H ere’s what we’re going to do, Agent Savich,” Dr. Able said, his minty breath wafting over Savich’s face. “We’re not going to put you under. We’re going to give you what we call conscious sedation. That means Linda here will inject some morphine and Versed into your IV. It’ll keep you comfortable and sleepy. I’m now going to give you some local anesthetic. All right?”

“All right,” Savich said. They’d slid him from the gurney onto his stomach on a narrow bed, a sheet to his waist.

Savich didn’t feel pain, just Dr. Able’s fingers probing the wound. He wanted to hear more about the sheriff’s truck or maybe even hear Dr. Able sing some more, but words wouldn’t form in his brain, and so he just lay there, enduring. He wished he was with Sherlock, maybe playing with those fat rollers in her hair.

Dr. Able talked as he worked. “Nothing vital seems to be cut, just your skin and a bit of muscle. You’re going to hurt a while, not be able to lie on your back for up to a week, but all in all, you’re a very lucky man, Agent Savich. It could have been worse, much worse, and I’m sure you know that. Okay, I’m going to set the stitches in layers now-the deep ones, and then the surface stitches. This will take a few minutes.”

Savich didn’t feel any pain, just the dragging pull of the thread through his flesh, an obscene feeling he hated.

“You married, Agent Savich?”

Savich wasn’t up to even a yes or no answer and Katie saw it. “Yes, he is, Clyde. I have a feeling his wife is going to show up here even though he told her not to come.”

“Women,” said Dr. Able, “if only they were more like trucks-nice and predictable; you floorboard ’em and they go, right where you tell ’em to.”

“Yeah, I can see what you mean, Clyde,” Katie said. “Not only that, you buy a truck, pay for it, and that’s it. But with women, you gotta pay and pay-and don’t forget the interest.”

“Oh yeah? What about the maintenance?”

“Lots more than your truck’ll ever need.”

Dr. Able laughed hard and Savich was very relieved not to hear him say “Oops.”

He heard their voices, but still felt no particular pain, just the slow pulling of the thread through his flesh; his mind, what was left of it, drifted back to the interviews he’d had yesterday with the husbands of the two slain high school math teachers. It was odd, but their faces blurred together, and he had trouble telling them apart. Then his own face blurred over the both of them.

Troy Ward, tears in his voice, said, “My wife has been dead for six days, Agent Savich, the police don’t have a clue who did it, so how do you think I feel? I’ve told them everything I know, including my mother’s social security number.”

Savich nodded. He didn’t particularly like Troy Ward, the overweight sports announcer. “The thing is, Mr. Ward, the FBI is involved now-”

“Yeah, I’ve heard all about you big boobs waltzing in and taking over. And now the TV’s screaming that it’s a serial killer. God, we don’t need another one. That last one still gives me nightmares.”

“No, we don’t need another one. But I really need to know…”

Savich’s brain floated away, and when he managed to snag some of it back again, Troy Ward seemed more overweight now than he had been just an instant before. “Mr. Ward, have you spoken to Mr. Fowler?”

“The other murdered woman’s husband? No, I haven’t. Two grown men sitting together sobbing, it wouldn’t play well in the football locker room, now, would it? Can’t you just see the guys laughing their heads off? No, not much point to that.”

What did football have to do with grieving? “Did you play football, Mr. Ward? Is that how you got into announcing?”

“You making a joke, Agent Savich? Let me tell you, I wasn’t always this big, and I tried out, but I never got past high school ball. They were a bunch of macho assholes anyway.” He jumped to his feet, his three chins wobbling, and screamed, “I wanted to get in the locker room!”

Savich said when that scream died away, “I played football.”

“Well, yeah, I can tell by looking at you. I’ll just bet you had girls hanging off your biceps, didn’t you, you brainless jock?”

That wasn’t very nice of him to say, Savich was thinking, but then Troy Ward had a microphone in front of his mouth and he was screaming, “Go, you macho jock jerks! Run!” He yelled in Savich’s face, “It’s a touchdown! You see that, a touchdown!”

Savich said, “You never met Mr. Gifford Fowler or Leslie Fowler, his wife?”

Now Savich wanted to lie down on this big soft sofa and just listen to the soft rain falling against the front windows of Troy Ward’s very nice house in an excellent area of Oxford, Maryland. “Nope, I already told the police I’d never heard of them. I don’t think my wife, Bernie, knew Leslie Fowler either, never mentioned her name or anything, not that Bernie and I ever talked about other women all that much. She wasn’t worried about me playing around on her, said I was a really bad liar and she’d know.” He paused, then tears oozed out of his eyes, falling into the deep creases on his double chin. “I want you to catch the maniac who killed Bernie!” Then he threw back his head and yelled to the ceiling, “I want to be a jock asshole!”

Troy Ward was suddenly standing over him, his hand extended. “Do you want a rice cake? I’m trying to lose some weight, gotta get back into shape, you know, because, who knows, the Ravens might make the playoffs and I’ll be all front and center with the players. I may be doing some locker room interviews with the guys.” But he wasn’t holding a rice cake out to Savich, it was a huge Krispy Kreme the size of an inner-tube swing. Savich backed away from the doughnut and Troy Ward, that officious little sod of an overweight sports announcer, blurred into the tall gaunt features of Gifford Fowler, the car dealer, who was talking right in his face. “You want to buy one of my Chevys? I’ve been selling Chevys right here for the last twenty-two years! I’m solid, they’re solid. Like a Rock! Hey? Just like the commercial. Whatcha think, Agent Savich?”

“Did you kill your wife, Mr. Fowler?”

“Nah, I sell cars, I don’t kill wives. You divorce wives, not kill them. I divorced two before Leslie got herself whacked. Cops are stupid, but the fact is it’s just not worth the risk. I just know that if I’d knocked off Leslie they’d get me and then I’d only have eighteen good years left before they toasted me in the gas chamber. Whatcha think, Agent Savich?”

“It’s a lethal injection now, Mr. Fowler. Sometimes it’s even longer than eighteen years. That’s only the average. Did you love your wife?”

“Nah, she wasn’t a Mercedes anymore, looked more like a real old Chevy Impala. She used to be hot pink, then got too many miles and turned a dirty gray, ready for the junk pile. Glad we didn’t have any kids with me and her as parents-they’d be stealing cars off my lot, the little bastards.”

“Do you and Troy Ward, that famous Ravens announcer, ever bowl together?”

“Oh yeah, I heard about his bowling-always leaves splits and someone, it was his wife I hear, always had to come in and clean them up.” He laughed and laughed, slapping his knees. “Boy, is he fat, or what? None of the players or any of the coaching staff like him. He’s gross, you know? Not like me. Want to see my abs?”

“That’s all right, Mr. Fowler, leave your shirt on, but those cuff links, now, they really don’t go with that shirt.”

“Old junk-heap Leslie gave them to me. I’m wearing them to honor her-one more time, I figure she was worth it. Then I’ll flush ’em down. Hey, Agent Savich, you sure you don’t want to test-drive a Silverado? Cops like Silverados because they got that fancy coolant loss protection. It would fit your image, all hard muscle, really hot for the girls. Hey, let me show you my hard muscles.” As he unzipped his dark gray wool slacks he softly sang “When You Wish Upon a Star.”