And when you got online and started cruising here and hacking there. How about hacking a little steak into the freezer?�

Maxene Laszlo and her brother then proceeded to carry on an animated conversation as if Laszlo weren�t sitting right across the kitchen table from them. The gist of the script had been established months, even years, before. The theme was Laszlo�s failure to get rich despite his ambitious ideas and vaunted skill as a computer whiz, and the bottom line was that he would be worth more to Maxene dead than alive � provided his life insurance premiums were paid up.

Instead of reassuring them on that point, Laszlo left his meal unfinished and stamped out of the house, slamming the screen door behind him. Above them the ceiling fan droned on, and from time to time another fly appeared on the scene.

Gypsy�s Caravan is one of the better theme parks on the East Coast. It won�t scare the Mouse or the people with the Flags, but it�s large enough so that the average visitor needs two days to see and do everything. During the peak season both the park and attached motel are usually full.

I do security work for the park. Not the uniformed guard type of security, or the kind where I make sure that the employees � sorry, park associates � don�t tap the tills of the souvenir shoppes. (Yes, it�s really spelled that way on all the stores.) Neither do I walk the grounds at night making sure no one sneaks or stays over. I�m more the kind of security you don�t see, that is, if I do my job right.

I�m the troubleshooter. When something goes wrong that might attract unwanted attention � say from the police, or worse, the press � I�m called in to take care of it. If all goes well, then no one outside the park hears about it. If it�s the kind of occurrence that can�t be contained, then I�m at least expected to control the situation long enough for the press agents to spin things in the right direction.

Actually, the police are not that big a problem. Winslow�s a small town, and Gypsy�s the only major industry. The mayor, the chief of police, the town council � they know who pays their salaries. And if they ever forget, Hamilton Winslow is usually right at their elbow to remind them.

Hamilton Winslow owns the park, and most of the town. William Winslow founded the town before the Revolution and in many respects, the effects of that war have yet to take hold here. Free speech, representative government, equal rights for all � not in Winslow. There is the principle of one man, one vote. Hamilton�s the man, and he has the vote. Everyone else goes along. Those who don�t like it are free to leave, and are frequently helped to do so by the local police.

Hamilton was the one who hired me. I was on the good end of twenty years with the Baltimore Police Department, waiting for the right job to come up before turning in my papers. Hamilton was attending a theme park owners� conference at the Baltimore Convention Center. While there, he engaged the services of a professional �escort� for the evening. When he woke up in the morning, she was gone and so was his wallet.

I answered the larceny call. To his credit, he told me the truth about what had happened, rather than give me the old �I guess I forgot to lock the door� story. After that he told me who he was and about owning Gypsy�s. We agreed that to avoid embarrassment to him or the park, we�d say he had probably lost his wallet shortly after leaving the convention center, and had not discovered it lost until he had returned to the hotel � alone.

As I was writing the lost property report, Hamilton asked me how long I had been on the force. One thing led to another, and I left with a job offer. A month later I was the newest park associate of Gypsy�s Caravan. As I said before, my job at Gypsy�s is to quietly deal with situations that might lead to unfavorable mention in the press � and a dead body at the Sly Fox Motel almost always qualifies as one of those situations.

I was in the armory making sure that the newest shipment of blank cartridges used in the Wild West Show were indeed all blanks when my pager went off. The message, �911 � Fox,� told me to finish my inventory later. Grabbing my equipment bag, I took the Cannonball Express to the main gate, then the Safari Shuttle to the motel. When I got there, the manager led me up to room 324. He opened the door, waved me in, left me to do my job.

The body was that of a white male, probably in his late forties. He was in the double bed nearest the window, under the covers. I pulled back the sheet and saw that he was wearing only boxer shorts. The rest of his clothing was on the other bed, no doubt thrown there as he undressed for the night. There were no signs of trauma on the body, and nothing to indicate that any struggle had taken place in the room.

So far it was obvious. Whoever this was had gone to sleep last night with every intention of waking up today. Sometime during the night something inside him gave out and ruined his plans.

I didn�t stop being a cop when I left the BPD. And just because my new job�s interest is to protect those of Gypsy�s doesn�t mean that I take it any less seriously. So I set about doing those things that must be done whenever a dead body is found.

Not for the same reasons, of course. The police investigate dead bodies in case they�re homicides. I do a full investigation to show that the park was in no way responsible for the death. And of course, if the investigation shows that we might be responsible, we know before anyone else and can take steps to mitigate that responsibility.

Before doing any searching, I got out my digital camera and took photographs of the room and the deceased. Digital photography is perfect for what I do. Digital means that I don�t have to trust any darkroom people not to tell what they see when they develop the photographs. Digital means that I can print the pictures I need when I need them. And digital means that if things in the photograph need to be �adjusted� to fit alternate versions of what happened, it can be easily done.

After taking my pictures, I got brush and powder out of my bag and dusted the obvious surfaces. Hallway doorknob, bathroom sink and toilet, the bottles in the trash-cans. Someone may have been with the deceased when he passed over, and I may need to know who it was.

Just in case someone had been with my new friend, I stripped off his shorts and threw them on the other bed with the rest of his clothing. I�d run a UV light over them later to see if there were any stains that suggested he had entertained a guest. As I took off the boxers, I noticed that lividity had already set in. The body was loose so rigor had come and gone. He must have turned in early last night. He�d been dead for awhile.

I called Winslow General Hospital and told them I had a special patient at the motel. That would clue the dispatcher into sending an unmarked van. If we timed it right, we�d be able to remove the body without any of the other guests knowing anything was wrong.

I knew from past experience that the hospital van wouldn�t arrive for at least twenty minutes. While I waited, I finished my search. The room gave up nothing besides what you�d expect a man traveling alone to bring with him. A wallet from the pants on the bed told me that the deceased was Hector Young, that he was forty-five, and that he lived in Richmond, Virginia. Tucked away in his wallet was a season�s pass to the park. Hector, I thought, why�d you have to come to Gypsy�s to die when there are so many nice parks in your state?

Before I left, I�d check with the desk to make sure that Hector Young had rented this room, and that the guy on the bed was the Hector Young who had checked in. I made sure to take a photo of his face to show around downstairs. (Another nice feature of digital � the view screen on the back lets you display the photo you just took. And if you don�t like it, or if it�s the least bit embarrassing to the cause, well, that�s what �delete� is for.)

Everything went smoothly. Hector was picked up and sent to the hospital with no one else the wiser. And Hector was Hector � the desk clerk recognized the picture. When I asked if she was sure, she told me that few people check in alone, that it�s either couples or families with kids. Someone checking in by himself, him you remember.

That last bothered me. Why did Hector check in by himself? If the pictures in his wallet were to be believed, he had a wife and two kids. Why didn�t he bring them? A convention? We have them all the time, but Hector had none of the usual junk that you pick up at those things � no goodie bag, no brochures, no HI, I�M HECTOR name tag. Besides, the Sly Fox is strictly for the tourists. The convention center has its own hotel and he would have been staying there.

There was something else bothering me, too. I wasn�t sure just what it was, but my cop instinct told me that something was off in that room. There was something there that shouldn�t have been, or else something that should have been there (besides the wife and kids) was missing.

Back in my office I downloaded the pictures from my camera to my PC. I reviewed them one by one, zooming in and out, looking for that something out of place. Nothing in the bedroom or bathroom. I turned to the shots of the body. And there I found it.

I spent two years in the crime lab before becoming a sworn officer. Even after that, I saw my share of dead bodies. So I really shouldn�t have missed it in the first place.

When a body dies, the heart stops pumping blood. Since it�s no longer in motion, the blood, like all liquids, seeks its lowest level and pools in the parts of the body closest to the ground. The pooling of blood after death is called lividity.

When Hector died in his bed, the blood in his body should have collected on his buttocks, back and legs. Instead, only his buttocks and feet bore the redness of lividity. Had he been found in his chair, that would make sense. So it was more than likely that he had died somewhere other than his room. I was going to have to visit Doc Harris sooner than I thought.

Martin Harris is the chief pathologist at Winslow General. Actually, he is the only pathologist, but he says the title looks good on his resume. Like all good morgues, his is located in the basement of the hospital. I had called to tell him that I was coming, so he was expecting me.

�He died sitting up,� the doc said by way of greeting. Then he bent back over whoever he was doing.

�That much I know.� I tossed the bag containing his clothing on a spare gurney.

�Anything on them?�

I shook my head. �Nothing I could find.� Martin stripped off his gloves and pointed towards his office.

�So what did he die of?�

�Heart failure.�

This is what Martin tells me every time I�ve come to him about a death. It�s what he tells everyone. It was almost funny the first time, now it�s just a ritual I have to go through to get the information I need.

�And what caused his heart to stop?�

�Stroke.� That was odd. A heart attack maybe, but Hector hadn�t looked like any stroke victim I had seen. �At least that�s what�s going on the autopsy report,� he added. Now it made sense.

Like me, the other park associates, every appointed position in town, and most of the other ones, Martin owes his job to the good will of Hamilton Winslow. Anyone making the park, the town, or the man himself look bad will soon be looking for other work. As I understand it, Martin Harris came to Winslow after a not too distinguished career in forensic pathology. In fact, I once heard it said that he only became a pathologist because his patients couldn�t sue. Still, toward the end of his career he made one mistake too many and was allowed to retire quietly. His reputation preceding him, he couldn�t get work as an expert witness. Winslow General hired him in spite of this reputation, or maybe because of it. This is the only job Martin could get. He�s not the type to lose it over something stupid like the truth.

At this point I could do one of two things. I could say okay and ask him to send over a copy of his report when it was finished. The family would be notified, arrangements would be made to send Hector back to Richmond, and all would be right with the world, at least with my little part of it.

But as I said, I didn�t stop being a cop just because I retired. And truths left unspoken have a way of coming back around on you. So I did the other thing.

�And what caused the stroke?� I knew I wasn�t going to like the answer.

�This.� Doc Harris reached into a drawer and took out a small white envelope. He threw it on the desktop. Whatever was inside made a dull thunk when it hit the surface. A thunk I knew well from my time on the force.

�What caliber?� I asked, not having to look.

Martin shrugged. �Who knows, who cares? It�s not like anyone�s going to see it, or that it even existed.� He looked at me as if I was going to challenge him. I answered his shrug with one of my own. Idly, I picked up the envelope and shook out what was inside.

I weighed it in my hand. It was small, a .22 or .25, depending on whether it was all there. It was in good enough shape that a ballistics match might be made. But this bullet would never be put under a microscope, not for the murder of Hector Young. Hector had died of stroke, and like it or not, that was the way it was going to be.

I handed the bullet back to Martin. �Where was the hole? I didn�t see it.�

�Almost smack dab in the top of his head, just ten to fifteen degrees off-center to the rear. Easy enough to disguise so that it looks like part of the autopsy.�

Not so easy, really, but only if someone�s looking for it. I thanked Martin and went on my way.

You might be wondering why a theme park would cover up murder. It�s the message it sends. We sell illusions, the illusion that things are different here, that real life stops at the front gate, that while you�re our guest, you�re in a safe, fairy tale world where nothing goes wrong. There is no crime at our parks; people can�t die, and certainly can�t be murdered. A park that admits to reality will soon find its guests paying someone else for their illusions.

It was too late for the truth, anyway. Whoever had moved Hector to his room made sure of that. PARK OFFICIALS COVER UP MURDER made bigger headlines than DEATH AT GYPSY�S CARAVAN. And since it was my job to keep the park off the front pages, I had to work around the truth.

Back in my office, I went over all the things I didn�t know. Who had killed Hector, and why? Where was he killed, and how did he wind up back in his room?

I thought about the first two questions. The who wasn�t that important. He was getting a free ride on this one. The why worried me somewhat. If Hector�s death had been personal, if someone had wanted him and him alone dead, then no problem. But if his death had been random, that meant that there might someone out there who had decided to start targeting park guests. Not wanting to think in that direction, I decided that I�d worry about that when the next �stroke� victim came along.

I called the Richmond police department to ask their help in notifying Hector�s next of kin and then walked from my office over to Central Command. Maybe they could tell me how Hector had gotten back into his room.

People have died in the park before. Not that we�d admit it. We have an established procedure for dealing with the situation. Whenever there is a person in distress, a medical team is dispatched. When they arrive, even if the patient is DOA, they treat him as if he were still alive. An ambulance is called and the patient is rushed to Winslow General. It is there that he is declared dead, not at the park. By order of Hamilton Winslow, no one dies at Gypsy�s.

At Central Command, Harry Jones had the board. From the board the man on duty could watch any of twenty monitors showing different views of the park. The views changed every three minutes, just long enough for someone watching the screens to view them all once before they shifted to other parts of the park. If the security man on duty sees something worth checking out, he can then freeze that camera, maintaining the view long enough to determine if any action is needed.

Cameras cover the entire park, with the exception of inside the restrooms. Hamilton wanted to put them in there as well, worried about what illicit activities might take place in the stalls. I managed to convince him that the bad publicity that could result from the discovery of cameras in the ladies� room far outweighed whatever mischief might occur there.

Monitor duty is rotated among the regular security staff. It is a break from park duty and most people look forward to it. Harry had been on duty all week, and would have been watching the board yesterday when Hector passed away.

�No, nothing unusual happened, Mr. Webster,� he told me. Harry�s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he does an adequate job when given the right instructions. That goes for most of the security staff. They�re hired more for their looks, muscle, and ability to follow orders than anything else. And Hamilton is against hiring anyone with a police background for regular security work. �No offense, Jake,� he told me once, �but ex-cops are nothing but trouble. Their first instinct is to confront the situation and arrest someone, not make the matter go away. And they don�t usually like bosses, any bosses. Give me a hungry college kid who can�t find a job any day.�

The instructions for handling the �special� sick cases aren�t written down, but they are explained to everyone. So are the consequences of not following that or any other procedure. Screw up and it�s �Well, goodbye. Here�s a week�s pay and a pass to the park. Don�t use it anytime soon.� Given that, it�s unlikely anyone used his own initiative to move a body.

Still, I checked the log that has to be filled out whenever any Security action is taken. No entries beyond the usual � a few would-be troublemakers were ejected, there were several sick cases, but these were the more typical motion sickness, heat strokes, and too-much-junk-food upset stomachs seen every day. I looked up at the board and not for the first time wished for a digital system that would save every image captured to a hard drive. �Too expensive,� I�m told every time I bring it up. Today it would�ve paid for itself if I could�ve found just one picture of Hector.

I left Central Command and went back to think in my own chair. Except for his season�s pass, there was no indication that Hector had died in the park. I tried to get comfortable with the idea that he had died outside my jurisdiction, maybe somewhere in Winslow proper, shortly after leaving the park. The more I thought about it the better I liked it, keeping my fingers crossed that my random shooter was just an idle worry. In any case, I had done all I could do. I decided it was time to get back to doing what I was doing before the 911 call came in.

And that was checking the ammunition for the Wild West Show. Real guns are used in the show (Hamilton insists), so I�ve made it my job to make sure that only blanks are fired in them. And that despite how it appears on stage, no actor ever fires a gun directly at another performer. That kind of accident we don�t need.

A sudden, terrible thought hit me. Guns, possible live ammo, and a dead man with a bullet hole in his head. I had a vision of Hector in the park, sitting on a bench, just resting, watching the crowd go by. Then a stray bullet from the show sails over the crowd and takes him out of the game for good. It�s happened before, in Baltimore. Two years before I retired, a shot fired in celebration of the New Year traveled over the rooftops and killed a man two blocks away.

In a rush for the armory, I was off my chair and into the hallway when I remembered two things. The first was that I had already checked the ammo being used in this week�s shows. All of it blank. The second was that the guns in the show were big, 44 revolvers, and not capable of firing the bullet that had killed Hector. I slowed down and walked to the armory.

Weapons inventory, checking and counting the ammo and comparing it against new orders and known stores helped pass the time, but it really didn�t get my mind off Hector. The how and why of Hector�s death kept nagging at me. I put myself in the shooter�s place. Where could I stand to be able to shoot a sitting man in the head? I mentally reviewed the layout of the park looking for the right combination of accessible high spots and benches, and then thought of something else that put the shooting out of the park.

One of the things the security team is trained to recognize is the sound of gunfire. Anyone who has really heard a gun go off, and TV and the movies don�t count, knows that it sounds nothing like a car backfire. It has a distinctive pop. Security is trained to run toward that pop if they ever hear it. Not to confront the shooter, but to get as many guests out of the way as possible. Once the guests are clear, the few guards qualified to carry weapons would be called in to deal with the gunman.

No one reported any gunfire yesterday. And the security coverage is such that every part of the park is at least within earshot of one guard or the other. That made me feel better, until I remembered where I was standing. Maybe everybody heard the gunfire, and just didn�t pay it any attention.

Stepping outside the armory, I walked down the Main Street of Dodge City like a gunfighter of old. I looked south, then north, and then I knew where Hector had been sitting when the bullet took his life. I went back to the office to find out who had killed him.

The phone on my desk was beeping and blinking, telling me that there was a message waiting. I pressed play. A woman�s voice told me to call Detective Haywood of the Richmond PD about Hector. I dialed the number she gave me. The same voice answered the phone.

�Juliet Haywood.�

�Detective Haywood, Jake Webster here, from Gypsy�s Caravan. You called about Hector Young.�

�Yes, Mr. Webster. I talked to Mrs. Young. Your dead man was a used-car salesman, owned a few car lots actually, and according to his wife, he was supposed to be in Maryland on a buying trip.�

�Supposed to be, huh?� Well, now I knew why Hector was here alone, and what the probable motive for his death was. �Did Mrs. Young have a reason for Hector�s taking a long detour?�

�No, and I don�t think it�s occurred to her yet why he did.�

�Let�s hope it stays a mystery to her.� She made a sound of agreement and I went on. �If you would, call and tell her that the funeral home can pick up her husband�s body at Winslow General. I�ll make sure that the death certificate and all other papers will be ready.�

�Sure thing. Anything else I can do for you?�

�Detective Haywood, you�ve been more than helpful. If everyone in the BPD had been like you, I�d still be working there.�

Once she heard that I�d been on the force, we started talking shop. By the time she decided she�d better get back to work, we were Jake and Juliet to each other. I told her to make sure to look me up if she ever came out this way and promised to drop a few park passes in the mail for her.

After hanging up, I turned to the computer and looked up work schedules and personnel records. It didn�t take me long to put a �who� with the �where� and �why� of Hector�s death. Tomorrow I�d be going to visit the Big Wheel.

If you think I mean Hamilton Winslow, you�re wrong. The Big Wheel is Gypsy�s Ferris wheel. It�s at the back of the park, right near Dodge City and the stage of the Wild West Show. There might be other places in the Caravan where you can get shot in the head while sitting down, but near the Ferris wheel no one would pay much attention to the shot that killed you.

Gus Rodgers has been with Gypsy�s since it opened. He started by sweeping up, worked concessions, then spent some time inside the character suits. After getting tired of being poked and prodded by the kiddies, he switched to working the rides. He�s been working the Big Wheel since they built it five years ago. He�s grown old working for the park, and some of the first kids he�s put on rides are now bringing their children to the park. I suppose he�s near retirement.

Gus got married a few years ago. His wife is younger than he is, much younger. In fact, she�s just about Hector�s age. From the changes made in Gus�s personnel jacket and insurance forms, I noted that his new wife used to live in Richmond.

It was early morning when I got to the wheel. Gypsy�s wouldn�t open for a few hours yet. Safety inspectors were about, making sure all the rides were in proper working order. Morning cleaning and maintenance crews were taking care of whatever the night shift had missed.

Pulling what little rank I had, I rode the Big Wheel during the regular test runs. If anyone wondered why I stayed on for several rides or why I kept switching cars, nobody asked.

Gus�s shift didn�t start until late afternoon. I came back then. The line to ride the wheel was moderate � about a twenty minute wait. Gus saw me approaching, relief man in tow. After his relief took over, Gus joined me on a nearby bench.

In a park this size, with everyone hurrying from one attraction to another, trying to get the most out of their admission price, no one pays too much attention to what�s going on around them. Oh, they�d notice a clown or a juggler, but not two guys just sitting on a bench talking. We had more privacy there than we would in my office. Still, we kept our voices low.

�Tell me about it, Gus.�

�About what, Jake?� From his tone and the look on his face, I knew my guess about the wheel had been right.

�The guy on the wheel yesterday, the one who got on but didn�t get off � you know, the dead guy.�

�How did you figure it?� Gus asked. I didn�t answer. I had my own questions.

�How�s the wife, Gus? Does she know about Hector?�

�If she does, she hasn�t said anything.� He gave a sour laugh. �Not that she would, not to me. She doesn�t know I know.�

�Tell me about those two � Hector and your wife.� The nice thing about not being official is that pesky little things like Miranda warnings don�t apply. If I had had a badge, I would have had to warn Gus about talking to me long before this, and to offer him a lawyer would no doubt make sure he kept his mouth shut. As it was, we were just two guys talking. And for whatever reason, Gus was willing to talk. I was willing to let him.

�They were friends from way back when they were in high school. I think they met again when she went home for a visit. After that, she went home on visits a lot more. He started coming to the park.�

�How�d you find out about them?�

�Does that matter, Jake? I found out, I took care of it. And there�s nothing you can do about it.�

So that�s why Gus was so willing to talk. He had been around long enough to know how things were run, to what extent Hamilton Winslow would go to avoid bad publicity. Well, maybe so, but that didn�t mean he knew Hamilton, and he sure as hell didn�t know me.

�By now, Jake,� Gus went on, �I�m betting that however the doctors say Young died it wasn�t from no bullet in the head. He�s probably all packed up for his last trip to Richmond, with papers saying that his death was natural.�

�Well, Gus, I�m not saying you�re wrong. I�m just trying to get all the loose ends tied up, just to make sure that there�s none to trip over later.� I looked at him to make sure that he thought he understood. Then we watched the wheel go around a few turns.

�So who helped you, Gus?�

He was too quick to answer. �Nobody!�

In barnyard terms I told him what I thought of that; then I added, �Gus, to kill someone on a Ferris wheel takes luck, timing, a good aim and cooperation. I rode the wheel this morning. Rode it until I figured out the angle needed for a good shot. With all the struts and supports, the only clear, unobstructed view is from one car to another seven cars away. And that matches the entry angle of Hector�s wound.�

I gave Gus time to think about this, then went on. �You don�t show any type of firearms training � never with the cops, never in the army. And for the shooter to be sure that his target would be in the right car, he had to have the cooperation of the ride operator � and that�s you. So tell me, Gus, how much did you pay Harry Jones to kill Hector for you?�

Gus�s face dropped. Bull�s-eye! It had been a wild shot, but it struck home.

�You asked Harry to help because he was on the board this week. Anyone else ran the risk of the camera catching him in the act. Harry, however, could have left his post just long enough to kill Hector, and be back before his absence was noticed. And Harry is one of the few here who�s qualified with firearms. Now, tell me everything, Gus, or so help me you�ll be wearing a bandanna and beating a tambourine in the big parade ten times a day.�

Gus didn�t reply right away. �After I figured it all out,� he finally said, �after I knew who it was, I�d see him on the wheel every two weeks or so. I don�t know why he rode it. Maybe he got his kicks watching me at work, knowing that he�d soon be with my wife. Maybe he didn�t know who I was, and just liked riding Ferris wheels. I don�t know. And I don�t know if I�d have done what I did if I hadn�t seen him regular. It was like he was nibbing it in. So, yes, I planned the whole thing out. Got the idea when I noticed that he was always coming around during the Western show. So I asked around to see who needed money, and who was likely to do what to get it. I came up with Harry Jones. Told him I�d pay him two thousand dollars, and it would be money well spent. After that we waited until I was sure Young would be coming. And never mind how I knew, just say my wife�s not as subtle as she thinks she is. When I was sure, I passed the word to Jones. He had to call in some favors, but he made sure that he was on the board this week. After that, well, it happened how you figured it.�

Gus�s story rang true. I saw last night that Harry had switched work assignments to get on the Board this week. Whoever he owed a favor to was not going to collect.

There was one final question. �What did you do, Gus, after Harry pulled the trigger? Let a dead man ride all day until closing then take him back to the Sly Fox?�

�Nope,� Gus shook his head. �He only rode until the end of my shift and Harry�s. Harry got a cart and we made like he was sick. Then we took him back to the motel, stripped him, and put him to bed.�

�Okay, Gus, that�s it. Get back to work.� I stood up.

�That�s it? Get back to work?�

I shrugged. �Like you said, Gus, what can we do? We call you on this, we put ourselves in a bad light.� I gave him my best smile. �Just don�t expect a raise anytime soon.�

�You going to talk to Jones?�

�I might mention it to him, just to remind him that killing guests is against company policy.�

Just for fun I did say something to Harry. He wasn�t nearly as polite as Gus was.

�And what you going to do about it, old man?� Old man? I may have retired from one job, but I was no where near Social Security. If Harry didn�t pay for the murder, he�d surely pay for that crack. �Send me away, you�re coming with me. Last time I checked, covering up murder was still against the law.� And he was right, in most places, but this was Winslow.

�Just wanted you to know that I knew.� And I left it at that, for a while.

After dealing with Harry and Gus, I finally went to see Gypsy�s other big wheel. I gave Hamilton the who, why, where, and how of the murder. I also told him that Gus and Harry thought that we couldn�t do anything about it.

�Jones I can understand,� Hamilton said in a calm voice. �He�s only been here, what, a season?�

�Two, he worked admissions security last year.�

Hamilton went on. �It�s Rodgers I can�t figure. He�s been around since forever. He should know better.�

Hamilton was still shaking his head when I suggested calling in the police � ours, the county�s, the state troopers, anybody � just to keep those two from getting away with murder. Even with offering up Doc Harris as a sacrifice he didn�t like it. I didn�t think he would.

�So what�s your next idea, Jake?�

I told him. This one he liked.

�Sounds good,� he said. �Running the Big Wheel all these years, Gus should know that what goes around comes around. Let�s do it.�

The next day, I again pulled Gus off the wheel.

�You�re fired, Gus,� I told him. �No retirement, no pension, not even a park pass.� I held out an envelope. �Here�s your week�s pay. Spend it wisely, you�ll need every penny.�

Gus turned white, then red. �You can�t do this, I�ll, I�ll...�

�What, Gus, turn yourself in, confess to murder just to make us look bad? Go ahead. Even if anyone believes you, we were just going on information provided by Dr. Harris. And he�s been wrong before. One more time�s not going to matter. Part of his job description is potential scapegoat. At worst, the park is embarrassed and the doc gets fired, except that he�s got a pension. You, you�ll go to jail for the rest of your life.� I held out the envelope again. �Take this and go, Gus, or you�ll go without it.� I nodded to the two security guards standing close by, neither of whom was Harry Jones. I had other plans for him. Gus took the envelope and left.

Before firing Gus, I�d paid a visit to his wife. I told her just enough to let her know that Gus had had something to do with her lover�s death. I made sure that she understood that a future with Gus was no future at all. I explained the value of silence and the long term benefits of accepting a position with Gypsy�s Caravan. She was not a stupid woman.

Gus got home to find the locks changed. He later found that not only had his wife cleaned out their joint accounts, but the house was now in her name alone. All he had left was a check that no one in town would cash.

Hamilton had put the word out on Gus. No one knew why, and no one asked questions. He couldn�t get a job, a room, even a kind word. The next day he was taken in for vagrancy and given a bus ticket out of town. He left, a sad, broken man with little money and no future.

Harry was just as easily dealt with. About the same time I was firing Gus, officers driving a Winslow PD police car reported that someone had taken a shot at them. A bullet was recovered nearby, a .22 or .25, depending on whether it was all there. Acting on a tip, police searched Harry�s apartment. There they found a small caliber pistol. Ballistics tests showed that it matched the recovered bullet. Harry was charged with, tried for, and convicted of attempted murder.

Was any of it right? It wasn�t right for Gus and Harry to have killed Hector. And you�re probably thinking that it wasn�t right for me to have covered up his death. Maybe not, but I managed to do my job and still get a sort of justice for Hector Young. I�ll settle for that.

It�s called Bone Hollow, it�s the deepest mine in the Panther Valley, gave up thirty million tons of high-grade coal and sent nineteen souls to meet Saint Peter before they shut her down in �76 � and I don�t know who�s the bigger fool, son, you for wanting to go down there or me for taking you.

Watch your step, now. No one�s ridden in this old cage for damn near twenty-five years, and it might be a tad rusty. You want to be extra-special careful because this here shaft goes plumb-bob down about thirteen hundred and twenty feet, that�s a quarter mile, son, deeper down than the Empire State Building is high. Once, out of curiosity, I paced off one-quarter mile from the front door of my house, got clear to Grover�s Five-and-Dime on Oak Street and I wasn�t even through yet. That�s how far we�ll be from the sunshine.

Here goes now, so hang on tight. Oh, sorry, I should have warned you how fast this thing is. They used to say you could fall down the shaft and the guys in the elevator would wonder what�s keeping you. You want to keep your hands inside the bars, son, I�d hate for you to lose that nice wedding ring.

What�s that? Oh, don�t worry about the power cutting out, I had Chuck Bums check out that diesel generator up in the head house and Chuck, he says it�s sound as a dollar and give back change. I was you, I�d be more worried about bad air or one of those roof timbers giving way or maybe a pocket of gas going up if there�s some kind of a spark. You�re not a smoker, son, are you?

Yeah, that�s right, it is getting hotter, we pick up maybe four or five degrees every hundred feet or so. I make us about halfway down, so if you do the arithmetic, you�ll see it�s a good time to lose that fancy suit coat of yours. Nice fabric, what�d you pay for that?

Anyhow, I was saying what can happen in these old mines. Something I might mention, it�s called the �black damp,� you get all groggy and sick and you can�t say why, turns out it�s all that built-up carbon monoxide from those big jackhammers. You get the damp, son, you�d best make tracks or you�ll be paying a visit to Parson�s Funeral Home. �Course, the first thing happens with bad air is you get stupid and start making wrong choices. That happened to a buddy of mine, Jack Sizemore, we found him at the bottom of the Jonas Vein with his drill still going in his hands.

But that�s not what you�re looking to write about, is it? You go back to that snotrag of a newspaper with a story about hard rock miners sucking up diesel exhaust, they�re going to toss you out on your well-tailored backside. We both know what you really want.

Whoops! Pardon the jolt, son, here we are. Let me open up this old cage and give you the two-buck tour. Hope this halogen wide-beam holds out, be awfully lonely way down here in the pitch dark... or maybe it wouldn�t be. What do you think, son, are those stories true?

This here, then, this is the main gallery. Watch you don�t trip on those tracks, that�s where the ore cars come in; we used to haul �em up and ship out the coal to the Number 9 Breaker over in Lansford. You see those chutes going up at an angle, all lined with corrugated steel? What you do, you get under that coal and drill upwards at a pitch of twenty-seven degrees, no more and no less, and when you hit that vein you drill some holes and put in dynamite and you blow that coal right down the chute. Then you line it with sheet steel and do it all over again. �Course, you need to plug that chute when the car gets full, though you can�t hardly tell sometimes because there�s so much dust.

That�s the worst of it, that damn dust.

Maybe you�ve noticed how I keep coughing into this handkerchief? That�s from breathing in forty years of Pennsylvania coal dust; it�s like little razor blades down there in your lungs. Every miner gets the Black Lung sooner or later; you can pack up and quit the mines, but you�ve still got it and there�s no cure. �Anthro-silicosis,� that�s what Doc Stanton calls it, a ten-dollar word for how it hurts to breathe a little more each year till finally it�s not worth it and then you die.

That�s what you boys should be writing about, you ask me, not this business about Old Clawfoot and those unsolved killings. But I don�t guess your readers would buy the Sunday Herald to read about some wheezing old rockmen, now would they?

Well, I better get to it, then. Make sure your recording machine�s turned on, son, because this is going to be about the damnedest story you ever heard.

She gave us our seats by moving through the room, tapping the back of each molded plastic chair, and saying our last names. Totally random, she insisted, mixing up the entire class without reference to sex, alphabetization, or any other reasonable criteria. Groups of three, she said, but as there were twenty-three in the class, the last two names called made up a final pairing of two.

�Might be another added to the class,� Mrs. Hillman, Intro to World History, said to me in passing. �She�ll be with you two...� She gave a swift glance to the other student assigned to sit with me. �If we get her. Have a seat.�

So we did, me without comment and my new �partner� muttering, �Great. Look who I get to sit with.�

I could have said the same or worse, but I kept my mouth shut.

And kept it shut as all around us other groups of kids sorted out in this aimless, pointless manner talked to one another or turned around to find a friend, make a comment, shuffle book bags and notebooks, or otherwise get comfortable in the world�s worst designed furniture: student desks. Usually the desks were arranged in rows of five to six across the front, five to six going back in strictly parallel lines.

Except this was Mrs. Hillman�s class, and everyone knew that Mrs. Hillman lived by another set of rules and a different and more radical set of expectations. No rows in her class. No seating plans with students lined up A to Z. In her room the desks bumped each other head-to-head, with a third desk bisecting the first two. And when I took the desk against the far wall, I just knew my new partner, as yet unnamed to me, would take the one opposite, thus leaving a forward-facing desk part way between us.

And so, slumping back, tossing her raggedy backpack on the floor, a green-haired, black-eyed, scowling girl faced me. Dressed all in black, too: black sweater too hot for the first day of school, black jeans, black platform heels which she had teetered across the room upon. She was chewing gum, had too much eye makeup on, as well as too much nail polish: black nail polish on thin, short fingers which she immediately started to drum across the graffiti-marked desktop. She wasn�t very big, and possibly not very bad- looking, but any natural appeal she might have had was covered up with too much makeup, too many layers of dark clothing, and just too much attitude. I turned away from her as far as I could, folded my arms over my chest, and waited to see what this teacher had planned.

George McCall wasn�t going to die on my watch. I whispered in his ear: �Go right. Right at the corner.� He paused when he reached the corner, deciding. �Right. Right,� I whispered. He looked to the right, and I reached out to the neon sign in the window of the restaurant down the street and made it flicker just a little. He saw it in his peripheral vision and made up his mind. He went right.

I looked back down the street in time to see the car that Alvarez had sent. It careened around a corner and raced across the crosswalk, right where McCall would have been if he had gone left instead of right. The driver saw me, and we locked eyes for a moment, triumph staring down angry defeat. I had seen the driver before, one of the flunkies who worked for Alvarez. But he had missed this time. I won. We won.

McCall walked down the street toward the restaurant, the Hunan Sun. I watched carefully as he crossed the street, but no danger was imminent this time. He sat down, ordering Kung Po chicken from the lunch menu. From McCall�s file I knew that he ate here about once a week and always ordered the same thing. I spoke into my lapel and checked in while he sipped his soup. �Any other actions pending on McCall?� I asked after I had filled them in on the car incident.

�None that we have uncovered,� said the tinny voice in my ear. �But be careful. They have to make their move by eleven o�clock tonight.�

�Why eleven?� I asked for the third time. Like the other two times, I received no reply.

On a hunch, I strolled into the kitchen. There were only three restaurants along this street that McCall patronized. Suppose they had �arranged� something at all three? Just in case the car missed? I browsed the spices, looking for poisons, but I didn�t really expect to find any. They don�t like mass killings except for really important targets � it�s a technique that can only be believable so often. I didn�t see any of their agents. Perhaps one of the humans? I mentally reviewed the file on McCall, matching faces against the known data on this restaurant. No, all the workers in the kitchen had been here for some time.

I went back into the dining room, where the regulars were starting to file in, just in time to see an enemy agent come in. She walked through the wall, which meant she wasn�t carrying anything solid. She nodded in my direction, and I hurried to McCall�s side. The agent went around to the potted plant beside the door. She looked around to be sure nobody was watching and then reached behind the brass planter. She withdrew her hand, holding it up so I could see the pill she was holding. Of course. They had hidden the poisoned pill there earlier, probably at the same time they planned the hit-and-run.

The agent strode purposefully toward the table. She was probably planning to drop the poison into McCall�s soup, or maybe his iced tea. Of course, as soon as she let go of it, it would become visible to McCall, so it had to be something that would dissolve quickly. I stood between her and McCall�s table.

�You aren�t going any closer with that,� I said.

She stopped in front of me. �McCall�s going down,� she said. She swung at my head with one fist, and I almost missed her tossing the pill over my shoulder with the other. Ignoring the stars that exploded in my head when her fist connected, I made a grab and caught the pill before it dropped into McCall�s soup. He was signaling the waiter for another glass of tea and didn�t see the momentary appearance of the pill as it flew through the air. Two other diners glanced our way as if they�d seen motion at the edge of their vision. Which they had, of course.

I pocketed the pill and twisted to face the agent, but she was already walking away. She turned before she reached the wall. �We�ll get him, you know,� she said.

�I�ve never lost one yet,� I called after her. �Not in two hundred years.�

I hovered around McCall�s table, making occasional dashes into the kitchen to be sure no strangers had entered, until his plate was set in front of him. I took a breather while he ate, watchful but feeling temporarily safe.

Sure, I killed the son of a bitch. I mean, what right did he think he had, bursting out in laughter like that when I took Miss Shelley out of her case? I�m a professional, too. I was getting scale just like him. I�ve paid my union dues and a lot more dues besides.

It was a good date. Sonny Martin had made a name for himself in country music, and now he was doing what he�d been talking about for years, he was cutting a jazz album. I�d played on a couple of Martin sessions before. He liked the freshness of the sound, I guess. And he knew that jazz was my first love, too. One time during a session break, I remember, I think this was on his album Longneck Love, we started goofing around on �Don�t Get Around Much Anymore,� just the two of us, and before we knew, everybody else had picked his instrument back up and was playing along.

Playing music�s not about making sounds, you know, it�s about listening. Everything unfolds out of the first note, that first attack.

Sonny always reminded me a lot of the great George Barnes, just this plain, balding, fat guy with a Barcalounger and two or three cheap suits at home doing his job, only his job happened to be, instead of working as an auto mechanic or Sears salesman, recording country hits. Or in this case, playing great jazz and backup. You half-expected a cigar stump to be sticking out of his mouth there above the Gibson.

By contrast, the guy who thought Miss Shelley was so funny was a real Bubba type with stringy hair, glasses that kept sliding down his nose and getting pushed back up, and white shoes with plastic buckles most of the gold paint had come off of. He played a fair guitar, but you know what? That�s not enough. Besides him, there was a drummer who looked vaguely familiar and couldn�t have been more than nineteen, the great, loose Morty Epstein on bass, and a pianist who gave us the impression of spending more time in concert halls than with the likes of us.

We slammed around on a twelve-bar shuffle just to start the thing running and get acquainted, and that went well, with the guitar sliding in these little pulls, bends, and stumbling, broken runs way up high � Sonny�s guitar was so solid Bubba could float. But towards the end he left off that and, staying high, started strumming on just two or three strings, looking over at me.

Sonny called �Sweet Georgia Brown� and we worked it through a time or two by ear, kind of clanging and clunking along, then Sonny had the guitar player scribble out some quick charts. I got mine and we started running it, and a line or two in, looking ahead, I can see it�s wrong. So I just played right on past it, grinning at the guitar player the whole time. As we started winding down, Sonny nodded me in for a solo. I took a chorus and it was pretty hot and he signalled for another and that one was steaming, and then we all took off again. I looked over and the piano man�s staring at me, shaking his head, fingers going on about their business there below. Looks like he just ate a cat.

Next we worked up a head version of a slow, ballady blues, then put some time in on jamming �Take the A Train� and �Lulu�s Back in Town.� Again Bubba threw some charts together and again mine was wrong � wildly wrong this time. He did everything but hop keys on me. I don�t know, maybe his mother was frightened by some Hawaiian when he was in there in the womb growing that greasy hair and trying on those white shoes.

That�s where Miss Shelley and her kin came from � you all know that. But you probably don�t know much more. That it emerged around 1877, most likely as a derivative of a four-string folk guitar, the machada or machete, introduced to the islands by the Portuguese. Or how it hitched a ride back to the U.S. with returning sailors and soldiers. Martin started selling them in 1916; Gibson, Regal, Vega, Harmony, and Kay all offered standard to premium models alongside their guitars, banjos, and mandolins. National manufactured resonator ukes. Briefly, banjo ukuleles came into favor. Other variations include the somewhat larger taropatch, an eight-string uke of paired strings, and the tiple, whose two outer courses of steel strings are doubled, with an additional third string added to the two inner courses and tuned an octave lower. Mario Maccaferri, the man who designed the great Django Reinhardt�s guitar, after losing half a million or so with plastic guitars no one would buy, recouped with sale of some nine million plastic ukes. And the players! The ever-amazing Roy Smeck. Cliff Edwards, known as Ukulele Ike. Or Lyle Ritz. Trained on violin, he was a top studio bass player in the 60s and 70s and turned out three astonishing albums of straight-ahead jazz ukulele.

We worked through what we had again, then broke for lunch. Morty and I grabbed hot dogs at the taco stand by the park across the street and sat on a bench catching up. The fountain was clogged with food wrappers, leaves, and cigarette butts, as usual. Kids in swings were shoved screaming towards the sky. Old men sat on benches tossing stale bread at pigeons. Morty�s son had just started college all the way up in Iowa, he told me, studying physical chemistry, whatever that was. Better be looking for more gigs, I said. He shook his head. Don�t I know it, he said. Don�t I know it. I told Morty I had a quick errand that couldn�t wait, I�d see him inside.

Well, we got back from lunch break, as you know, everybody but the guitar player, and after we wait a while and drink up a pot of coffee Sonny says: Anybody see Walt out there? But none of us know him, of course, and who�d want to look at that greasy hair while he was eating?

So we � Sonny, I should say � finally called the session off shut it down. And I do regret that. Some fine music was this close to being cut.

Can I tell you one more thing before we go?

There�s this story about Eric Dolphy. He�s called in to overdub on a session. Brings all his instruments along. He listens to the tape and what he does is, he adds this single note, on bass clarinet, right at the end. That�s it. He collects sale for the session, puts his horn back in the case, and goes home. But what he did there, what that one note was, was Dolphy finding his holy moment, you know? That�s what we�re all looking for, what we go on looking for, that single holy moment, all our lives.

�We�ll bottle up the orchard where he�s hiding and go in and get him,� the DEA agent said. �It may take a couple of days, but we�ll get him.�

�No,� I said.

The agent was surprised. �Look, I know it�s a mighty big place, but we�ve got the manpower. The state police will help, the Border Patrol, the sheriff...�

�No,� I said again.

The agent, Bliss Adler was his name, appeared on my porch one sultry September afternoon. He was all ready to start a big manhunt for a drug dealer but his chief, Ted Mulholland, had told him to check with me first. I was a deputy in this county of northern New York before I retired, and Ted and I worked more than a few drug cases together.

Adler wanted me to agree with his plan. �Look, Mr. Sessions, this man hiding in the orchard isn�t your ordinary pusher. He�s a courier for a big narcotics network overseas. Why can�t we go in and shake the place down until we find him?�

I leaned forward and spoke as earnestly as I could. �Because this is harvest time. The apples are ripe now and need to be picked now.� I paused to be sure he was listening. �A whole year�s work is riding on about three short weeks. Every minute and every pair of hands counts.

�There are over two hundred Jamaicans over there right now working twelve hours a day to get those McIntosh apples in. You can�t go charging in there with a detail of men and stop the work to look for this man.�

Adler was frowning. �Did you say Jamaicans?�

�Yes. They come up every year. The growers in Essex and Clinton counties couldn�t harvest their crops without them.�

Alder�s frown deepened. �What�s the problem?� I asked him.

�This suspect we�re after. He�s a black man from Colombia.�

It was my turn to frown. This was a complication. A foreign black man hiding among two hundred other foreign black men.

�Have you got a picture of this Colombian?� I asked.

�No, but we�ll get one,� he answered. Another complication, I told myself.

�How did this man get here?�

Bliss took a deep breath. �Here�s what happened: We�ve known that a top level meeting between two narcotics distributors was going to take place sometime soon, in or around Plattsburgh. Yesterday the Border Patrol got a tip that an illegal alien had sneaked across the border at Champlain and was holed up in one of the motels outside Keeseville, waiting to meet another dealer.

�Our office planned a joint effort with the Patrol and staked out the place, waiting for the second subject. Our man � we now know his name is Navad Sabella � must have seen something that made him suspicious.

�He had a car and he took off down Route 22 toward Peru. A couple of agents followed him. We had a state police car cruising just this side of Peru; we radioed them that the alien was headed their way.

�Anyway, Sabella saw he was being boxed in. He was passing the north side of the orchard; he ditched the car and took off into the trees. The agents following him got a quick look at him before he disappeared. They say he was dressed in sports clothes, a bit under six feet, maybe one seventy. No weapons visible.

�Maybe he knew about the Jamaicans being there, or maybe he saw some of them at work. Maybe he thought he could use them as a shield.� Adler stopped and looked at me. �Mr. Sessions, is it possible for him to stay hidden out there in the orchards?�

I had been thinking about that. �Call me Hank. Yes, it�s possible,� I answered. �He�s black. He can steal food from the dining room, steal clothes from one of the dormitories. There�s a thousand acres to keep out of sight in. He might get lucky.�

Bliss stood up and began pacing. He was in his mid forties, running to overweight, with a crewcut that didn�t make him look a bit younger. A city man, uncomfortable out of sight of sidewalks and streetlights.

�Captain Mulholland says this Colombian is a key player and it�s important to nail him quick. He wasn�t happy when he heard he got away from us.�

�What makes this man so important?�

Bliss sat down again. �When he took off from the motel he dropped a small bag. There was five thousand in cash � his walking-around money � and twelve pounds of a new narcotic called Khat.�

He stopped and looked at me. I nodded. �I�ve heard of it,� I said. �Originally from Africa, isn�t it?�

�Right. It�s grown on bushes, not cooked up in a lab. Khat is popular as hell in parts of Europe, a big favorite with young people.�

There had to be more to the story. �Is this the first time the DEA has seen Khat?�

Bliss shook his head. �The agency has intercepted shipments from Europe at Dulles Airport in Washington and Kennedy in New York. Now we think distributors want to bring it down from Canada.� He paused a minute. �It would be another step-up drug, like ecstasy.�

All we need, I thought. Kids always try something new, get hooked, then step up to the hard stuff like heroin or crack.

�Anyway,� Bliss went on, �our man must have contacts in Albany or Syracuse or New York. We think he�ll phone somebody to come and pick him up. He may have a cell phone on him or find a pay phone. All he has to do is stay out of sight and wait.�

He looked at me. �You think maybe we can get our hands on him first, Hank?�

The sun was going down behind the ridge across the fields and there was the faintest hint of a breeze.

�Maybe,� I said. I stood up and put on my hat. �Let�s go talk to Foster Burroughs.�

�Who do you think we should get rid of?�

Richter sits on the opposite side of the table and stares me down with his deep, penetrating eyes. The curtains are open, but a menacing thunderstorm surrounds the city and turns the board room slightly sinister.

�Pardon me, sir?� I ask hesitantly.

I am already nervous about my meeting with the chairman, having spent days poring over budget numbers and project plans. I am just a manager for the firm, and can only speculate wildly about the secret dealings that go on at executive level. Just how far will they go to make this company successful?

�It�s simple, Jensen,� Richter says, leaning back in his enormous leather chair. �We posted a loss for the first quarter and projections aren�t good. We�ve got to cut costs around here. I want your candid opinion on who the dead weight is.�

He leans forward and begins tapping his open palm on the solidly built oak table. The sound reverberates throughout the room and echoes in my head.

Taking a deep breath, I decide to go for broke.

�Well, sir, I think we need to focus on successfully completing key initiatives to drive forward our profit.

I don�t think we should touch the worker base. They are our key to that profit. So perhaps we ought to target the overhead.�

I hold my breath.

�I�ve thought about that myself,� Richter replies. �What about you?�

The rain begins to tap on the windows as I squirm. Is the room getting warmer? How do I get myself out of this?

You started down the road. Keep going.

�Well, I believe I am vital to drive our Internet business forward, sir. I was thinking more of the VP level,� I say.

Richter begins tapping his fingertips together. �Go on,� he commands.

�My boss, Martine Miller, for example. The Internet project could continue successfully in a matrix reporting relationship.�

It is perhaps bold and stupid. But after a year of inane management, nonexistent support, and ridiculous requests, Martine has pushed me to the edge. The stifling room, impending storm, and aura of inside deal-making urge me on. I feel the need to be powerful. To be mighty. To be wicked.

Richter swivels his chair and crosses his legs casually, staring out the window.

�I see what you mean, Jensen.�

Does he? Nail it home.

�I have no desire to sabotage anyone, sir,� I lie. �But as the chairman of the company, I�m sure you appreciate solid input on what is really going on.�

Richter turns back to face me. �You know, Jensen, I�ve considered Martine for a while now. I�ve always thought she was a cross between a simpering kiss ass and a vengeful bitch.�

Gerald �Doc� Milligan � Doc because he�d been a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I � was in the bootleg hootch business. No other way to put it.

It was the early days of Prohibition, and down in Chicago the Italian gangs hadn�t yet machine-gunned the Irish gangs out of business. Not that it mattered to Doc � he didn�t deal with either of them. And besides, he had a more discriminating clientele than they did, the kind who liked their booze straight and unwatered. Nor did he ever get down to Chicago. His bailiwick was Lake Superior and the shores of upper Wisconsin.

Doc had a twenty-five foot boat with a souped-up engine. He belonged to that breed of Americans who, like Rickenbacker and Barney Oldfield, could take an engine apart and make it run faster and better than it ever had before � for a while anyway, till they blew it apart by abusing it. Then they�d grin and start all over again. Jules Verne once wrote that Americans were engineers by birthright, and that was Doc all right. He had motor oil in his veins and a grease monkey�s heart.

He ran good Canadian whisky in from Ontario in its original bottles. He�d put into a cove near Thunder Bay, load his boat to the gunwales, then take off south, dodging revenue boats and the Coast Guard. He�d painted his boat a dark gray and made his runs on starless nights, which was precisely when a storm could whip up and Lake Superior was most dangerous. Then he�d creep through the Apostle Islands to the Wisconsin shore where a couple of Indians off the reservation just south of there would be waiting for him. The Indians would have the reservation hearse with them, and in the back of it would be some empty coffins. Into the coffins would go the booze, and the Indians, now dressed in a sober black, would take off for Milwaukee where a middleman would sell it to the country club set there and in Chicago.

The Indians were Methodists and teetotalers, but they didn�t much mind if a bunch of palefaces drank themselves into oblivion � particularly if they were paying for it. In a way, they sort of looked on it as revenge for Wounded Knee.

On this particular night, Doc had just finished unloading a cargo of hootch and had moved his boat back to its home base near Bay-field. Feeling pretty good, too, since he had a fresh wad of greenbacks in his pocket. He was just tying up when the woman appeared. She walked right down to the end of the dock and began climbing down the ladder into his boat.

�Are you Doc Milligan?� she asked.

Doc didn�t answer because his jaw was hanging open. He�d never really gotten used to short skills. The first time he�d seen one was when he went on leave to Paris in 1916. He was sort of shocked by them, to tell the truth, but he couldn�t take his eyes off them, either. It was as if for the first time he�d realized that women had legs.

This woman had legs, all right. Long white ones that seemed to go all the way up to her armpits. She wore one of those close-fitting helmetlike hats, and her bobbed, dark brown hair showed at the edges of it.

�Well, are you Doc Milligan or not?�

Doc nodded dumbly. The truth was that he was a little bit awkward with women � but then what would you expect of a man whose mother had destined him for the priesthood? But he�d got out of that, all right, and what a close call it had been!

�I�m Peggy Noone,� she said as she dropped the last few inches. �I hear you know Lake Superior like the back of your hand.�

He knew it, all right. He had to know it to dodge the Coast Guard.

�I�m trying to get to a place called Lighthouse Rock.�

He finally found his voice. �There�s nothing there but an abandoned lighthouse.�

�That doesn�t bother me,� she said.

She had a strong face for a woman, but it was softened by large eyes and a complexion that could�ve been featured in a beauty soap ad. The people at Pears or Procter and Gamble would�ve loved her.

�Well, can you take me? I�ll pay, of course.�

His first impulse was to refuse. He was a hootch runner, goddamit, he didn�t run a taxi service. But then he thought about sailing into the sunrise with this woman beside him, and his heart did a little flip-flop.

Like a lot of shy men � even shy men who sometimes got shot at by the Coast Guard � he was a romantic, and Peggy Noone�s big eyes had him in a kind of pre-Nuclear Age meltdown.

So he said: �What time would you want to leave?�

And she said: �How about right now?�

It has been twenty-eight years since that night Aspasia walked into my house, but I shall never forget that moment when I looked up from the scroll I was reading and saw her solemn face in the light of the resin torch her servant carried. Of course, I was already in love with her. But then half of Athens was, too. The other half despised her, already believing what that fool Aristophanes would later write: that she had once run a brothel. Perhaps she had. But if so, she was enterprising and intelligent enough to have done it with class and to have made a fortune doing it.

When Aspasia appeared in my doorway I leapt up from my stool, partly out of respect, partly out of shock that she had come through the dark and muddy streets of Athens at that late hour to seek me out. Even with her servant Tysander along to protect her and carry a torch to light the way, it had taken boldness and courage to come. But Aspasia never lacked either.

I knew that she must have been driven to come to me by some event that meant danger to her or to her lover Pericles, though I half hoped that the stories of her promiscuity as a high-class hetaera were true and that she�d come to bestow her sexual favors on me. Much as I bore and still do bear great love, respect, and friendship for Athens� greatest archon, Pericles, I would have embraced Aspasia�s offer and Aspasia herself without hesitation. She was that beautiful and that enchanting. I hoped, at least, for some mild flirtation.

But Aspasia, being Aspasia, knew that the moment called for immediate and straighforward truth. �Kleides,� she said, motioning to Tysander to wait outside and stepping farther inside the doorway and into the light of my oil lamp, �I need your help. Melissia has been murdered.�

Even as my mind rebelled at such a deed committed in my Athens, my heart swelled with sorrow for the loss of so lovely a singer, whose voice had lifted many a symposium to a level fit for the gods. �Murdered?� I said. �That lovely voice stilled?� Then my sophist�s mind clicked in. �On what evidence do you claim murder?�

�She has been found dead. Strangled. Her neck is mottled with the marks of the murderer�s fingers.�

I pulled my good chair of fiber cords and pillows from against the wall and set it in the center of the room for Aspasia. �Found where and when,� I asked, �and by whom?�

�In the outer part of the Kerimakus district, an hour ago. By a young man who had gone to the cemetery to lay a wreath at his brother�s stele.�

I frowned. The outer Kerimakus was Athens� cemetery and red light district. �And you, Aspasia,� I asked, �how did you come to find out where and when he found her?�

�He knew Melissia. And he knew that she was to be at Pericles� symposium this evening to sing. I had arranged it.�

�She never showed up?�

�No. I sent one of my servants to her uncle�s house to inquire after her. I thought that perhaps she�d become ill.�

�And what did the uncle say?�

�Menides said that she had left for the symposium. But she never arrived.� Aspasia bowed her head. Two dark curls brushed her shoulders, an elegant Ionian hairdo for which she was both envied and criticized by Athenian women who followed the current fashion of simpler upswept hair.

I could see that she was deeply saddened by Melissia�s death, though, as always, she kept a tight rein on her emotions. She shed no tears. Only the intake of her breath told me how close she had come to crying. I gave her a few moments.

�She was not accompanied by a slave, as is usual, on her way to your house?�

Aspasia looked up. �According to Menides, she insisted on going alone.�

I thought about that. Only lower-class women, water-bearers, food-sellers, and cheap flute girls walked the streets of Athens alone. At one time, before Aspasia had rescued her, Melissia had been a lower-class flute girl plying her trade in the port of Piraeus to survive, her intelligence and lovely songs unappreciated. �Had she maintained the habit of going out alone?�

�She was not afraid to defy Athens� rigid rules for women. She often walked into the hills with her lyre to practice her songs in the woods, as Orpheus did.� Aspasia spoke with pride, not censure. She herself never hesitated to defy the rules of Athens for women, though she did so discreetly, so as not to give more ammunition to Pericles� aristocratic political enemies. She would do nothing to harm the democracy Pericles had so carefully nourished.

�So she likely did set out alone?�

Aspasia shook her head slowly. �I can�t think that she would have. She was to perform at our home. Whenever she came to our home, even in the day to visit with me, she came with a servant. Yet tonight, if Menides is to be believed, she did set out alone.�

�Something out of a usual pattern then,� I mused, as much to myself as to Aspasia.

The oil lamp dimmed and I got up to pour olive oil into another lamp. Aspasia remained still, but she kept her eyes on me and I could see that she was waiting to tell me something of significance.

�Something else?� I said, when I sat down again.

�Yes. Melissia�s hair. It had been ripped from her head.�

I stared at Aspasia, partly because she lowered her hemation from her shoulders so gracefully, letting the blue cloak drop to her waist to reveal the white linen chiton beneath, and partly because I could not imagine why anyone would have ripped out Melissia�s gloriously shiny dark brown hair. �Ripped out?� I said finally.

�According to the man who found her. Her head...� Aspasia paused and drew another deep breath. �Her head was bloodied.�

A number of thoughts ran through my brain. A crime of passion. An angry lover. Another hetaera, jealous of her rival�s success. Perhaps even an animal attack. But I knew of no animal who would rip the hair rather than the flesh. Our superstitious folk would have suggested a goddess jealous of Melissia�s hair, just as Apollo and Artemis, the divine children of Leto, had destroyed the children of Niobe, who had boasted she had more children than Leto. It is only a myth, of course, but the folk believe it to be true. I am a sophist. I come to no conclusions until I examine what evidence there is to be seen.

�Where is the body now?� I asked.

�Still at Kerimakus. I sent a slave to stand guard over it. Will you go?�

�Of course,� I said.

Pulling her hemation back over her shoulders, Aspasia rose. �And when you are finished, bring the body to me. I will see to it that it is properly tended. And come to me yourself. I will want to know what you have found.�

I nodded. �And Menides? Who will tell him?�

�I will send for him.�

Aspasia walked to the door and summoned Tysander from the upper part of the street to which he had retreated. She turned back to me. �Kleides,� she said, �find who killed Melissia. I will give you what help you need.�

I knew that she meant she would give me not only what drachmae I required for my inquiries, bribes being an effective way to obtain information, but also whatever information she had about Melissia and her acquaintances.

�I will come to you first thing in the morning.�

�No,� she said. �I will do no sleeping tonight. Come when you are finished with your examination. My servant Cleon is waiting outside with Tysander. Cleon will guide you to Melissia.�

I nodded, taking no offense at Aspasia�s having assumed that I would go.

She stepped out into the light of the torch Tysander held high. I followed and Cleon, stepping out from a dark doorway, nodded to me. He had a length of white linen over his arm. I did not need to ask what it was for. I watched Aspasia disappear into the night, the pleats of her white linen chiton flowing gracefully against her slim ankles.

I turned to Cleon and started out on my grim task.