"Providence throbs?"

"Daily."

"I haven't noticed any throbbing."

A thought popped into my head, but I suppressed it before it escaped. Instead, I said, "Buddy Guy's from Chicago, too."

"Actually, he was born in Louisiana."

"Well, yeah. But his club's in Chicago."

"Before I moved here," she said, "I used to hang out at his joint all the time. Don't hear music like that anywhere else. Sometimes Buddy even showed up to jam."

"You're talking about Legends," I said.

"d.a.m.n straight." She eyed the colossal coffee stain. "Maybe you're smarter than you look."

"I'd almost have to be."

She smiled at that, but part of her was still in Chicago. "The chitlins and cornbread at Legends were as good as my mama's."

I'd never met a chitlin, but it seemed unwise to bring that up. Instead, I played another card.

"My favorite poet's from Chicago. She's West Side, just like you."

"Gwendolyn Brooks?"

"Patricia Smith."

Yolanda looked skeptical, so I tossed out a few lines: I always shudder when I pray, so your name must be a prayer.

Saying your name colors my mouth, frees loose this river, changes my skin, turns my spine to string. I pray all the time now.

Amen.

"My, my," she said. "Aren't you full of surprises. What next? Maybe warble a verse or two of 'Lift Every Voice and Sing'?"

"I can if you want me to," I said, "but Claus would ask us to leave."

"Better wait till we finish dessert."

"You know," I said, "Patricia reads in Boston every now and then. Next time, we should go see her."

"Got a thing for sistas from Chi-Town, do you?"

"Just two of them."

"Maybe you should ask her out."

"She's married."

"So are you, last heard."

"Yeah, but mine's all over except for the lawyering."

She thought about that for a moment while I idly compared her with Dorcas and almost laughed out loud.

"So Buddy Guy's in Boston next week," she said.

"Yes, he is."

"Buddy's no joke."

"And I have two tickets."

"Okay, let's do this."

"Great."

"But we're just going together. We're not goin' together."

"Of course not."

"So you better keep that mouth and those hands to yourself."

Not the final disposition of the case, I hoped. After a change of venue, perhaps she might entertain a plea bargain.

18.

I was on my way back to the office when Peggi called.

"I didn't find anything weird on his desktop," she said.

"What about the laptop?"

"He left it behind when he headed out a few minutes ago for a meeting at the Rhode Island Hospital. I've got it open in front of me, but it's pa.s.sword protected."

"Try his birthday?"

"Yeah. Forward and backward. Also tried his wedding anniversary, his wife's name, his kids' names, his dog's name, and all their birthdays. Except for the dog's. I don't know that one."

"Well, it's not something random," I said. "He would have picked a name or number that means something him. Does he have a boat?"

"Yeah. The Caped Crusader. I tried it already."

"His wife's maiden name?"

"Tried it."

"Siblings?"

"Tried them, too."

"Parents' names?"

"Don't know what they were."

"What about his middle name?"

"It's Bruce. Already tried it."

"Charles Bruce Wayne?"

"Yeah."

"That explains the boat. Try 'Batman.'"

She chuckled and said, "Didn't think of that.... Nope. Doesn't work.... Hold on a sec." She put down the phone, and it was several minutes before she picked it up again. "I tried Robin, Batgirl, Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Commissioner Gordon, Gotham, and Batmobile. None of them worked."

"Try Alfred."

"Oh, right. The butler.... Nope."

"Dark Knight?"

"Bingo! I'll go through his files and call you back."

An hour later, she did.

"I didn't find any videos at all," she said. "He must keep them on a home computer, or maybe a portable hard drive."

"Or maybe I was mistaken, Peggi. Go home, cuddle with Brady, and try to forget the whole thing."

19.

A state police cruiser, its lights flashing, had the entrance to the driveway blocked, so I pulled off the country road and parked Secretariat in weeds beside a rusted barbed-wire fence. Gloria Costa and I had smelled pig excrement a half mile down the road, and as we got out of the car, it was all we could do not to retch.

"Scalici lives here?" Gloria asked.

"He does. With his wife and two young daughters."

"How do they stand it?"

"I don't know. Guess they've gotten used to it."

I fired up a cigar, and Gloria gave me a dirty look.

"That," she said, "isn't helping the situation any."

"Is for me," I said.

Gloria, one of the Dispatch's few remaining photographers, had lost some weight during her comeback from a vicious a.s.sault last year. Her emotional recovery was still a work in progress, but physically she looked strong now, with curves reemerging in all the right places. Except for the black, pirate-style patch over her right eye, she resembled a young Sharon Stone.

"They gave me a gla.s.s eye, but I think it makes me look deranged," she'd told me. I told her the eye patch was hot. I would have been tempted if I didn't know Gloria had started seeing somebody-and if I weren't looking to lawyer up.

Gloria was the best one-eyed photographer I knew, better than most shooters with two. I opened the back of the Bronco, and she fetched her camera bag. Cops can be squeamish about citizens carrying concealed weapons, so I left the Colt locked in the glove box.

As we approached the driveway, a trooper rolled down the window of the cruiser, looked us up and down, and said, "The Dispatch, right?"

"Right."

"The captain figured you'd show. Said you should go up to the house and ring the bell."

Halfway up the long gravel driveway, we veered away from the house and slogged across a muddy field toward the hog pens. There, three grim detectives wearing rubber boots and plastic gloves were pawing through an SUV-size mound of garbage. On the ground beside them, a sky-blue tarp had been spread on the ground. In the middle of the tarp, a small lump.

"Hey, Sully," I shouted over the grunts and squeals from nine hundred tons of breakfast meat on the hoof. "Hope that isn't what it looks like."

"Mulligan? You're not supposed to be here," he shouted back. "The captain said to send you up to the house."

"Okay."

"And tell your photographer to stop taking pictures."

Gloria dropped her camera, letting it dangle from its strap while I inquired about the well-being of Sergeant Sullivan's wife and kids. That gave her time to shoot from the hip, sneaking in a few more frames. When she nodded that she was ready, we turned and walked toward the white-shingled two-story house. A few curled brown leaves clung to the red oak that shaded Cosmo's porch in summer.

"Your photographer?" Gloria said. "I hate that. Just once, I'd like to hear you addressed as my reporter."

We stepped onto the wide farmer's porch and wiped our muddy feet on the Three Little Pigs welcome mat. Gloria stretched out a finger to poke the bell.

"Hold on," I said.

"What?"

"Let's see if we can learn something first."

Captain Parisi's m.u.f.fled voice leaked through the door, but I couldn't make out his words over the symphony of the swine. They butchered the vocals to Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" and segued into a raucous, off-key rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." But whatever Parisi was saying pushed the pig farmer's b.u.t.tons.