I imagined that if you spent a couple years doing those interviews you'd come away with some psychological baggage of your own. I wondered if that was what she had meant when she had talked about her marriage to Thorson.

"Did you wear the same clothes?" she asked.

"What?"

"You and your brother. You know, like you see some twins do."

"Oh, the matching stuff. No, thank God. My parents never pulled any of that with us."

"So who was the black sheep of the family? You or him?"

"Me, definitely. Sean was the saint and I was the sinner."

"And what are your sins?"

I looked at her.

"Too many to recount here."

"Really? Then what was the most saintly thing he ever did?"

As the smile dropped off my face at the memory that would be her answer, the plane banked sharply to the left, came out of it and started to climb. Rachel immediately forgot her question and leaned into the aisle so she could look toward the front. Presently I saw Backus coming down the aisle, his hands grabbing the bulkhead for balance. He signaled to Thompson to follow him and they both made their way back to us.

"What is it?" Rachel asked.

"We're diverting," Backus said. "I just got a call from Quantico. This morning the field office in Phoenix responded to our alert. One week ago a homicide detective was found dead in his home. It was supposed to be suicide but something was wrong. They've ruled it a homicide. Looks like the Poet made a mistake."

"Phoenix?"

"Yes, the freshest trail." He looked at his watch. "And we have to hurry. He's to be buried in four hours and I want to have a look at the body first."

Two government cars and four agents from the field office met us after the jet landed at Sky Harbor International in Phoenix. It was a warm day, compared to where we had come from, and we took our jackets off and carried them with our computer bags and overnighters. Thompson also carried a toolbox which contained his equipment. I rode with Walling and two agents named Matuzak and Mize, white guys who looked like they had less than ten years' experience combined. It was clear by their deferential treatment of Walling that they held the BSS unit in high esteem. They had either been briefed on the fact that I was a reporter or judged by my beard and hair that I was not an agent despite the FBI seal on my shirt. They paid little attention to me.

"Where are we going?" Walling asked as our gray nondescript Ford followed the gray nondescript Ford carrying Backus and Thompson out of the airport.

"Scottsdale Funeral Home," Mize said. He was in the front passenger seat while Matuzak drove. He looked at his watch. "Funeral is at two. Your man is probably going to have less than a half hour with the body before they'll have to suit him up and put him in the box for the show."

"Was it open casket?"

"Yeah, last night," Matuzak said. "He's already been embalmed and made up. I don't know what you're expecting."

"We're not expecting anything. We just want to look. I assume Agent Backus is being briefed up ahead of us. Do you two care to fill us in?"

"That's Robert Backus?" Mize said. "He looks so young."

"Robert Backus Junior."

"Oh." Mize made a face that seemed to show that he understood why such a young man was running the show. "Figures."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Rachel said. "He's got the name but he's also the hardest-working and most thorough agent I've ever worked with. He earned the position he has. It probably would have been easier for him, in fact, if he had a name like Mize. Now can one of you fill us in on what's going on?"

I saw Matuzak study her in the mirror. He then looked over at me and Rachel registered this.

"He's fine," she said. "He's got approval from the top to be here. He knows everything we do. You have a problem with that?"

"Not if you don't," Matuzak said. "John, you tell it."

Mize cleared his throat.

"Not a lot to fill in. We don't have a lot because we weren't invited in. But what we do know is they found this guy, name's William Orsulak, they found him in his house on Monday. Homicide cop. They figured he'd been dead at least three days. He was off Friday 'cause of comp time and the last time anybody remembered seeing him was Thursday night at a bar they all go to."

"Who found him?"

"Somebody from the squad when he didn't show Monday. He was divorced, lived alone. Anyway, they apparently spent all week on the fence. You know, suicide or murder? Eventually, they went with murder. That was yesterday. Apparently there were too many problems with the suicide."

"What do you know about the scene?"

"I hate to tell you this Agent Walling, but you'd learn just as much as me by picking up one of the local papers. Like I said, Phoenix police didn't invite us to the dance so we don't know what they have. After we got the wire from Quantico this morning, Jamie Fox, he's up in the lead car with Agent Backus, took a look at it while working a little OT doing paperwork. It seemed to fit with what you people were working on and he made the call. Then me and Bob got called out, but like I said, we don't know what's what for sure."

"Fine." She sounded put out. I knew she wanted to be up in the lead car. "I'm sure we'll get it at the funeral home. What about the locals?"

"They're meeting us."

We parked in the back of the Scottsdale Funeral Home on Camelback Road. The lot was already crowded, though the funeral was still two hours away. There were several men milling about or leaning on cars. Detectives. I could tell. Probably waiting to hear what the FBI had to say. I saw one TV truck with the dish on top parked at the far end of the lot.

Walling and I got out and joined Backus and Thompson and we were led to a rear door of the mortuary. Inside we stepped into a large room with white tile running up to the ceiling. There were two stainless-steel tables for bodies in the center with overhead spray hoses, and stainless-steel counters and equipment against three walls. A group of five men were in the room and as they moved to greet us I could see the body on the far table. I assumed it to be Orsulak, though there was no obvious sign of damage from a gunshot to the head. The body was naked and someone had taken a yard-long length of paper towel from the roll on the counter and placed it across the dead cop's waist to cover the genitals. The suit Orsulak would wear to the grave was on a hanger on a hook on the far wall.

Handshakes were passed all around between us and the living cops. Thompson was directed to the body and he carried his case over and went to work examining it.

"I don't think you'll get anything we don't already have," said the one called Grayson, who was in charge of the investigation for the locals. He was a stocky man with an assured and good-natured demeanor. He was deeply tanned, as were the other locals.

"We don't, either," said Walling, quick with the politically correct response. "You've been over him. Now he's been washed and readied."

"But we need to go through the motions," Backus said.

"Why don't you folks tell us what you're working?" Grayson asked. "Maybe we can make some sense out of this."

"Fair enough," Backus said.

As Backus gave an abbreviated report on the Poet investigation, I watched Thompson do his work. He was at home with the body, not timid about touching, probing, squeezing. He spent a good amount of time running gloved fingers through the dead man's gray-white hair and then carefully brushed it back in place with a comb from his own pocket. He then made a careful study of the mouth and throat, using a lighted magnifying glass. At one point he put the magnifier aside and pulled a camera from the toolbox. He took a photo of the throat, the flash drawing the attention of the cops assembled in the room.