Weed decided he had stayed long enough in the big hole with broken clay pipes in the bottom of it. Water was leaking from somewhere. A Bob Cat was parked nearby and lots of shovels and hoes were scattered on the ground.

He had begun to worry that the hole was really a grave, even though it wasn't at all shaped like one. Maybe everybody was on an early lunch break or something. Maybe all of a sudden dirt would start falling in and Weed would be buried alive.

He peeked out and didn't see a sign of Brazil or anyone else. He listened hard. Only birds were talking. He climbed out of the hole and made a dash for the cemetery fence. He climbed to the top of it as the Lemans slowly cruised into view. Dog, Beeper and Sick were looking for him so Smoke could shoot Weed and dump him in the river. Weed dropped back inside the cemetery and ran with no particular destination in mind, zigzagging around graves and leaping over monuments.

Brazil too was running fast and could have continued his seven-minute-mile pace for hours, although boots would not have been his footwear of choice and his shins were beginning to hurt. The more frustrated he got, the faster he ran.

He cut over to Riverview, flying past memorials, monuments, plaques, sculptures, vases and tablets. Tiny Confederate flags waved him on. A groundskeeper with extra spools of nylon twine tied on his belt trimmed around stones, the weed-eater popping and buzzing as he maneuvered it with the skill of a surgeon.

'You seen a kid in Chicago Bulls stuff?' Brazil called out as he got close.

'Like the statue?'

'Only smaller,' Brazil said, running past.

'Nope,' the groundskeeper said as he trimmed.

Brazil wove between a marble lamb and a mausoleum, jumped over an English boxwood and to his amazement landed almost on top of Weed. Brazil grabbed him by the back of his jersey, kicked his feet out from under him and sat on him. He pinned Weed's arms to the ground.

'I changed my mind,' Weed yelled. 'You can lock me up.'

Bubba had lost control and it was obvious to all. He was humiliated and sick to his stomach when Officer Budget opened the back of the patrol car and exclaimed, 'Shit, man.' Bubba felt sure one more hideous nickname had just been added to the list.

'I'm sorry,' Bubba said. 'But I told you…' 'Man, oh man!' Budget cried.

He was beside himself, almost gagging as he unlocked Bubba's handcuffs while Chief Hammer and West looked on.

'And just who's going to clean this up! Man, oh man! I can't believe it!'

Bubba's shame could not have been deeper. He had been so certain it was his destiny for his path to cross with Hammer's. But not like this. Not half naked, dirty, fat and soiled. He could not look at her.

'Officer Budget,' Hammer said flatly, 'if you'll just leave me alone with him for a few minutes, please. Major West? I'll meet you behind the Kmart?'

'We'll let you know what the medical examiner says,' Budget told Hammer, 'in case you don't get there before he leaves.'

'She,' West corrected him.

Hammer turned her attention to Bubba. He was stunned that she did not seem to notice his unspeakable predicament.

'Chief Hammer?' he stammered. 'I, uh…' He swallowed hard. 'I didn't mean…'

She held up a hand to silence him.

'Don't worry about it,' she told him.

'How can I not!' he cried. 'And all I wanted to do was help!'

'Help who?'

She seemed interested and sincere. Bubba hadn't realized she was so attractive, not in a pretty way, but strong and striking in her pinstripe pants suit. He wondered if she had a gun. Maybe she carried one in her black handbag. His thoughts moiled crazily as the wind shifted to Hammer's disadvantage. She moved several feet to her right.

'Who is it you're trying to help?' she asked. 'The woman who just got murdered? Did you see something, Mr. Fluck?'

'Oh my God!' Bubba was shocked. 'A lady was just murdered, right here! When?'

'While you were parked here, Mr. Fluck.'

Bubba's bowels were irritably gathering again, like dark clouds about to release another lashing, violent storm. He thought of his sweaty tee shirt, covered with blood and on its way to the police labs.

'You sure you didn't see anything?' The chief continued to press.

'My Anaconda was hung,' he answered.

She just stared at him.

'I couldn't get it off,' he said.

Still, she said nothing.

'So I got down and started tugging on it, you know, manipulating it as best I could. See, I was afraid it might go off. Then I got a nosebleed.'

'This was when?' Hammer asked.

'I guess when the lady got killed. I swear. I was on the floor ever since Officer Budget left me. That's all I was doing until he was knocking on my window. I couldn't have seen anything, because I was on the floor, is what I'm saying, ma'am.'

He couldn't tell if she believed him. There was nothing cruel or disrespectful about her demeanor, but she was shrewd and very smart. Bubba was in awe of her. For a moment he forgot his plight until Channel 8's cameraman trotted toward them, heading straight for the chief, then getting a disgusted look on his face. He stared at Bubba's camouflage pants and changed course.

'It appears the victim was robbed right here at the money stop,' Hammer spoke to Bubba. 'I'm not telling you anything confidential. I'm sure you'll be hearing all about it on the news. You were parked less than fifty feet from the money stop, Mr. Fluck. Are you absolutely certain you didn't hear anything? Maybe voices, arguing, a car or cars?'

Bubba thought hard. Channel 6 headed toward them and quickly went the other way. Bubba would have done anything to help this brave woman, and it broke his heart that the one time he had a chance, he could do nothing but stink.

'Shit,' muttered a WRVA reporter as he stopped and backed up. 'Wouldn't go over there if I was you,' he said to a crew from Channel 12.

'What's going on?' Style Magazine called out to Richmond Magazine. 'A sewer line break?'

'Hell if I know. Shit, man.'

Bubba went on red alert.

'"Shit man" is right.' A Times-Dispatch reporter waved his hand in front of his face.

Bubba's blood heated up. He didn't hear a word Chief Hammer was saying to him. Bubba was completely focused on the knot of reporters, cameramen, photographers and technicians gathered by his Jeep. They were restless and angry, talking and bitching loudly amongst themselves and calling him Shit Man.

'Anybody seen what's going on back there behind the building?'

'They won't let anybody close.'

'You can forget it. The minute you get to the garden center, the cops push you back.'

'Yeah, one asshole put his hand over my lens.'

'Shit, man.'

Bubba's mind whited out the way it always did when he heard the voices and the laughter shrieking from dangerous, painful convolutions in his brain. He saw a legion of little faces distorted by taunts and cruel grins.

'My editor's gonna kill me. Shit, man!'

'Stop It!' Bubba screamed at the press.

His eyes suddenly focused. Hammer was staring at him, rather startled. The media wasn't interested.

'Maybe the body's decomposing,' one of them was saying.

'It's back behind the store.'

'Could've been here first. Maybe they moved it for some reason.'

'That wouldn't make sense.'

'Well, they wouldn't want to leave it here right in front of the bank.'

'No way it could have been here long enough to decompose without someone spotting it before this morning.'

'Oh, so now you're a medical examiner.'

'Maybe it was dumped. You know, the victim's been dead for a while, is getting ripe and the killer dumps her.'

'It's a her?" 'Maybe.'

'Dumps her here?'

'I'm just throwing things out.'

'Yeah, asshole, 'cause you want the rest of us to write them down and make fools out of ourselves.'