"Exposure to extreme heat that would have escalated decomposition," I replied.

"Well, that's not going to be it."

"Or an error," I added.

"Can you check it out?"

I nodded.

"Doc Jenrette thinks the bullet in her brain killed her instantly," Ferguson announced.

"Seems to me you get killed instantly and there's not going to be any vital reaction."

"The problem," I explained, "is this injury to her brain should not have been instantly fatal."

"How long could she have survived with it?" Mote wanted to know.

"Hours," I replied.

"Other possibilities?" Wesley said to me.

"Commotio cerebri. It's like an electrical short circuit-you get a bang on the head, die instantly, and we can't find much if any injury." I paused.

"Or it could be that all of her injuries are postmortem, including the gunshot wound." Everybody let that sink in for a moment. Marino's coffee cup was a small pile of Styrofoam snow, the ashtray in front of him littered with wadded gum wrappers. He said, "You find anything to indicate maybe she was smothered first?"

I told him I had not.

He began clicking his ballpoint pen open and shut.

"Let's talk about her family some more. What do we know about the father besides he's deceased?"

"He was a teacher at Broad River Christian Academy in Swannanoa."

"Same place Emily went?"

"Nope. She went to the public elementary school in Black Mountain. Her daddy died about a year ago," Mote added.

"I noticed that," I said.

"His name was Charles?" Mote nodded.

"What was his cause of death?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. But it was natural."

Ferguson added, "He had a heart condition." Wesley got up and moved to the white board

"Okay." He uncapped a black Magic Marker and began writing.

"Let's go over the details. Victim's from a middle-class family, white, age eleven, last seen by her peers around six o'clock in the afternoon of October 1 when she walked home alone from a church meeting. On this occasion, she took a shortcut, a path that follows the shore of Lake Tomahawk, a small man-made lake.

"If you look at your map, you'll see there is a clubhouse on the north end of the lake and a public pool, both of which are open only in the summer. Over here you've got tennis courts and a picnic area that are available year-round. According to the mother, Emily arrived home shortly after six-thirty. She went straight to her room and practiced guitar until dinner."

"Did Mrs. Steiner say what Emily ate that night?" I asked the group.

"She told me they had macaroni and cheese and salad," Ferguson said.

"At what time?" According to the autopsy report, Emily's stomach contents consisted of a small amount of brownish fluid.

"Around seven-thirty in the evening is what she told me."

"That would have been digested by the time she was kidnapped at two in the morning?"

"Yes," I said.

"It would have cleared her stomach long before then."

"It could be that she wasn't given much in the way of food and water while held in captivity."

"Thus accounting for her high sodium, her possible dehydration?" Wesley asked me.

"That's certainly possible."

He wrote some more.

"There's no alarm system in the house, no dog."

"Do we know if anything was stolen?"

"Maybe some clothes."

"Whose?"

"Maybe the mother's. While she was taped up in the closet, she thought she heard him opening drawers."

"If so, he was right tidy. She also said she couldn't tell if anything was missing or disturbed."

"What did the father teach? Did we get to that?"

"Bible."

"Broad River's one of these fundamentalist places. The kids start the day singing" Sin Shall Not Have Dominion Over Me. "

"No kidding."

"I'm serious as a heart attack."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, they talk about Him a lot, too."

"Maybe they could do something with my grandson."

"Shit, Hershel, nobody could do nothing with your grandson because you spoil him rotten. How many minibikes he's got now? Three?" I spoke again.

"I'd like to know more about Emily's family. I assume they are religious."

"Very much so."

"Any other siblings?"

Lieutenant Mote took a deep, weary breath.

"That's what's really sad about this one. There was a baby some years back, a crib death."

"Was this also in Black Mountain?" I asked.

"No, ma'am. It was before the Steiners moved to the area. They're from California. You know, we got folks from all over." Ferguson added, "A lot of foreigners head to our hills to retire, vacation, attend religious conventions. Shit, if I had a nickel for every Baptist I wouldn't be sitting here."

I glanced at Marino. His anger was as palpable as heat, his face boiled red.

"Just the kind of place Gault would get off on. The folks there read all the big stories about the son of a bitch in People magazine, The National Enquirer, Parade. But it never enters no one's mind the squirrel might come to town. To them he's Frankenstein. He don't really exist."

"Don't forget they did that TV movie on him, too," Mote spoke again.

"When was that?" Ferguson scowled.

"Last summer. Captain Marino told me. I don't recollect the actor's name, but he's been in a lot of those Termination movies. Isn't that right?"

Marino didn't care. His private posse was thundering through the air.

"I think the son of a bitch's still there." He pushed his chair back and added another wad of gum to the ashtray.

"Anything's possible," Wesley said matter-of factly

"Well." Mote cleared his throat.

"Whatever you boys want to do to help out would be mighty appreciated."

Wesley glanced at his watch.

"Pete, you want to cut the lights again? I thought we'd run through these earlier cases, show our two visitors from North Carolina how Gault spent his time in Virginia."

For the next hour horrors flashed in the dark like disjointed scenes from some of my very worst dreams. Ferguson and Mote never took their wide eyes off the screen. They did not say a word. I did not see them blink.

Beyond windows in the boardroom plump groundhogs sunned themselves on the grass as I ate salad and Marino scraped the last trace of the fried chicken special off his plate.

The sky was faded denim blue, trees hinting of how brightly they would burn when fall reached its peak. In a way I envied Marino. The physical demands of his week would almost seem a relief compared to what waited for me, perched darkly over me, like a huge insatiable bird.

"Lucy's hoping you'll find time to do some shooting with her while you're here," I said

"Depends on if her manners have improved, " Marino pushed his tray away.

"Funny, that's what she usually says about you."

He knocked a cigarette out of his pack. "You Mind?"

"It doesn't matter because you're going to smoke anyway."

"You never give a fella any credit, Doc." The cigarette wagged as he talked.

"It's not like I haven't cut back." He fired up his lighter.

"Tell the truth. You think about smoking every minute."

"You're right. Not a minute goes by that I don't wonder how I stood doing anything so unpleasant and antisocial."

"Bullshit. You miss it like hell. Right now you wish you was me." He exhaled a stream of smoke and gazed out the window.

"One day this entire joint's going to end up a sinkhole because of these friggin' groundhogs."

"Why would Gault have gone to western North Carolina?" I asked.

"Why the hell would he go anywhere?" Marino's eyes got hard.

"You ask any question about that son of a bitch and the answer's the same.

Because he felt like it. And he ain't gonna stop with the Steiner girl.