"We all know you don't like to come down to Agan's Point much, but what'cha gotta know is that it really means a lot to Judy."

"She looks really shaken up," Patricia said. "It'll take time for her to jump back to normal."

"I hope she can jump back to normal." Ernie shook his head. "She sure was crazy in love with Dwayne. No one could ever figure it out. Enough of that, though. You want me to put your bags in your old bedroom, or would ya rather-"

"The guest room down here would be better, if that's okay."

He seemed visibly enthused. "It's bigger and catches the sunlight in the morning. Plus it's right down the hall from my room, in case ya need anything."

No wonder . . . "It'll be fine."

He picked up her bags and led her through the back of the house. 1 feel good all of a sudden-h.e.l.l, I feel great, she admitted to herself. All day long during the drive, and even the first few minutes back in the house, a heavy oppression seemed to be hunting her. Now it was all gone. Maybe this trip won't be as bad as I thought "Really bad about Dwayne," Ernie made conversation.

Patricia couldn't take her eyes off the strong, tapered back as they moved on. "Oh, yes."

"He wasn't a good man by any stretch, but no man deserves to die like that. I believe that ya get what's comin' to ya in this life. What goes around, comes around. But that? Jesus."

Patricia touched his arm, urging him to stop and turn. The contours of his silhouette opposed her, the strong legs in tight jeans, the bulging biceps. She frowned at herself. "I didn't know the details until just now-she told me when I put her to bed. He was decapitated?"

"Somebody cut his head clean off, I guess."

Strange way to say it. "You guess?"

"That's what Chief Sutter told Judy. Judy wasn't up to seein' the body, so he did it for her, for proper ID 'n' all. But there's all this talk now."

"What kind of talk?"

"Rumors about somethin' really wrong about Dwayne's body, and I mean . . . somethin' more than just losin' his head."

Patricia couldn't imagine. What could be more wrong than losing your head? It was something she could look into, though. As a lawyer, she was an expert at expediting Freedom of Information Act requests. There must be a death certificate and an autopsy report. . . .

"But that's probably all it is when ya get right down to it-just talk. You know what this place is like. People got nothin' better to do than run their mouths 'bout every little thing that ain't their business."

One rumor generates more rumors, she knew too well, and at the end of the line there's no truth left at all, just distortions . "It's really odd, though, and Judy does have a right to know all the details concerning her husband's death."

"I went down to the county morgue myself and tried to see the body, but it had already been cremated. Then I asked to see the autopsy report and they told me it was confidential," Ernie said, p.r.o.nouncing the last word confer-din-shul.

We'll see about that confidential part, Patricia vowed.

The guest room was cozily decorated and large, with fat, tapestried throw rugs and ta.s.seled drapes. It felt unlived-in, which was what she wanted. French doors, closed now, showed a charming little porch over looking backyard flower beds. In the moonlight she could see the flowers swaying in a night breeze: pansies, baby breath, daisies.

"Will this do ya?" Ernie asked. "There's a smaller room on the east wing."

"No, this is perfect, Ernie."

"And you can open the windows if ya want, catch the breeze off the bay most of the night. It comes right through the pine trees, brings that scent right into the room."

"I just might do that." She sat down on the high bed, testing the mattress. Suddenly the day's long drive caught up to her, and she couldn't wait to fall asleep on the comfy bed with the moon on her face. "What time are the services tomorrow?"

"Noon. I'll be fixin' breakfast at eight."

"That sounds great. See you in the morning."

"Night."

She leaned over to untie her sneakers, and in the fringes of her vision noticed his shadow still there. Before she even looked back up, she could guess the reason. I'm leaning over . . . and I've got no bra on. Ernie was getting an eyeful.

Then she looked back up at him with the thinnest smile. "Was there something else you wanted to tell me, Ernie?"

His eyes darted out of her cleavage. He quickly cleared his throat and said, "Oh, yeah, just that it's great to have you back in town for a while." And then he rushed out of the room and closed the door.

Men. But some would say she was asking for it, wasn't she? Wearing no bra, with her bosom? But then part of the tease in her returned. I guess it's not that big a deal. At least I gave the poor guy something to think about.

Alone now, she switched off the bedside lamp, undressed, and shouldered into her typical nightwear, a soft spearmint-colored lounger, which she quickly zipped up the front. Without thinking, next she took Ernie's advice: she opened the window. Warm air and cicada sounds instantly flooded the room; she felt tranquilized. And Ernie was right-soon the moonlit room began to flux between sultry summer heat and a fresh, pine-scented coolness from the bay breeze filtering in through the woods.

As if they were a lover's hands, the dark air and pulsing sounds pushed her down to the mattress. Her fatigue left her dopily giddy as she stretched out, flexing her toes, arching her back. An impulse from out of the dark brought her hands to her thighs, slipped them up under the lounger. When she closed her eyes, she imagined that it was the darkness feeling her up, exciting her nerves. Her hips squirmed around in unbidden horniness, and when her fingers walked up her belly and threatened to slip beneath her panties, her conscience dragged them away. What are you doing? she scolded herself. You're exhausted. Go to sleep. What am I all hot and bothered about? I'm going to a funeral tomorrow. . . .

The dark thickened around her, broken only by the wedge of moonlight that lay right beside her, a pearlescent bedmate. The cicadas thrummed and thrummed, rocking her in a strange and primitive lullaby. Then she faded off, but- Oh, my G.o.d . . .

-at once, her sleep dropped her into a dream gushing with s.e.x. She lay cringing, raw, and naked on her living room floor, her ankles locked desperately around the back of a faceless man. Patricia knew it was her living room back in D.C. because she saw her business dress, high heels, and blouse flung over her litigation bag, which she always set down right next to their coffee table. The Rothko print that she'd bought for Byron for a past birthday hung just above the faux fire-place, and on the mantel sat the crystal carriage clock he'd bought her years ago for an early anniversary. These were familiar things, things that rooted her to her life with Byron, and she loved these things. But through her cringing s.e.xual angst-as she was being fastidiously penetrated on the floor-she noticed the clock's gla.s.s dome bore a crack, and the Rothko hung upside down.

A climax clenched her up-she couldn't breathe for a moment-and then she looked up at her aggressive lover's face. She fully expected it to be Byron's, but she could see no face, and it wasn't his rotund body atop her but a lean, muscle-rippled physique. Oh, my G.o.d, do it harder, harder, she thought, teething her lower lip, and then the desires of her mind were answered. The rigid p.e.n.i.s boring in and out of her stepped up its delicious tempo, pile driving her loins into the bed. Another o.r.g.a.s.m rippled through her as her lover withdrew and released himself across her belly and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He knelt between her legs now, looking down at her; then he grabbed her hand and glided it over the lines of warm sperm-an earthy love lotion.

Patricia lay quivering, heaving in breath. Who is he? Who is he? The question reeled around and around in her head. She could see every detail of his chiseled body sh.e.l.lacked in sweat, but his face still remained shrouded, as if by smoke.

The smoke moved downward; he was lying beside her, his mouth sucking pink marks on her neck, and his fingers playing lower. Just the touch of his hand riled her up; she was just about to come again, but then her eyes darted off a moment and she saw Byron sitting fat and naked on the couch, his face forlorn as he watched this other man electrify her.

Patricia didn't even care.

She lay back, tensing more, begging for this strange mystery lover to take her again right there in front of her husband, the rough hand expertly gentle with her most private parts, and then her legs shot upward, toes straining toward her living room ceiling when she recognized Ernie Gooder's face on the man who was burying her in the most wanton ecstasy- Patricia shrieked in the throes of another climax . . . and- -then awoke naked and clenching in her sister's guest room.

Oh, jeez . . .

There was no one beside her, of course, no Ernie finishing up, and the only hand between her legs was her own.

What's gotten into me? she thought. Her confusion melted into a drowsy disorientation. It frustrated her, even half-asleep as she was, because it made her feel unaware of herself. The cicada sounds seemed twice as loud now, the moonlight dimmer yet somehow edgier. During the fitful dream she'd kicked the covers off the bed and cast her cotton lounger to the floor, and now she didn't even bother putting it back on. The moonlight made the sweat on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, belly, and thighs appear frostlike.

She let her confusion fade away behind her fatigue, then curled up into a nude ball. Her s.e.x still tingled as she drifted back to sleep, completely incognizant of the face peering in at her naked body through the window.

(II).

Wilfrud and Ethel Hild were the clan's dowsers. But it wasn't water they sought; nor did they hold any forked branches for divining rods.

They'd shed their handmade clothes-for nakedness better solicited the spirits of the Earth-and stood now as pale stick figures painted ghostly white by the moon. Wilfrud's gut looked sucked-in beneath the ribs, Ethel's b.r.e.a.s.t.s losing some plumpness. Divining required a three-day fast, and they'd been divining a lot lately-hence the emaciation. Their eyes looked huge in thin faces-huge in the trance they put upon themselves.

"A minute or two more," Everd Stanherd intoned from the side. "It takes time for the ashes to reach their blood."

Wilfrud and Ethel had been dowsers since early childhood, and now, fifty years later, they'd honed their skills-which some would call sorceries-to expertise.

No, no forked branches. Instead they'd slit the belly of a newborn snake, eviscerated it, and then burned its threadlike innards in a bra.s.s censer, along with dried coneflower petals, sweetbriar oil, and some fabric from one of the girls' tops-something well-worn and close to the heart.

The others watched from moonlit trees as Wilfrud and Ethel then ate the ashes out of the censer to begin the trance. Some wore stone pendants about their necks, while others wore lao pouches, and still more wore crude crosses fashioned from animal bones or dried vine cuttings. They all looked on silently in their inexplicable faith.

They walked nude through the woods. The others followed. No one spoke.

A while later, they stopped in a small clearing near , the river and pointed down.

Everd was the sawon, the keeper of the clan's heritage-and its magic. His voice croaked in the dark, his wife, Marthe, beside him. "Dig here, men. You can see the upturned earth."

It was obviously a makeshift grave they all surrounded now. The younger men quickly wielded their shovels, routed and emptied the sad mound. Their women watched from the trees, some sobbing. It didn't take long before the pallid body was hauled out.

Marthe clutched her husband's arm and burst into tears. The monster didn't even kill her first, Everd thought, shielding his wife's eyes. The young girl's fingers were locked in an upward clench. She'd been trying to unearth herself when she'd finally smothered. A monster, yes, a monster. The wheat bands around both death-white thighs confirmed what she'd been doing. Another one had gone astray, prost.i.tuting herself for extra money instead of living by the clean, honest way of the clan. And Cynabelle's dead. Another one dead. Murdered by that monster.

"At least it'll stop now." Wilfrud's sorrowful words crept through the dark. "Now that you've taken care of the soulless b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I pray so, my friend."

They hadn't found all of the others who'd gone missing over the past few months, and perhaps Chief Sutter was right in his suggestion that they'd simply left town for a chance at a better life. But not all of them. The dowsers had found four others buried like this. The men murdered, and women raped and murdered. Everd would not leave them to graves like this. They'd rebury them on clan land, in earth consecrated by Everd himself.

"I pray so," he repeated, "but I fear not."

"I won't hear it, Everd!" Ethel nearly cried out at the remark. She was coming out of the trance. "Dwayne's dead now. He hated us, but now he's dead! There's no reason for more of us to wind up"-she shivered when she looked at poor Cindy's body-"like this."

"We fear there is, dear." Marthe spoke up in her smoke-light voice. "It's that Felps man. Everd has foreseen this."

The sawon nodded. They all paused in a moment of silence as the others lifted Cindy's body and began to take it back to the property. "He wants this land, so he's having us killed. People are doing this for him, for money."

"For what purpose? Miss Judy would never sell the land out from under us."

"She would if we weren't here. She would if we all left. If more of us continue to disappear, if more of us are found murdered, then our people will get scared. And they will leave."

No one argued with that.

"We must tell the constable."

"That violates our own laws, and he wouldn't do much to help us anyway. I haven't even let on to Chief Sutter what I know. I let him believe that I think the missing ones left on their own accord. We take care of our own, Wilfrud; it's our law, and it has been since longer than we can conceive. We will never go to outsiders. We will always take care of our own."

At least Wilfrud seemed satisfied with what he said next. "And we can thank heaven and earth that you took care of Dwayne. . . ."

(III).

It appeared to be the makings of a great dream-no, a fantastic dream. Chief Sutter, behind the wheel of the town cruiser, was on routine patrol, ever diligent in his oath to protect and serve. The cruiser prowled through dark, Agan's Point backstreets as the moon followed over treetops and the cicadas thrummed. Ever vigilant, he kept his eyes peeled for suspicious persons and signs of foul play. Police work was a thankless job, but Sutter was proud to have it. Who knew, for instance, that he was out here on the job right now? As Agan's Point residents slept soundly in their beds, they could sleep ever more soundly with Chief Sutter maintaining watch over their safety in these wee hours of the night.

Even at this early juncture, the dream was proving to be d.a.m.n good. Why? Because as he drove, his right hand regularly reached over to the pa.s.senger seat to withdraw a piece of his wife's homemade fried chicken, which, as he recalled, was the best he'd ever eaten. She hadn't actually prepared this favorite of his for many years, electing instead to tell him, "I feel like fried chicken tonight, honey, so why don't you bring home a twenty-piece bucket from KFC on your way home from work?" But that was irrelevant here. This was a dream. This was not reality.

He ate the drumsticks first, peeling away the crunchy, delectable skin, then sucking the meat off the bone.

That was when he saw the girl.

Looks like a woman in distress, he noted, and properly switched on his flashing Visibar. She emerged from the darkness at the bend in the road ahead, a short woman with a curvaceous figure, raven-haired. Looks like she's wearin' a white bikini, Chief Sutter reasoned. And . . .

His eyes widened.

And she looks to be quite possibly the best-lookin' gal I have set my eyes on in quite a spell!

Deeply tanned legs, belly, and arms. And a bosom . . .

Jiminy f.u.c.kin' Christmas . . .

The bosom satcheled high in the big white bra looked about big enough to lay Thanksgiving dinner out on.

At the end of the headlights, she began to wave.

That was when Chief Sutter became aware of a serious discrepancy in his previous a.s.sumption as to her apparel. Was that really a white bikini she was wearing, or . . .

He squinted harder.

An exciting darkness seemed to lay triangularly at the crotch of the white bottoms, and as for the top: large, dark circles were centered . . .

And the final realization: That ain't no f.u.c.kin' bikini! Those are tan lines!

The approaching woman wore no bikini at all. In fact, she wore nothing whatsoever.

What to do now? the chief asked himself. An errant rub to his crotch alerted him to a rising turgidity. The woman was obviously a Squatter; he could tell by the short stature and mussy black hair, and, of course, that- Jiminy Christmas, Sutter thought again.

-and that jaw-dropping, one hundred percent perfect body Sutter was thrown for a disturbing loop. Looks like I'll have to arrest this gal for public nek-it-ness, I suppose. What the h.e.l.l's she doin' walkin' 'round here at this time of night bare-a.s.sed?

His libido and human s.e.xual responses in general didn't ponder an answer to his question. She traipsed around the car, the headlights glaring over every perfect detail, b.r.e.a.s.t.s gently jogging, and then she- Oh, Mother of G.o.d!

-she leaned over the pa.s.senger-side window and shot Chief Sutter a giant, sultry smile.

"Evenin', there, Mr. Chief!"