"I know. But I"ve been doing some additional research, and there may in fact be a sacrifice that he would find more pleasing."

"Along with the children, or as a subst.i.tute?"

"Oh, as a subst.i.tute, I think. No need to b.l.o.o.d.y the lily, to coin a phrase."

"So, what do you need, then?"

"A white witch. Someone who represents the ant.i.thesis of what we will be accomplishing that night."

"I suppose that makes a certain amount of sense. But I thought your idea was to kill them all, as a precaution."

"Not all of them, just enough to avoid any significant interference. And I believe that"s been accomplished. But there"s one in particular whom I would like to add to our program, as it were. Her death should please him immensely. And she has proved to be a thorn in my side of late, somehow managing to survive several attempts to eliminate her. I sent someone very skilled, very powerful, after the stupid a.s.sa.s.sins had failed twice. I don"t yet know all the details, but she still lives, and the man I sent has disappeared. I must a.s.sume he"s dead."

"I thought the white ones couldn"t use their magic to kill."

"Not in most cases, but there are occasional odd exceptions. Besides, she"s got a companion now, a man named Morris, whom I"ve heard of. He has made a nuisance of himself in the past."

"So you want this woman... what"s her name?"

"Chastain. Elizabeth Chastain."

"You want her as some kind of ultimate sacrifice during the ceremony? You"re not just doing this because she"s p.i.s.sed you off, are you?"

"No, I"m not. My research convinces me that her death, at the right point in the proceedings, will be a perfect capstone to the ritual. Granted, almost any of these Wiccan c.u.n.ts would do. So perhaps my choice of Chastain is... personal, but the desired effect will be achieved, nonetheless."

"All right, you"re the expert. But if this Chastain has managed to avoid all your efforts to kill her, what makes you think it will be any easier to take her alive?"

"Because," Pardee said, "that is a task I intend to take on, myself."

For the second time in twelve hours, Morris made the turn onto the street where Tristan Hardwick lived. Glancing at Libby, he said, "You"re sure you"re up to this?"

"Yeah, I"m fine," Libby told him, sounding like she meant it. "Your little pep talk helped quite a bit, although for a few moments there you had me wishing that I could use black magic."

"Turn me into a toad, huh?"

"Oh, something much worse than that... Hey, what"s all this?"

There were flashing red lights up ahead-lots of them. As they drew closer, Morris counted three police cars and an ambulance, all with their light bars going like mad.

They were parked in front of Tristan Hardwick"s house.

Traffic was slowed to a crawl by all the curiosity seekers who had come out, in cars or on foot, in the hope of seeing something nasty. "Hardwick?" Morris asked. "Has to be, right?"

"Most likely," Libby said. "And here"s a news flash for you: I"m getting almost nothing from the house now. Just the slightest trace of residual energy, which can last for days after somebody powerful leaves a place. But whoever it was that I was sensing out here last night is gone, baby, gone."

"Gone as in dead, or gone as in left for parts unknown?"

"Could be either one, Quincey. It"s impossible to say."

"Well, then, what do you say we get out and join the rubberneckers? One of us might pick up something useful."

"Works for me. I think I"ll bring my bag-you know, just in case."

"Yeah, good idea," Morris said. "Just in case."

Morris went with the slow-moving traffic stream, past Hardwick"s house and a couple of blocks beyond. They didn"t want to be seen getting out of a car too close to the crime scene, or accident scene, or whatever it was back there.

They approached the small crowd of onlookers at a slow, steady pace, just another couple out for a walk who"ve come upon something interesting. By prior agreement, they split up. Somebody who might talk to one stranger might not feel quite as chatty around two of them.

The angle from where he was standing now allowed Morris to see past the ambulance that he had pa.s.sed earlier in the car. There was a UPS truck parked in the driveway of Hardwick"s house. Morris slowly scanned the area for somebody dressed in brown work clothes-and found the uniform being worn by a skinny blond man who appeared to be in his early thirties.

Morris looked more closely. The UPS guy reminded him of somebody who has just finished puking his guts out after a particularly bad drunk-he had the same pallor, the shaking hands, and the look on his face that seemed to combine disgust and weariness in equal measure. He was seated sideways on the front pa.s.senger seat of an open police car. Crouching next to him, talking calmly, was a concerned-looking man in civilian clothes. He appeared a little older than the UPS driver, but Morris thought he detected a family resemblance.

After a while, the older man slowly stood up, clapped the UPS guy on the shoulder gently, and walked off, a little unsteady on legs that had probably lost some circulation while he"d been in that cramped position.

Without being obvious about it, Morris placed himself at the edge of the crowd, so that the man would pa.s.s close to him on his way back to the street. As he drew near, Morris stepped forward, waving to an imaginary woman and calling, "I"m over here, honey."

The two men collided, but not very hard. Morris immediately said, "Hey, buddy, I"m sorry, my fault completely. I was yellin" to my wife and didn"t see you, I"m really sorry." Morris could lose his Texas accent when he wanted to, and he spoke now like most people in the Northeast do who aren"t from New England.

"It"s all right, don"t sweat it, no harm done," the man said, and started walking again. Morris caught up with him in a couple of steps. Clutching his arm lightly, Morris said, "Easy, buddy, you sure you"re okay? Don"t look too steady on your feet, there."

"No, I"m all right, thanks. Legs are just a little shaky from squattin" down, that"s all."

"Well, I was headin" home, anyway," Morris said. "The wife"s still gabbin" with her friends over there, and she"s not leavin" "til she"s all talked out. You know how the women are. I"ll walk with you a little ways, if you don"t mind the company."

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

The two made their way toward the street, and Morris silently counted to ten before saying, "Terrible thing, huh?" He was bluffing like mad while holding no decent cards at all, but thought it was worth a try. Might as well go all in.

"Yeah, Jesus. That kinda stuff doesn"t happen around here. Never has, far as I know."

"What do they think it was, drugs?"

"I dunno. I ain"t talked to the cops. My cousin Benny"s the UPS guy who found him."

"Really? My G.o.d. He got quite a shock, I bet."

"Tell me about it. Benny says this guy, Hardridge-"

""Hardwick," I think it was."

"Yeah, you"re right. Hardwick. Benny says, he"s got a package for the guy, so he knocks on the front door; door swings wide open. Benny don"t know whether to close it, leave it open, leave the package, or what, you know what I mean?"

"Sure. How"s he supposed to know what the guy wants, right?"

"Right, exactly. So Benny takes, like, a couple of steps inside. He"s about to yell, "UPS man," or something, but then the smell hits him."

"Christ, it must have been terrible," Morris said.

"Better believe it. Benny says it was like blood, and s.h.i.t, and rotten meat, all rolled into one."

"Jesus Christ."

"Then he does somethin" I wouldn"t of done, not in a million years. But, you know how he is-Benny always had more guts than brains. So he follows this G.o.d-awful smell, right into the guy"s living room."

"That takes more nerve than I"d ever have, I"ll tell ya that much."

"Yeah, well, I bet he wishes he"d just turned around and went back to his truck. He"s gonna be dreaming about what he seen for years, I bet."

"Like that post-traumatic thing the guys in the war come home with."

"Yeah, somethin" like that, I guess." Benny"s cousin shook his head in wonder. "He says the f.u.c.kin" guy-pardon my French-was turned inside out. I mean completely. Now how the h.e.l.l could you do something like that? And who the h.e.l.l"d want to, know what I mean?"

"Somebody who wanted to kill a guy and make it hurt," Morris said. "A lot."

"f.u.c.kin" nutcase. Pardon my French."

"Yeah, a real psycho," Morris said quietly. "A real d.a.m.n psycho."

Chapter 16.

Libby and Morris stopped at a Perkins Pancake House, and ordered coffee.

"I"m glad you got something for your trouble," Libby said. "All I heard was a theory that the Manson Family was back in business, never mind that Charlie"s in San Quentin, serving ninety-nine years to forever-as well he should be. Oh, and I got a nice recipe for strudel, for what that"s worth."

The waitress brought their coffee, and Morris stirred sugar into his as he said, "Hey, don"t underestimate the value of a good strudel. I knew a fella, one time, survived a knife fight because of a strudel his mom had made him."

Libby gave him a look that said she suspected her chain was being yanked, but then she said, "The sugar gave him the energy to fight better, or maybe run away?"

"Nope." Morris sipped his coffee. "He was carrying it home from his mom"s house, when he ran into trouble. Took the strudel, and threw it at the guy with the knife. Knocked him right out. His mom wasn"t much of a cook, you see."

Libby smiled and nodded, her suspicions confirmed. After trying her own coffee she said, more soberly, "I guess a strudel wasn"t used on the late Mister Hardwick."

"No, not hardly. If he"d been found shot dead, something like that, I"d figure somebody from the poor kid"s family came over for payback. But if a guy getting turned inside out doesn"t reek of black magic, then I don"t know what does."

"For sure. I"m a.s.suming that what I was sensing last night emanated from whoever did that number on Hardwick. I wonder what he did, to p.i.s.s off somebody like that."

Morris picked up one of the menus the waitress had left. "Well, he messed up the job. Got himself caught, even if the cops did drop the ball and get the case thrown out. And called a lot of attention to himself, in the process."

"Which means," Libby said pensively, "that someone not connected with the law might come along and decide to ask him some questions about why he did it, and for whom."

"Uh-huh. Someone like you and me, for instance. And I guess you...could say we have been forestalled, big-time."

Libby picked up her own menu and looked at it without much interest. "So he was killed either as punishment for being careless, or to shut him up."

"Or both, which is my guess."

"Mine, also. Which turn of events leaves us, as my mom would elegantly put it, "up s.h.i.t creek.""

"s.h.i.t creek?" Hannah Widmark said, as she slid into the booth next to Morris. "Doesn"t sound like a nice place to be." She plucked the menu from Morris"s hands, and began to page through it. "So, what looks good?"

"Pardee?" Fenton frowned in concentration, then shook his head. "Doesn"t ring any bells with me." He hopped up to take a seat on the counter, next to a pile of Christine Abernathy"s papers. "I take it the name has just cropped up for a second time."

"Yeah, I remember seeing it among Annie"s stuff, day before yesterday," Colleen said. "It"s mentioned in there at least once, maybe twice. Reason I remember, it"s the name of a character in a Western that my brother Peter just loves: Rio Conchos."

Fenton shook his head. "Never heard of it, but then I"m not too big on Westerns."

"You"re not missing much," Colleen told him. "I"ve sat through it at least three times. I stayed with Pete sometimes, when I was in high school, after I"d have a big fight with my parents. He was always watching that stupid movie-and what was I gonna say? It was his place."

"Yeah, I hear you," Fenton said. "Beggars can"t be choosers-of the movies, or anything else."

"Anyway, there"s a character in it named Pardee, some ex-Confederate colonel who"s trying to re-start the Civil War by giving guns to the Apaches."

"Sounds complicated." Fenton"s frown returned. "We"re a.s.suming it"s a name. There"s no such thing as a "pardee," is there?"

"Easy enough to check." Colleen produced her iPhone and did a quick Internet search.

"Um. Appears only as a proper name," she said, a few minutes later. "A big home builder in the Southwest, for one. Lots of smaller businesses around the country. Apparently, a man named Pardee was governor of Arkansas, like a hundred years ago."

"Probably not the one we want, then."

"Nope, not unless he"s been resurrected, and I hope to heaven we"re not going to have to deal with that stuff in this case."

Fenton gave her another sample of the look he had been sending her way a lot, lately. It combined curiosity with a certain amount of suspicion. "I don"t suppose any of those Pardee guys-or gals, I guess-is mixed up in black magic."

"Well, I didn"t check out all 1.3 million Google hits," Colleen said. She picked up the iPhone again. "Although, you never know..."

"I was kidding, Colleen."

"I know you were. But there"s all kinds of stuff on the Internet these days, Dale. And we"d feel like real fools, later, if it turned out that what we wanted was right there in cybers.p.a.ce, waiting for us."

She applied herself to touching icons on the small screen, one after another. Without looking up, she said, "Fortunately, we don"t have to look at all 1.3 million. Let"s see what we get by combining "Pardee" with "black magic" in our little search."

A minute later: "Nope. Okay, let"s try "sorcery.""

Then: "Nothing. Hmm, how about "witchcraft?""

Then: "s.h.i.t. Oh well, it was worth a-"

Fenton was looking off into s.p.a.ce, eyes narrowed. "Try "wizard.""