“Does he tell you how she was…That she was buried under…” She couldn’t talk for a few minutes. She said at last, “Buried under the remains of a dead deer?” She looked forlornly at the officers. “So…Maybe so dogs wouldn’t track her scent?”

When Evina reached for her purse, both men came alert. Seeing their concern, she unzipped the bag and handed it to Dallas. “There’s a plastic bag in there, with a pair of Marlie’s panties. I…brought it with me for the DNA. In case…I thought…if her body was found here, that might prove that Leroy…” She was trying hard not to cry.

Dallas withdrew the clear plastic freezer bag. “If this matches up with anything on Leroy’s clothes…” He glanced at Harper.

Max nodded. “Go pick him up, Dallas. Bring him in as a person of interest.”

Joe, seeing the pitiful little cotton panties and Evina’s distress, felt his claws digging hard into the rug. Evina smiled at Max, as if she was grateful someone in law enforcement seemed to want to help, seemed to be straight with her. Then suddenly she burst into hard, wrenching sobs. Dallas sat down beside her and put his arm around her.

She looked up at him at last, gulping. “For the first time,” she choked. “Some…someone…who listens. Well, Mrs. Greenlaw did, but…A cop who listens, and cares. Thank you,” she whispered.

It took Joe Grey a while, after everyone left the office and turned out the light, to stop feeling teary, himself. Evina’s reaction to simple decency nearly undid the tomcat. He had just slipped out from under the credenza when Dulcie and Kit appeared in the doorway looking hot and harried.

“Come on,” Dulcie said. “They’re moving the playhouse earlier than Cora Lee thought. The truck’s headed for the school, and so are Cora Lee and the girls. Kit was at the seniors’, and-”

“And the little girl was there,” Kit said, “with Officer Sand, and Cora Lee was reading her a picture book about Christmas with alligators and then they loaded the playhouse on a truck and had milk and pie and when the truck and car left I came over the roofs to get Dulcie and then we…The Wickens will be there by now with the blue van. Come on, Joe.” And she spun away, Joe and Dulcie following her out of the darkened office and down the hall, Joe yowling at Mabel to let them out.

Mabel scolded him for his impatience as she hurried to open the front door, looking puzzled that they were in such a swivet. The cats galloped through, scorched up the overhanging oak to the roof, and took off for the Patty Rose Orphans’ Home, not really caring, at that moment, what Mabel might be thinking.

S LOWING HER CAR and turning in to the drive of the Patty Rose Orphans’ Home behind the forklift and loaded truck, Cora Lee sat a moment waiting to be admitted by the gate guard and admiring the huge Christmas tree that gleamed out through the hall’s two-story windows. Patty had loved to decorate the Home for Christmas, she believed that the children needed, and thrived on, such joyous rituals in their lives. Cora Lee thought about the old-fashioned name that Patty had insisted on for the Home. Though most people called it the childrens’ home, Patty had been adamant that there was no shame in the word “orphan”-that word always put Cora Lee in mind of the New Orleans street children, when she was a little girl.

Maybe ten children living in one room, often with no father in residence, and their mother trying to provide for them. And some children had nowhere to live but the streets, children with no education and little hope for the future. The churches had saved many, giving them hot meals and a place to sleep and trying to find adoptive homes for them. But the children at the Patty Rose Home were so lucky-these kids had more than many children who still had both parents.

Pulling on through the gardens behind the truck to the rear parking lot, Cora Lee hid a smile as Lori and Dillon, crowded on the seat beside her, tried to see everything at once and to assess every playhouse, even though most of them were still in their separate parts. The mansion’s usually tranquil lawns were crowded with people and trucks, and playhouses being unloaded and set into place amid a confusion of workers. Who knew there were that many forklifts in the county? The small houses being bolted together had begun to form a small city of Lilliputian dwellings, some as bright as crocuses, some rustic, some Mediterranean, all with decks and ladders, all fascinating. The girls were wriggling to get out. Cora Lee could hardly wait, herself, for a closer look.

The gate attendant had taken the girls’ names when they came through, and checked them off on his list. Now they followed their own truck to the south side of the Tudor mansion, not far from Anna Stanhope’s studio. Most of that smaller building was hidden by huge rhododendron bushes that would flaunt a riot of reds and pinks in the early spring. A spot of sun glinted off the slanted skylights that transformed the stone interior into a bright though secluded work space. The artist had spent the last thirty years of her life painting there. When she died, her rich coastal landscapes had been stacked in every room and in the small garage, though most of her work had already sold through several prestigious California galleries. The girls exploded out the door before Cora Lee quite had the car parked.

She watched them swing up onto the truck to help the two drivers release the ropes. Watched the forklift get to work as Lori and Dillon and the truck driver guided the first portion of the little house into place. There was so much noise from the other trucks and from hammering and power tools that Cora Lee could feel a headache beginning to wrap around her temples.

The judging would be the next day, after all entries had been inspected for soundness by a local architect and builder. When, over the noise of the drills and hammering, Cora Lee heard the delighted cries of a flock of children, she looked up toward the mansion.

The two-story Tudor’s dark half timbers shone in rich contrast to its pale plaster walls. In the low winter sun, the steep, shingled roofs cast angled shadows down onto the wide, second-floor deck that roofed the downstairs dining room. The children stood crowded on the deck, leaning over the rail, shouting and pointing as the little houses took shape.

Cora Lee watched as the third portion of Lori and Dillon’s house was set in place, watched the girls bolt the parts together while the drivers held them steady. But when she saw that they had everything in hand, she turned away and headed home.

The girls wouldn’t leave until late this evening, until they’d seen every playhouse that was entered and had rated them all, in their own minds, against their own construction. Then they’d come walking tiredly home. Tired, and…what? Satisfied with what they’d created? Or discouraged? How could they be discouraged? Their house was wonderful. But no matter what their assessment, they’d be a jumble of nerves, not fit to live with until the judging was over.

W ATCHING FROM THE bushes as Cora Lee pulled out of the school yard, the cats moved on in behind her car, trotting between beds of poinsettias and nearly deafened by the banging of hammers and buzz of electric tools and the roars of trucks and tractors. Above them at the mansion, kids were crowded on the roof deck talking and pointing, longing to get inside those small houses where only a child would fit, where a child could step into any adventure he chose. Circling the front of the estate, they slipped in among the tall rhododendron bushes that sheltered the Stanhope studio.

They drew back at once, hissing, crouching down beneath the heavy leaves.

The sagging garage stood open, and the fake blue van stood half inside, the front end sticking out, the rear door open. And from within the house, partially masked by the noise of builders and trucks, came the pounding of other hammers. Then the dry-harsh noise of ripping wallboard, and the ragged, tooth-jarring screeches of old, rusted nails being pulled.