I remembered the Steiner house was two down on the left, and as I got closer to it I wasn't certain what I would say to Emily's mother. I had no desire to tell her where I had been or why, for the last thing she needed was more upset. But I knew no one else in this area and could not imagine knocking on a stranger's door to use the phone. No matter how hospitable anyone in Black Mountain might be, I would be asked why I looked as if I had been lost in a wilderness. It was possible someone might even find me frightening, especially if I had to explain what I did for a profession. As it turned out, my fears were invalidated by an unexpected knight who suddenly rode out of the dark and nearly ran me down.

I got to the Steiners' driveway as Marino was backing out of it in a new midnight-blue Chevrolet. As I waved at him in the beam of his headlights, I could see the blank expression on his face as he abruptly hit the brakes. His mood shifted from incredulity to rage.

"God damn sonofabitch, you practically gave me a heart attack. I coulda run you over."

I fastened my shoulder harness and locked the door.

"What the fuck're you doing out here? Shit!"

"I'm glad you finally got your car and that the scanner works. And I very much need a very strong Scotch and I'm not sure where one finds anything like that around here," I said as my teeth began to chatter.

"How do you turn the heat on?" Marino lit a cigarette, and I wanted one of those, too. But there were some vows I would never break. He turned the heat on high.

"Jesus. You look like you've been mud wrestling," he said, and I couldn't remember when I had seen him so rattled.

"What the heli've you been doing? I mean, are you okay?"

"My car's parked by the clubhouse."

"What clubhouse?"

"On the lake."

"The lake? What? You've been out there after dark? Have you lost your friggin' mind?"

"What I've lost is my flashlight, and I didn't remember that until it was a little late." As I spoke, I slipped my. 38 out of my coat pocket and returned it to my handbag, a move that Marino did not miss. His mood worsened.

"You know, I don't know what the fuck's your problem. I think you're losing it. Doc. I think it's all caught up with you and you're getting goofy as a shithouse rat. Maybe you're going through the change."

"If I were going through'the change' or anything else so personal and so none-of-your-business, you can rest assured I would not discuss it with you. If for no other reason than your vast male dullness or sensitivity of a fence post-which may or may not be gender related, I have to add, to be fair. Because I wouldn't want to assume that all men are like you. If I did, I know I would give them up entirely."

"Maybe you should."

"Maybe I will!"

"Good! Then you can be just like your bratty niece! Hey. Don't think it ain't obvious which way she swings."

"And that is yet one more thing that isn't your goddam business," I said furiously.

"I can't believe you're stooping so low as to stereotype Lucy, to dehumanize her just because she doesn't make the exact choices you would."

"Oh yeah? Well maybe the problem is that she does makes the exact same choices I would. I date women."

"You don't know the first thing about women," I said, and it occurred to me that the car was an oven and I had no idea where we were going.

I flipped the heat down and glared out my window.

"I know enough about women to know you'd drive anybody crazy. And I can't believe you were out walking around the lake after dark. By yourself. So just what the hell would you have done if he was out there, too?"

"Which he?"

"Goddam I'm hungry. I saw a steakhouse on Tunnel Road when I was up this way earlier. I hope they're still open."

"Marino, it's only six forty-five."

"Why did you go out there?" he asked again, and both of us were calming down.

"Someone left candy on the ground where her body was discovered.

Fireballs. " When he made no reply, I added," The same candy she mentioned in her diary. "

"I don't remember that."

"The boy she had a crush on. I think his name was Wren. She wrote that she had seen him at a church supper and he gave her a Fireball. She saved it in her secret box."

"They never found it."

"Found what?"

"Whatever this secret box was. Denesa couldn't find it either. So maybe Wren left the Fireballs at the lake."

"We need to talk to him," I said.

"It would appear that you and Mrs. Steiner are developing a good rapport. "

"Nothing like this should ever have happened to someone like her."

"Nothing like this should ever happen to anyone."

"I see a Western Sizzler."

"No, thank you."

"How about Bonanza?" He flipped on his turn signal.

"Absolutely not." Marino surveyed brightly lighted restaurants lining Tunnel Road as he smoked another cigarette.

"Doc, no offense, but you've got an attitude."

"Marino, don't bother with the'no offense' preamble. All it does is telegraph that I'm about to be offended."

"I know there's a Peddler around here. I saw it in the Yellow Pages."

"Why were you looking up restaurants in the Yellow Pages?" I puzzled, for I'd always known him to shop for restaurants the same way he did for food. He cruised without a list and took what was easy, cheap, and filling.

"I wanted to see what was in the area in case I wanted something nice.

How about calling so I know how to get there? "

I reached for the car phone and thought of Denesa Steiner, for I was not who Marino had hoped he would be taking to the Peddler this night.

"Marino," I told him quietly.

"Please be careful."

"Don't start in about red meat again."

"That's not what worries me most," I said.

The cemetery behind Third Presbyterian Church was a rolling field of polished granite headstones behind a chain link fence choked with trees. When I arrived at 6:15, dawn bruised the horizon and I could see my breath. Ground spiders had put up their webbed awnings to begin the business of the day, and I respectfully stepped around them as Marino and I walked through wet grass toward Emily Steiner's grave. She was buried in a corner close to woods where the lawn was pleasantly mingled with cornflowers, clover, and Queen Anne's lace.

Her monument was a small marble angel, and to find it we simply followed the scraping noise of shovels digging dirt. A truck with a winch had been left running at the site, and its headlights illuminated the progress of two leathery old men in overalls. Shovels glinted, the surrounding grass bleached of color, and I smelled damp earth as it fell from steel blades to a mound at the foot of the grave. Marino turned on his flashlight, and the tombstone stood in sad relief against the morning, wings folded back and head bent in prayer. The epitaph carved in its base read: There is no other in the World- Mine was the only one

"Jeez. Got any idea what that means?" Marino said close to my ear.

"Maybe we can ask him," I replied as I watched the approach of a startlingly large man with thick white hair. His long dark overcoat flowed around his ankles as he walked, giving the eerie impression from a distance that he was several inches off the ground. When he got to us, I saw he had a Black Watch scarf wrapped around his neck, black leather gloves on his huge hands, and rubbers pulled over his shoes. He was close to seven feet tall, with a torso the size of a barrel.

"I'm Lucias Ray," he said, and enthusiastically shook our hands as we introduced ourselves.

"We were wondering about the significance of the epitaph," I said.

"Mrs. Steiner sure did love her little girl. It's just pitiful," the funeral director said in a thick drawl that sounded more Georgian than North Carolinian.