"Any idea who did it?" asked Karp, feigning an innocent grin. They both grinned, too, but wolfishly, showing a good deal of gold.

"It was an open contract," said Eddie Bent, a generous admission. "It's better to do it like that, you know? Sam was . . ." Here he looked pained and touched his chest.

"A friend?" Karp inquired.

"Yeah. Sam was good people. Not, you know, una bagascia."

"That's a cheap c.u.n.t to you, white man," Guma interjected.

"But he was skimming," said Karp.

Eddie Bent nodded sadly. "He was comfortable, you know? No f.u.c.kin' reason for it at all. He was warned. He was slapped around. f.u.c.k, I slapped him around myself. What can you do, the guy won't listen to reason. What it was-I'll tell you what it was, and this is the sad part. Sam was a soft touch, you know? Guy walks in with a hard story, Sam liked to peel off from his roll. Which is fine, G.o.d bless him. But he was peeling off from our roll, too. He liked to be liked, Sam. Anyway, there's a guy you call in cases like this, been around for years. Everybody uses him. There's maybe a couple three guys in the business like that in the country, it's like a-what d'ya call it, like Con Ed?

"A public utility?" suggested Karp.

"That's right," said Eddie Bent, smiling. "A public utility. No fuss, no muss. The guy walked in here right now, I wouldn't f.u.c.kin' know him from Adam."

Karp did not actually believe this, but did not object. Instead he said, "Funny you should be talking about this stuff. I just talked to Marlene. She said a guy she knew, actually I knew him, too, a union guy, just got whacked the other night. We had dinner with them a little while ago. They killed the whole family: him, his wife, and their little girl, ten or so."

"Ah, s.h.i.t, that's terrible!" said the mafioso. "That's f.u.c.kin' awful."

"Not a professional hit, would you say?"

"Oh, no. No f.u.c.kin' way. A pro, the target just vanishes, he's gone. Unless you're talkin' animals, Colombians, or the c.h.i.n.ks. They do s.h.i.t like that. A union guy, you say?"

"Yeah. In West Virginia."

"Oh, well, West f.u.c.kin' Virginia, you're talkin' amateur hour there. That would definitely be a local thing. I would also say definitely it wasn't us. We're more or less out of that s.h.i.t now, is what I hear."

"And the perp probably not one of those guys you were just talking about, either?"

Eddie Bent gave a contemptuous snort. "Nah, them're cla.s.s guys. And never with a kid, like you was telling us, not a chance. Hey, expensive? Mamma mia! But, like they say, you get what you pay for."

Karp couldn't argue with this. Guma told a few stories about what was being done to him cost, and they all speculated about what he could've bought for the money, had Medicare been into fun stuff. A nurse came in and told them they had to leave in five minutes.

"Yeah," said Guma, "for what these last two months cost, I could have had myself whacked out, what, twice?"

"About there," Eddie Bent agreed. "Fifty grand, a hundred. It depends."

Karp asked, "What did Hoffa go for? Back in the days when you still did unions."

Eddie looked up at the ceiling and smiled. "I'll have to check my tax returns, see what I paid."

"But a guy like you were telling us about, that would be the kind of thing you'd call them in for. An open contract."

"That kind of thing. This one guy I'm thinking of, I mean, they don't give those, what the f.u.c.k, resumes, we did this one, we did that one. No advertising. But if you told me for sure he did Hoffa, I wouldn't f.u.c.kin' fall off my chair. You know what I'm saying?"

After her daily cry session, Lucy washed her face and spent the afternoon running dogs, first Malo and then Gringo, until her body was covered in sweat and dust. The sky was nacreous and seemed to press down heavily on land and sea. She took the twins swimming. Neither of them seemed affected now by what had befallen their late playmate. She tried to keep from resenting the easy amnesia of childhood. She could not shoo from her mind the image of Dan Heeney's face as he held the telephone tightly clenched in his hand.

Back at the farm, the Damicos had arrived with blasting gear, to remove the boulder that blocked the new water line. a.s.sured by this event that the boys would be fixed and fascinated and out of trouble for at least a few hours, Lucy went into the house with the intent of retiring to her room for reading and a nap. Perhaps she might pray, although this had been dry for her recently. At one time, prayer had been able to move her into an alternative state of being, and this had taken the place of much that girls her age considered indispensable to life. The saints, however, had withdrawn. Perhaps that part of her life was closing down; perhaps she would become more like her mother. Thinking this, she shuddered slightly.

As she pa.s.sed through, she noticed that there were messages on the answering machine and played them: her mother, from the City, informing her that she would be staying in town that evening, and issuing instructions for feeding children and animals. Next, several for her: Dr. McGinnis, from MIT, wondering when she would return to Boston, and trying to schedule something for next week; ditto, Drs. Sykes, Omura, Dunn, Salmonson. Lucy was popular in the research community, which held, not without reason, that somewhere between her ears was a clue to one of the major unsolved problems of science-how natural languages are acquired and processed. These demands tended to depress her. She understood that her gift came with responsibilities, but lately these had become more onerous, the demands of the scientists more irritating. Resentfully, she considered transferring to a school far from the centers of science, someplace isolated, West Virginia maybe, ha ha. In any case, she was too tired to return the calls just then, or not exactly tired, but drained. There was no call from Dan Heeney, not that she had really expected one, but that added to the draining.

She went upstairs, removed everything but a halter top and underpants, turned the fan on high, and took up Lockwood's Indo-European Philology, of which she got through two pages before sleep claimed her. From this she was awakened by a dull thump, which shook the bed and raised puffs of dust from the chalky walls. She pulled on shorts and sandals and went outside. Phil Damico was up in the backhoe, using its grab to lift thick steel-mesh mats out of the trench and deposit them neatly in the bed of their truck. She watched the operation for a while and did not object when Phil allowed Zak, delirious with joy, to sit on his lap and tweak the controls.

Later, she prepared supper, a cookout, and invited Billy Ireland to join them, thinking it was unfair to let the scent of grilling meat float around the place without so doing. It was a pleasant meal. She liked Ireland. She thought her mother a fool for flirting with him the way she did and felt no urge to do so herself, although she had to admit that she shared her mother's taste for the bad boys. After eating, they sat at the redwood table in the yard, drinking beer and watching the boys chase fireflies. Ireland told her a long and involved story about his hard life on the wrong side of the law. Meth had been his downfall. He had got hooked and had done some stickups under the influence. Lucy had spent considerable time among the addicted and the down-and-out and knew they loved to retell their former degradation. She listened companionably and was not shocked. Somewhere during this conversation she decided that she would not return to Boston, but spend the summer at the farm. She did not pursue the reasons for this, beyond telling herself that she needed a break from being a lab rat. She did not mind the linguists so much, but the neuro guys were starting to get to her. She knew that in their secret materialist hearts they were dying to dissect.

Marlene drove back to the Island the next day, full of good food and drink, having spent also a night of l.u.s.t that made both her and her husband ask themselves why they did not get away together more often. Against her always upwelling feelings of discontent she counted her blessings: money, a loving husband, health, one eye, money, a body in the early stages of decrepitude-up a whole size since college-a large number of ugly, fierce dogs, three lovely mutant, peculiar kids not as ruined as they might have been by exposure to violence when young, but who knew?; an amusing and distracting business, but distracting her from what? Yes, that was sort of the problem now, wasn't it? Marlene had reached the age where she no longer thought either love or friendship would save her, that the decades of her career would not make her mark on the world. The children, of course-the children still needed her, the twins anyhow, Lucy hadn't needed her since age seven, what with her constant commerce with G.o.d and all the saints, but even the twins wouldn't need her for long. Already Zak was squirming away when she hugged him and tried to sniff his hair. Giancarlo was more patient, of course, but she could feel that he was suffering her intimacies as a favor, not because he needed them anymore. Empty-nest syndrome? Not likely, as she had never been much of a nester when it had been chock-full. So what was it, this niggling feeling, this tendency to snap, to be bored with the stuff of daily life?

"What is it, dog? a.n.a.lyze me. What should I do with the pathetic tag end of my life? Do I want to run a corporation? Tried that. Private eye? Tried that. Lawyer? Yeah, but only certain kinds of cases, and even then, do I really want to get into that dusty pit with Butch? Doing good? I gave all my money to the Church. Should I also make soup and visit smelly old people, in compet.i.tion with my daughter? No, thank you. So what?" She nudged the dog. "So? Give me some advice-are you my best friend or not?"

The dog raised its great head and stared at her. It said, maybe it's been too long since you felt the bones of your enemies crunch between your jaws and tasted the rich tang of their blood.

"Oh, right," she snapped, "that's what you always say."

"Really?" said Marlene when Lucy told her the changed plans. "I thought you had all kinds of stuff they wanted you to do in Boston."

Lucy made a sour face. "Yes, but I don't want to do it. I decided to play hooky. Let there be wailing and gnashing of teeth up and down the river Charles!"

Marlene registered mock surprise. "Lucy! You're being bad? Oh, come to my arms! You are my little girl after all!"

"Cut it out, Mom," Lucy said as her mother enveloped her in a theatrical hug. "So, is it all right? I mean, I could work. I could finish Malo and Gringo."

"No, don't be silly-I mean, you live here, just as much as the twins do. I'm delighted, to tell the truth. If you're here with the boys, it'll free me up to do some things. We'll have a nice time."

"We won't snap and snarl at each other, will we?"

"Of course not, darling," said Marlene in a sugary voice. "As long as you don't oppose me in any way and antic.i.p.ate my every need, we'll get along fine."

"I mean seriously."

"Seriously? What can I say, baby? I love you. I realize I get on your nerves sometimes, and I accept that most of it's my fault. I'm not an easy person to get along with."

"Well, you're not boring anyway," said Lucy, not wanting just at the moment to pursue the subject of why Marlene was hard to like. "What things?"

"Excuse me?"

"The things you said me being here to watch the boys would free you up for."

"Oh, you know . . . things," said Marlene airily, and then Billy Ireland had to see her about something and the moment pa.s.sed.

As did the next ten days, amid the welter of ordinary life. The water line was completed, hose was laid, the vegetables therefore flourished in the face of unrelenting heat, and those parts of kennel life that depend on plentiful water became easier. The b.i.t.c.h Magog emerged from her confinement stiff and blinking and coursed around the exercise field with her mate and with Lucy, whose special dog she had always been. The puppies, remarkable for st.u.r.diness, curiosity, and hideousness, were everywhere underfoot. Ads were placed; people came in expensive vehicles to look them over. On these occasions, Marlene demonstrated with Gog what a 210-pound Kohler-method guard dog looks like in action. She had added a few personal fillips to the standard training, in one of which Gog knocked his agitator to the ground and, on command, ripped his b.a.l.l.s off, in fact, a brace of handb.a.l.l.s sewn into a leather bag and attached with Velcro to the crotch of Russell's padded overalls. This always drew gasps of amazement and a pattering of applause from the ladies attending. Magog, who was actually a bit brighter than her old man, also demonstrated the location of personal objects, her forte.

Lucy got her trainees to float on the end of a lead with hardly a tug, to sit, to lie down, to stay. With the aid of a live wire from a fence charger, she taught them what every guard dog must learn: not to eat food except from their bowls. ( Zzzzzt! Howl!) Lucy did not mind doing this in the least. She was tenderhearted, but not sentimental. GC harvested early tomatoes and young, tender lettuces. Zak shot three rats and a particularly stupid crow.

Lucy happened to be in the office when the phone call that ended all this arrived. It was Dan Heeney on the line. She felt her heart unexpectedly lift when she heard his voice and cruelly fall when he asked bluntly, "Is your mom there?"

"Sure, she's around. How are you?"

"Fine. Okay, I guess. Getting along."

"Wow, that's vivid. It really gives a precise word-picture of your mental and emotional state."

"Lucy, I really have to talk to your mom." Now she heard the tension in his voice and said sure, she'd go get her, and did.

When Marlene came on the line, he did not pause for pleasantries with her, either.

"Why I'm calling, ma'am, I mean bothering you, is you said, if there was anything you could do . . ."

"Sure. If you call me Marlene instead of ma'am, I'm at your service. What's up?"

"Okay. Well, Emmett doesn't know I'm calling. I mean maybe this is crazy."

"What is?"

"I mean . . . okay, they arrested this guy for the murders?"

"Good. I'm glad. Who was it?"

"A guy named Moses Welch. He lives down in Fairless Holler, about three miles from our place. Mom used to give him odd jobs, like hauling stuff, digging the garden, like that. He's about Emmett's age, a couple of years older."

"How did they find him?"

"From his shoes. He had blood all over these yellow boots he was wearing, spatters and along the sole. He was in town and someone noticed and told the cops, and they went and picked him up. It was human blood and the right kind. When the tests came back from the state lab in Charleston, they charged him."

"And . . . ?"

"Well, it's crazy. Moses Welch didn't kill my family. Moses Welch can hardly drive a car. He's got an IQ of about twenty. He wouldn't know which end of a gun to point."

"So how did he get their blood on his shoes?"

"They weren't his shoes. He said he found them under the bridge over the Guyandotte. Almost new shoes. He thought it was paint on them."

"And you believe him?"

"Well, yeah! The guys who really did it tossed them over the bridge and he found them."

"And the cops don't buy that?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, ma'am . . . I mean Marlene-we don't have any real cops here. We got J. J. Swett. He's been the sheriff for about a hundred years and he's got a total of six officers, and none of them can tell their sorry b.u.t.ts from a hole in the ground. Besides, all of them are in with Weames or the coal company."

"Weames is the man your father was running against."

"And he beat him, too. Emmett did an exit poll after the election; Dad won by ten points. Then Weames announces the results, and of course he said he won. Dad was going to bring DOL into the election to investigate. That's why Weames killed him. Or had it done."

"You sound pretty sure about this."

"Well, h.e.l.l, I didn't need to go to d.a.m.n MIT to figure that out," said Dan, his voice grating and loud over the phone. "One-he threatened Dad; two-he knew he was going to go down if there was an investigation of the election; and three-it wasn't some d.a.m.n r.e.t.a.r.d that did this."

"Is that what Emmett thinks?"

"Oh, yeah. Except he thinks he's going to find out who did it and kill them himself. That's why I need your help. Could you come here? My mom told me . . . I mean about what you used to do, and you're a lawyer, too. Moses got a lawyer, but he's a joke, the courthouse drunk. He can't defend anyone on a murder charge. We've got some money from the insurance. We could pay you . . ."

"Hold on a second. You want me to defend this man, this suspect in your family's murders?"

"Well, yeah, to start with. If they convict him, h.e.l.l, it's all over. No one will ever look at the thing again, not in Robbens County, anyway. And then after you get him off . . . well, you know, find out who did it."

"Find out . . . ?" exclaimed Marlene incredulously. "Okay, look, Dan-I appreciate that you have a problem there, but first of all, I am not licensed to practice law in West Virginia. Second-"

"You went to Delaware. My mom told me about that girl who killed her baby."

"She didn't kill her baby. And that was different. I had a local cocounsel and-"

"Well, you'd have Ernie Poole, wouldn't you?"

"Who?"

"The fella who's defending Moses now."

"The drunk? Oh, thank you very much! Second, as I was saying, in the real world, as opposed to books and movies, crimes are solved by the cops, not by private investigators. I can't just drop into a strange part of the country, ask a few pointed questions, beat up some villains, and come out with the answer. It don't work that way. A triple-murder investigation is a big, big operation."

"You have to come," cried Dan, his voice breaking. "I haven't got anybody else. Everyone around here is too scared now, or bought out by the company or Weames. And Emmett is drinking and talking big about going over to Weames or one of his people and beating the truth out of them, and he's going to get killed, too, and he's all I've got left in the world." Heavy breathing, then stifled sobs.

Marlene sighed and rolled her eyes upward. Lucy, who had not gone far, asked, "What's wrong?"

Marlene put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, "He wants me to go down there and . . . Okay, Dan, calm down. Get hold of yourself! Look, here's what I think you should do." She paused there. What should he do? She had no idea, except maybe not to have called, not to have had a mother who struck up a conversation on a Long Island beach with a woman who should have known better than to blather on about her colorful past, and then gotten herself killed in some G.o.dforsaken hole in West . . . No, that was the wrong line of thought. The question was, what should she do? Marlene felt Lucy's eyes on her.

"What I think you should do," Marlene resumed, "is get your drunk lawyer friend to hand you copies of all the paper he's got on the case, as complete a record as he can-arrest reports, evidence reports, whatever. I'll need to look at all that. Where are you guys staying now?"

"At our house . . . Wait, does that mean you're coming?"

"At your house?" cried Marlene. "You're living in the crime scene?"

"Uh-huh. It's our house. They took all the, you know, the murder evidence out. And we hired a couple of women to clean it up and paint and all."

"Oh, great!"

"What's wrong? Did we make a mistake?"

"Oh, no, it's not your fault-but just so you know, in the regular world, crime scenes are usually sealed for a considerable time. Sometimes even until the trial. I've known defense lawyers and prosecutors to actually tour a jury through a preserved crime scene. Well, it doesn't matter now."

"But you're coming, right?"

She blew out a long breath. "Yeah, I guess. Hang in there, kid. And try to keep your brother from doing something stupid." After a few more similar encouraging ba.n.a.lities and a brief logistical discussion, she hung up.

"Speaking of stupid," she said to the air.

Lucy was almost trembling with frustration. "Mah-umm! What is going on?"