Sat on her toilet. Took a shower with her soap. Dabbed some of her perfume on his chest, where he could smell it. Posed in her mirror, his blond, nearly hairless body corded with muscle.

This, he thought, she'd love: he threw the mirror a quarter-profile, arms flexed, butt tight, chin down.

He went through her chest of drawers, found some letters from a man. He read them, but the content was disappointing: had a good time, hope you had a good time. He checked a file cabinet in a small second bedroom-office, found a file labeled "Divorce." Nothing much in it. Jensen was her married name-her maiden name was Rose.

He went back to the bedroom, lay down, rubbed his body with the sheets, turned himself on again…

By five, he was exhausted and exhilarated. He saw the time on her dresser clock, and got up to dress and make the bed: she'd just about be leaving her office.

Sara Jensen got home a few minutes before six, carrying a sack full of vegetables under one arm, a bottle of wine and her purse in the opposite hand. The wet smell of radishes and carrots covered Koop's scent for the first few steps inside the door, to the kitchen counter, but when she'd dropped her sacks and stepped back to shut the door, she stopped, frowned, looked around.

Something wasn't right. She could smell him, but only faintly, subconsciously. A finger of fear poked into her heart.

"Hello?" she called.

Not a peep. Paranoid.

She tilted her head back, sniffing. There was something… She shook her head. Nothing identifiable. Nervous, she left the hallway door open, walked quickly to the bedroom door, and poked her head inside. Called out: "Hello?" Silence.

Still leaving the door open, she checked the second bedroom-office, then ventured into the bathroom, even jerking open the door to the shower stall. The apartment was empty except for her.

She went to the outer door and closed it, still spooked. Nothing she could put her finger on. She started unpacking her grocery sacks, stowing the vegetables in the refrigerator.

And stopped again. She tiptoed back to the bedroom. Looked to her right. A closet door was open just a crack. A closet she didn't use. She turned away, hurried to the hall door, opened it, stopped. Turned back. "Hello?"

The silence spoke of emptiness. She edged toward the bedroom, looked in. The closet door was just as it had been. She took a breath, walked to the closet. "Hello?" Her voice quieter. She took the knob in her hand, and feeling the fright of a child opening the basement door for the first time, jerked the closet door open.

Nobody there, Sara.

"You're nuttier'n a fruitcake," she said aloud. Her voice sounded good, broke the tension. She smiled and pushed the closet door shut with her foot, and started back to the living room. Stopped and looked at the bed.

There was just the vaguest body-shape there, as though somebody had dropped back on the bedspread. Had she done that? She sometimes did that in the morning when she was putting on her panty hose.

But had she gotten dressed first that morning, or made the bed first?

Had her head hit the pillow like that?

Spooked again, she patted the bed. The thought crossed her mind that she should look under it.

But if there were a monster under there…

"I'm going out to dinner," she said aloud. "If there's a monster under the bed, you better get out while I'm gone."

Silence and more silence.

"I'm going," she said, leaving the room, looking back. Did the bed tremble?

She went.

The Carren County courthouse was a turn-of-the-century sandstone building, set in the middle of the town square. A decaying bandstand stood on the east side of the building, facing a street of weary clapboard buildings. A bronze statue of a Union soldier, covered with pigeon droppings, guarded the west side with a trapdoor rifle. On the front lawn, three old men, all wearing jackets and hats, sat alone on separate wooden benches.

A squirrel ignored them, and Lucas and Connell walked past them, the old men as unmoving, unblinking as the Union soldier.

George Beneteau's office was in the back, off a parking lot sheltered by tall, spreading oaks. Lucas and Connell were passed through a steel security door and led by a secretary through a warren of fabric partitions to Beneteau's corner office.

Beneteau was a lanky man in his middle thirties, wearing a gray suit with a string tie under a large Adam's apple, and a pair of steel-rimmed aviator sunglasses. He had a prominent nose and small hairline scars under his eyes: old sparring cuts. A tan Stetson sat on his desk in-basket. He showed even, white teeth in a formal smile.

"Miz Connell, Chief Davenport," he said. He stood to shake hands with Lucas. "That was a mess over in Lincoln County last winter."

The observation sounded like a question. "We're not looking for trouble," Lucas said. He touched the scar on his throat. "We just want to talk to Joe Hillerod."

Beneteau sat down and steepled his fingers. Connell was wearing sunglasses that matched his. "We know that Joe Hillerod crossed paths with our killer. At least crossed paths."

Beneteau peered at her from behind the steeple. "You're saying that he might be the guy?"

"That's a possibility."

"Huh." He sat forward, picked up a pencil, tapped the pointed end on his desk pad. "He's a mean sonofagun, Joe is. He might kill a woman if he thought he had reason… but he might need a reason."

Lucas said, "You don't think he's nuts."

"Oh, he's nuts all right," Beneteau said, tapping the pencil. "Maybe not nuts like your man is. But who knows? There might be something in him that likes to do it."

"You're sure he's around?" Lucas asked.

"Yes. But we're not sure exactly where," Beneteau said. His eyes drifted up to a county road map pinned to one wall. "His truck's been sitting in the same slot since you called yesterday, down at his brother's place. We've been doing some drive-bys."

Lucas groaned inwardly. If they'd been seen…

Beneteau picked up his thought and shook his head, did his thin dry smile. "The boys did it in their private cars, only two of them, a couple of hours apart. Their handsets are scrambled. We're okay."

Lucas nodded, relieved. "Good."

"On the phone last night, you mentioned those. 50-caliber barrels you found in that fire. The Hillerods have some machine tools down in that junkyard," Beneteau said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Beneteau stood up, looked at a poster for a missing girl, then turned back to Lucas. "I thought we oughta take along a little artillery. Just in case."

They went in a caravan, two sheriff's cars and an unmarked panel truck, snaking along a series of blacktop and gravel roads, past rough backwoods farms. Mangy cud-chewing cows, standing in patchy pastures marked by weather-bleached tree stumps, turned their white faces to watch the caravan pass.

"They call it a salvage yard, but the local rednecks say it's really a distribution center for stolen Harley-Davidson parts," Beneteau said. He was driving, his wrist draped casually over the top of the steering wheel. "Supposedly, a guy rips off a good clean bike down in the Cities or over in Milwaukee or even Chicago, rides it up here overnight. They strip it down in an hour or so, get rid of anything identifiable, and drop the biker up at the Duluth bus station. Proving that would be a lot of trouble. But you hear about midnight bikers coming through here, and the bikes never going back out."

"Where do they sell the parts?" Connell asked from the backseat.

"Biker rallies, I guess," Beneteau said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. "Specialty shops. There's a strong market in old Harleys, and the older parts go for heavy cash, if they're clean." They topped a rise and looked down at a series of rambling sheds facing the road, with a pile of junk behind a gray board fence. Three cars, two bikes, and two trucks faced the line of buildings. None of the vehicles were new. "That's it," Beneteau said, leaning on the accelerator. "Let's try to get inside quick."