Ten minutes later, I’m talking to Harvey Morris, a detective in Big Sur who worked the case.

“Wasn’t much work to it,” Morris tells me. “We got a tip and we just went where the informant pointed. And there was old Charley with a fridge full of body parts. He surrendered without a fuss, just seemed confused and talked about going home. He’s in the squad, we’ve secured the crime scene, and we’re ready to go to the station. All of sudden the sonofabitch starts making these noises like he’s strangling. I think he’s having a heart attack or something. He turns red, bright cherry red. Starts convulsing. We call an ambulance, and give him CPR but… he croaks.”

“When did you find out he’d poisoned himself?”

“Not like – until the next day. We didn’t see him take the pill, you know? I thought a stroke or something – what do I know? But the medico guessed cyanide and the autopsy confirmed it. That and a shitload of Valium. No wonder he was no trouble. Forensics found tape residue on the underside of his shirt collar. He was all ready to sign off, you know?”

“Hunh.”

“For the sake of form, you try to tell yourself it’s terrible a guy like that offs himself. Don’t get me wrong – it was terrible for me because it happened on my watch. There was an inquiry; I was put on administrative leave; I had to go through a whole load of crap. But what I think? I think killing himself was the best thing Charley ever did.”

“So, what was-?”

But Morris isn’t finished. “The guy was a psycho, right? Louisiana didn’t want to let him out of that bin, but some do-gooder forced their hand. He goes on trial here and what’s gonna happen?”

“Insanity plea.”

“Absolutely. He woulda been slam-dunked right back in the bin, our bin this time. And do Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez get any satisfaction? I don’t think so. The guy ate their kids. And before he cut that one kid up, he stabbed him dozens of times. They like… reassembled what was left of the body, you know, put the pieces together. Apparently that poor kid was run through with a long, sharp blade, and I’m saying he was stabbed front to back, side to side, every which way. I mean – the kid was a pincushion.” A disgusted snort. “Vermillion goes to trial, Mom and Dad have to sit there and listen to that crap.”

He pauses, and I can hear him take a deep breath – almost like a sigh. “I get upset,” he says, “because there were suggestions that I could’ve stopped the guy, you know? But Jesus, he’s cuffed – he gets at the pill, like… with his mouth. You frisk somebody, you don’t look for a pill taped under his collar, you know what I’m saying?”

“Maybe at the station you’d find it.”

“You got that right. Maybe there you would find it, because you’d process him, get him into coveralls.” He pauses. “So you got questions?”

“I was wondering about the cause of death.”

“Technically, cardiac arrest.”

“I mean the Ramirez boys.”

“Well, no surprise there. The one we found in the freezer? Loss of blood. All those stab wounds, right? There’s a technical term for it-”

“Exsanguination.”

“Bingo. Bled to death.”

“And the second boy? The one they found in the well?”

“The best we could figure that was that he was put in there for preservation. Like you’d hang a side a beef. It was cool down there and Vermillion only had so much room in his fridge.”

“Was he dead?”

“Oh, he was dead, all right. Been dead a couple of days. But I don’t think he suffered. He was shot in the head. Single shot. Thirty-eight caliber.”

Just like the Gablers.

One dismembered, one shot in the head.

“This tip you got? The one that led you to Vermillion’s cabin. Didn’t you wonder about that?”

“Oh, sure we did. We tried to run it down, but you know – Vermillion’s only out of the bin a short while and he’s runnin’ in what for him is foreign territory. It’s not like he’s got a lot of friends and acquaintances we can question. We figured a drifter. Maybe someone he hitched a ride with.”

“You’re probably right,” I say and thank Morris – who invites me to call again “anytime.”

But he isn’t right. He’s dead wrong.

Whoever killed the Ramirez boys also killed the Gabler twins – and that was not Charley Vermillion. It couldn’t have been because Vermillion was dead when the Gabler murders took place.

So whoever killed the Ramirez twins is the monster who kidnapped the Sandling boys. And abducted my sons.

Anonymous tip, my ass.

I know one thing. I can’t just show up at the Port Sulfur Forensic Facility. If I waltz in there asking questions about “Cannibal” Charley Vermillion, I won’t get past the door.

Even if the hospital did everything by the book, when an institution for the criminally insane releases an inmate who then goes out and butchers a couple of kids – there are consequences. And, in fact, as I learn from a Times-Picayune story, heads did roll. But the top guy – Peyton Anderton – managed to hold on to his job. Meanwhile a ten-million-dollar civil suit brought against the institution by the parents of the Ramirez twins is still winding its way through the courts, virtually guaranteeing everyone’s silence. I’d guess that no one’s talking to anyone.

After a long run through Rock Creek Park, I decide to call Anderton. I’ll tell him I’m with Countdown and pitch a story that he’ll want to see on television. Like… how difficult and dangerous his job is. How forensic facilities – not just in Louisiana, but nationwide – need more funding. Better facilities. More staff.

That ought to get me through the door. Unless… he recognizes my name.

So I call him. And of course he’s flattered by the attention. A little wary, maybe, but-

“No camera crew?”

“No,” I tell him. “To start, I thought we’d ‘talk about talking,’ see if we can find a comfort level. Keep it off the record and then, down the line… if we can work it out – great! And if we can’t, well, it’s no big deal.”

“I should tell you up front that if it comes to going on camera, I’d have to think about it.”

I’m reassuring. And flattering. “You have a good voice for it, but we’re a long way from any shooting.”

“Good, because I’d have to clear it, you know, with the powers that be.”

I don’t say anything.

I can hear the wheels turning at the other end of the receiver. Finally he says, “Looks like I have a window Thursday afternoon. If you can be here at three o’clock?”

“I can do that.”

“I’ll tell the gate.”

Louis Armstrong Airport, New Orleans. Along with every other locale in the States, New Orleans had commoditized itself, with jazz and voodoo and Mardi Gras ruling the T-shirt and trinket trade. The voodoo connection – the coins – seems more evidence that I’m on the right track. If I can get Peyton Anderton to talk about Vermillion…

The woman at the Alamo counter is friendly, asks where I’m headed, do I need directions?

“Port Sulfur.”

“Say where?”

“Plaquemines Parish.” I pronounce Plaquemines so it rhymes with nines. She corrects me.

“Plak-a-mihn,” she says. “And we don’t bother with that s, no.” She slides my license and credit card back to me, pulls out a map, and marks the route with a green pen. “Follow I-10 across the river to 23. You get to Belle Chasse and then you just head on south. The highway follows the river all the way.” She folds the map and hands it to me with a smile. “Now, why you want to go there for? You got all the city, Cajun country, and what-all, and you gonna pick Plaquemines?” She cocks her head. “Must be here on business and not pleasure.”

“No fun in Plaquemines?”

“Not unless you really like to fish; you don’t go to Plaquemines for fun, no. Oil and gas and fish, that what they got down there. Oranges. Also, it’s scary.”