I wish that my father had lived to witness this overpowering moment. The jeep moves crisply along the trimmed greensward. I look toward Bond Hall, where I had taken my chemistry and physics classes early in my Citadel career. Turning sharply left, the jeep passes the Battery salute team, then veers left again as we pass T Company, and then our old Company Romeo, who give Ike a scream of pride in his passage. Because it is Romeo, Ike, Niles, and I are all allowed to salute the company that had escorted us toward manhood. In front of the entire Citadel family, we inspect the whole Corps of Cadets, who appear surpassingly well drilled to me. The jeep drops us off at the general's box, and Niles and I return to our seats, but not before we embrace and thank our roommate on one of the best days of all our lives.

Then the Corps passes in review, in beautiful, faultless order, in the glory of the companies and the cadenced precision and bright flutter of battalions on the march-it is all surreal and disciplined and perfectly choreographed, and the parade goes off without a hitch. Only later do we learn that every person at the parade that day had been in grave and mortal danger.

The following Monday, I finish writing a column about Ike's swearing-in ceremony and the full-dress parade in his honor. I read over the words I'd written in praise of Ike, and somehow they feel inadequate. I brighten a sentence here and tone one down there, striking a middle ground that contains the seeds of both gravitas and humor. I read it again with a critical eye and decide that it will do.

I take the column out to the newsroom and hand it over to Kitty Mahoney, who had been hired on as my assistant the same day I became a daily columnist. She possesses a Catholic schoolgirl's brilliance in grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and she edits my work with a critical eye for pretension or overstatement. She is one of the crown jewels in my life, and we are both lucky enough to know it.

"Hey, Kitty," I say. "Another masterpiece. I don't know how I do it every day. Could you cut it to shreds, change every single word of it, then sign my name when you finish your butchering of my flawless prose?"

"Be a pleasure, Leo," she says. "Since you're writing about Ike, I can already smell the sentimentality."

"You're a hard woman, Mahoney."

Kitty's phone rings and I watch as she listens to a voice I don't recognize, but I see the alarm in her eyes. She puts the caller on hold. "This guy wants to talk to you, Leo, but won't identify himself."

"You know the rules. He doesn't give his name, I don't take his call."

"He says you'll want to talk to him," Kitty says. "He says to remind you of sad smiley faces."

I ask in a whisper, "Do you have a recording device on your phone?" She nods. "Can you still do shorthand?"

"It's like riding a bicycle."

"Then record this call-and take it down in shorthand," I say, sprinting across the newsroom to my office. I catch control of my breathing before I push the lit-up button and pick up the receiver.

"Hey, Toad," the voice offers immediately, in oily familiarity. "Long time, no see. The last time was in Frisco. I believe you had a pistol pointing at me on Union Street."

"I get a hard-on when I think of putting that gun to your head, Mr. Poe," I say. "I hope to get the chance again sometime."

"Name ain't Poe, friend. Never has been. It's not the twins' name, either. Nor their mother's."

"Let's do lunch."

The man laughs and it is the normal, relaxed laugh of a man with a working sense of humor, not the madman of my nightmares.

"I've got to talk fast, Toad. I'm killing you first. Then Niles. Then Ike. I'm saving the twins for dessert."

"I should be easy," I say. "Ike and Niles may prove a problem."

"Like shooting cabbage in a field," he rejoins with a laugh. "Yesterday, I had all three of you in the crosshairs, out taking your joyride in the jeep. I thought about taking out the regimental staff just to let them know I was back in town."

"The Citadel gets nervous about guys with rifles roaming the campus," I say. "I don't believe you."

"The eagle on top of Bond Hall? No one's on duty there during parade."

"There's an eagle on top of Bond Hall?"

"I was going to put a bullet through your brain, then had a better idea," he says. "I thought it'd be more fun to let you know you're being hunted."

"You're known for your sense of fun, Mr. Poe. We talk about it all the time. When did you know you were a pedophile?"

"My name ain't Poe," he snaps. "And I'm not a pedophile. I don't care what my kids say."

"Pedophile is about the nicest thing they say about you. And just for the record, did you enjoy screwing Sheba or Trevor the best? You started in on them when they were five. Or at least that's what my notes say."

"Hide your house key better, Toad," he rejoins, his tone no longer bantering, but menacing and foul. "I paid you a visit last night and watched my faggot son sleeping in the guest bedroom. Check your china. See you soon. Sweet dreams, Toad."

The voice, the threat, and then the secret man hangs up. I am drenched in sweat when Kitty bursts through the door and says, "I got it all. Word for word. Shorthand and on tape. Jesus Christ, what've you gotten yourself into, Toad?"

"Mahoney, never forget about your inferior status at this newspaper. You are a lowly secretary who is expected to call me Mr. King in a voice of reverence. I'm a godlike figure in the newsroom, revered in this great city."

"Fuck you, Toad," she says. "What've you got yourself into? That sounded like Count Dracula on the phone."

"Give me that tape," I say. I place a call to the new police chief and relate the conversation before handing the phone to Kitty so she can read him her notes. Then I race down the stairway to my car in the parking lot. I travel down Meeting Street at a breakneck, reckless speed, hoping to attract the attention of a city cop, but all I get are middle fingers shot at me from endangered tourists. When I reach Tradd Street, there are two police cars already there with cops searching the premises. Molly had let them into the house. I forgot it was her day to sit on guard duty, watching over Trevor.

I take her out to the garden, and am whispering the news of Mr. Poe's return when Ike joins us, his gait quick and harassed, and asks me to go over the details of the conversation, one word at a time. Instead, I motion for them to follow me into the house, to my den on the second floor, where I pop the tape in the recorder I keep in my home office and press play. Molly listens with horror, Ike with care, periodically scribbling notes to himself.

The phone rings, and I lift the receiver to my ear. "It's for you, Chief," I say. He takes the phone and listens with that same controlled intensity that I had originally noted on the football field. When he hangs up the phone, he looks thoughtful, but aggravated. "One of my guys found three cartridges on the roof of Bond Hall. No fingerprints, of course, but they were shells from a sniper's rifle. Where's your china, Toad?"

"In the dining room."

"Let's have a look."

"This is Charleston," Molly says. "This isn't a New York movie. Stuff like this doesn't happen here."

"You'd be surprised what happens here," Ike tells her as we go down the stairs.

"Not to people like us, Ike," she insists.

In the den, I open up the secretary where I keep Harrington Canon's finest china. I start lifting the light and delicate pieces of Rose Canton, which had become one of my favorites of the three complete sets that he had bequeathed me. But Ike interrupts to make me wear thin latex gloves. He too puts on a pair as I begin to inspect the china, one piece at a time. As I turn over the first dinner plate, I see it immediately. Molly lets out a small shriek of surprise as she spots it-the tearstained smiley face-knowing the history of that appalling signature.

"He's got your key, Toad," Ike says, looking grim. "It's lock-changing time. You know who to call."

I look up locksmiths in the yellow pages and dial the number next to Ledbetter's Lock and Security Company. A familiar voice answers and I tell it, "I'd like to speak with the owner-the dumbest, meanest, sorriest excuse for a redneck white boy I ever saw in my life."

"You got him. How you doing, Toad?" asks Wormy Ledbetter.

"Got a big problem," I tell him. "Had an intruder last night. Need to get all my locks changed."

"You got a security system?" Wormy asks.

"An old one. Think it's time for a change?"

"Damn right. And I got one. State of the art. Goes off if somebody farts in the rosebushes."

"Put it in, son," I say. "And when you finish here, how about doing the same thing to Sheba Poe's mother's home?"

"I'll do it for free if Sheba wears a bikini while I'm installing it."

"Consider it done," I say.

"I'll get all my guys over at your house right now," Wormy promises. "We'll get it done if we have to work all night. I'm gonna charge you twice what I usually do, Toad."

"Anything else would be an insult," I tell him. "And Wormy-thanks."

A policewoman comes in when I'm done and hands a note to Ike, who reads it with some puzzlement before he reads it to us: "A cadet named Tom Wilson skipped Friday's parade, but watched it from the roof of the fourth battalion. In the middle of the parade, he spotted a man walking across the roof of Bond Hall. The two men waved to each other. The odd thing to young Wilson was the man carried a golf bag full of clubs."

Ike ponders the note several moments, his brow wrinkled with concern. He tries to frame the words, then says to me, "Toad, here's what bothers me. And it really bothers me. Why is this guy telling you the truth?"

Molly surprises me by answering. "He's instilling the fear of God in all of us. He's ruining our everyday lives, and he knows it. He wants to punish us, all of us, for loving his children."

CHAPTER 26.

Evil Genius.

The city of palms and tea olive and unseen gardens turns overnight into a place of galvanic nightmare. The narrow streets with their houses riding sidesaddle, which have always brought me comfort and pleasure, now make me shiver with apprehension. Water oaks frame themselves into ogres, and Spanish moss appears as hang knots. Crepe myrtles come disguised as the bones of dead men. Though I have always loved Charleston at night, it now assumes an incurably sinister cast when the sun sets in the west. I wouldn't have gone for a walk beneath the streetlamps for the promise of either wealth or beauty, nor stepped foot in any of its storied alleys. Without my knowledge, Charleston has put on a grotesque mask that fate designed when an Atlas moving van pulled up to a house across my street more than twenty years ago.

Wormy and his crew of locksmiths descend on my house. Wormy promises both of us he will not leave my house till I return. It surprises me to see how solicitous and gentle Wormy is with Trevor. With genuine feeling, he recalls the talent show in high school when Trevor played the piano and Sheba sang "Lili Marlene," and, as Wormy phrased it, "blew the fucking socks off that school." Ike and I leave the house with the sweet noise of men working with tools sounding out on every floor. Ike waves to the cop he placed on duty in front of my place. When we drive past Niles and Fraser's house, Ike rolls down his window to talk with the cop he assigned to protect the Whitehead family.

Two squad cars are parked in Sheba's mother's driveway as we pull in front of the house. Sheba rushes out to greet us. "I've had a rough day with the Bride of Frankenstein. It's great to see you boys. The worst thing about this job is being bored off my ass."

"Don't throw open the door like that again," Ike orders her. "Your daddy's in town."

Inside, Ike strides through the house, untying the draperies of every window on the first floor, and instructing me to do the same upstairs, where I find Evangeline Poe sitting in a recliner beside her bed, vacant and unresponsive. Ike brings Sheba to her room and delivers a brief thumbnail sketch of the day's highlights. When he begins to play the tape, the uncommunicative Evangeline goes berserk at the sound of her husband's voice. Her shriek is unworldly and haglike, and loud enough to draw the attention of two cops on duty in the squad cars outside.

Sheba shuts off the tape recorder in an instant, and her mother is restored to the baffled vacancy that will be her natural dwelling place forever. When Sheba takes her by the arm to lead her to bed, she tries to bite her daughter, lunging like a dog at Sheba's arms and face. With surprising nimbleness, Sheba holds her mother at bay and succeeds in calming her down, then walks her to the bed to lay her down for the night, sending Ike and me downstairs to wait.

Fifteen minutes later, she returns to the living room with a bottle of Chardonnay, and pours each of us a glass. "I'm going to have to take a course in kung fu if she gets any meaner."

"She's a handful," Ike agrees.

"Mom tried to put my eyeball out with a bobby pin the other day," Sheba says. "So no more bobby pins. She hid the scissors under her pillow. I have to put her down a couple times a day, like a cop with a perp."

"Was that your dad's voice you heard on the tape?" I ask.

"No. It's Satan's voice. But unfortunately for me and Trevor and my mom, it's also my father. If you listen well and you're an actor and know about these things-it's his voice. It's a bottomless evil. I don't know a single actor who could pull it off."

She begins to weep when Ike plays the tape in full, as her father's demonical voice lays waste to the air around us. The menace in his undertones could throw a scare into a highland gorilla. It paralyzes me as I watch its effect on his daughter and study Ike's worried and careworn gaze. But when Ike reaches over and hugs Sheba when the tape is over, his calmness and professionalism is bracing.

"What can you tell us from the tape?" Ike asks her.

She shrugs. "That he's lost all control of himself. Control used to be his strength. He could push you to the point of breaking, then pull back. He would go from killer to lover of all mankind in a single breath. But he prided himself on his utter mastery of every situation. Now he's aiming his rifle at a bunch of kids at a parade. He's gone. He's finished. He's toast. Bye-bye, Dad."

"Do you have any pictures of your father?" Ike asks. "Any documents or birth certificates or anything that can help us get him?"

"Nothing. I've looked through all of Mom's things. There's nothing. Mother named me Sheba the day we escaped Oregon. The year we finally got away, I was Nancy. Trevor was Bobby. Or maybe he was Henry that year. Trevor was Clarence one year, and he hated it. When I was about six, Dad named me Beulah," she says, wrinkling her nose at the memory in a way that makes her look young and vulnerable.

"What perfect training for an actress," I say.

"I've been playing make-believe since the day I was born," she says with a small smile. "You get good at pretending you're other people, in other places, living with someone like my father."

"Well, you can't stay here alone," I tell her. "Pack your things, and your mother's. Both of you can stay with me."

"Isn't my fiance a sweetie?" she asks Ike. "What did I do to deserve a man like this?"

"I'm not your damn fiance," I tell her. "Quit playing around and get serious, Sheba. The guy on that tape's a fruitcake. And he has a rifle. You are not safe here."

"My dad may be crazy, but he's crazy like a fox," she says with another shrug. "He didn't like jail time, obviously. He won't make a move with those cop cars parked outside. Besides, I can't bring my mother to your house, Leo, or anywhere else. I've just gotten her settled down."

"Let's sleep on this," Ike suggests. "I need to come up with a plan. I'm beginning to think this cat may be smarter than all of us."

"He's an evil genius," Sheba says. "But a genius nevertheless. When's my lovable bodyguard getting here? If that guy doesn't scare the bejesus out of my old man, then it can't be done."

"Betty's picking Macklin up at the airport on Monday," Ike tells her. "The director of the school told me Macklin's the pick of the litter. Tops in his class."

"Can't believe I'll be glad when he gets here. I cleaned out the basement room for him this morning."

Before we leave, I give it one more try, but Sheba won't budge, unable to deal with the idea of moving Evangeline. Ike and I drive back to my house in a stoic, uneasy silence. The day has exhausted and terrified me. I have no particular gift for courage, and I don't mind sharing that juicy fact with anyone. Wormy is waiting for us, sitting on the curb, talking to the on-duty cop as we drive up. He comes ponderously to his feet to give us a hug. He tells us to take care of Trevor, and promises to kill anyone who touches a hair on the head of anybody he'd loved in high school. He says he wants to read about himself and his company in my column, and I give him my word of honor.

"I'll do Mrs. Poe's house in the morning," he says as he climbs into his truck. "I moved it up on my calendar. Just for Sheba."

I am fixing Trevor breakfast in bed the next morning when someone pounds on my front door. I open it to find Ike standing there, in terrible emotional shape. I have seen him in tears before, but I have never witnessed him so close to collapse. At first, I think something has happened to Betty or one of his children. When I grab his arm and ask if his family is all right, he nods with such emphatic fury I realize he is having trouble speaking. Leading him by the arm, I take him to the nearest couch. When he sits down, he drops his head and starts to wail like a beaten child. The sound chills me to the bone. I sit down beside Ike and hold him in my arms, but I cannot comfort him. Standing, I open a drawer for a box of tissue so he can blow his nose and wipe the tears from his face. He holds a tissue over his eyes, but the more he tries to gain control of himself, the harder he falls apart. Finally, he excuses himself in a voice I don't recognize, then stumbles down the hall to the bathroom. I hear him washing his face. Soon, he has gained control, and the hysteria subsides with each breath drawn. When he comes back into the living room, he returns as the police chief of Charleston. am fixing Trevor breakfast in bed the next morning when someone pounds on my front door. I open it to find Ike standing there, in terrible emotional shape. I have seen him in tears before, but I have never witnessed him so close to collapse. At first, I think something has happened to Betty or one of his children. When I grab his arm and ask if his family is all right, he nods with such emphatic fury I realize he is having trouble speaking. Leading him by the arm, I take him to the nearest couch. When he sits down, he drops his head and starts to wail like a beaten child. The sound chills me to the bone. I sit down beside Ike and hold him in my arms, but I cannot comfort him. Standing, I open a drawer for a box of tissue so he can blow his nose and wipe the tears from his face. He holds a tissue over his eyes, but the more he tries to gain control of himself, the harder he falls apart. Finally, he excuses himself in a voice I don't recognize, then stumbles down the hall to the bathroom. I hear him washing his face. Soon, he has gained control, and the hysteria subsides with each breath drawn. When he comes back into the living room, he returns as the police chief of Charleston.

"Can you take a ride, Leo?" he asks. "Just the two of us. Leave Trevor here."

"Of course," I answer, but with dread.

Ike waits till we are in the patrol car before he says a single word: "Sheba."

"What about Sheba?" I ask, but Ike nearly loses his composure when he hears the question. He waves me off, unable to say more, so I grow silent as he drives us to Broad Street. I glance his way when he takes a right on Ashley as Colonial Lake shimmers in the morning light. He drives to Sheba's mother's house, which looks like a used-car shop for squad cars. Yellow crime-scene tape circles the yard. It occurs to me then that something has happened to Evangeline. Ike parks in my mother's driveway.

"Is your mama home?" he asks me, staring straight ahead.

"I don't know," I answer weakly. "She's probably at Mass. What's happened at the Poe house? Goddammit, Ike, if it's Evangeline or Sheba, you better tell me."

"I can't. I'll have to show you."

We walk across the street. Ike lifts the tape and motions me to go under it. Solemnly, he nods to his fellow officers as several of the younger ones salute him smartly, but it's obvious there isn't a policeman or policewoman on the scene who is having a good time. When we get to the open doorway, we encounter two detectives who eye me with some suspicion. After I flash my press card, the suspicion transforms into open hostility.

"He's with me, Mac," Ike says.

"Tough scene for a civilian, Chief," Mac says.