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second list, the one with the burglars. Couch cushions interfered with the paper feed—had to do it three times before I got a complete list. Occult was last, so I waited with some anticipation, until I was sure she was still sleeping, then printed that one out.
    So now I had three lists. I had to go through them manually, making marks by the names that came up on all the lists. Thirteen. Much better. Thirteen possible whos, no possible whys. Had to start somewhere.
    It was now 04:45, and I went to bed. Too much coffee, and I couldn’t sleep. Got back up, watched CNN, and saw myself leaving the Herkaman residence. Must have been a slow day for news. I observed that I didn’t look all that impressive on TV. Looked a little overweight. I’m six three, weighed about 250 at the time. I consoled myself with the well-established “fact” that TV put on ten pounds.
    Went to bed about 05:30. Slept poorly.

4
Tuesday, April 23

09:45 hours
    The phone woke me. Special Agent Gorse wanted to see me. They sleep at night. I brushed my teeth, drank one cup of coffee, grabbed my lists, and drove to the office. In my personal car, not the patrol car. That way, Lamar couldn’t send me out on some dipshit call. No uniform, either. Same reason. I did wear a gun, but that was department regulations.
    We do have, by the way, our own investigator on the department. Name of Theodore Zieman. Likes to be called Ted, we call him Theo. Theo originally came to us from out of state, I believe Ohio or Indiana, or somewhere like that, maybe Illinois now that I think about it. He probably had a case of burnout from a larger department, although I didn’t do the confidential profile, so I couldn’t know for sure. Anyway, he had ended up in Maitland, working for the PD for a couple of years. He was hired by the Sheriff’s Department and made investigator because Lamar wanted somebody with energy and stamina, who could run all over the county doing interviews and taking pictures. And who didn’t have the independenceor the imagination to want to do the cases by himself. A lot of rural sheriff’s departments didn’t have people assigned specifically to investigations, because of the size of the departments, and it showed. We had one, and it showed, too. Same way. But Lamar had his gofer, and that counted for a lot. Especially with Lamar. All Lamar wanted Theo for was to keep people off his back by showing up at every petty theft and burglary and throwing fingerprint dust at everything. That he does. Unfortunately Theo tends to fail to make that leap from evidence to arrest—and is almost dyslexic besides. Honest. He’s usually about three months behind on his reports, so he keeps the folders with his scratched notes in his car, so nobody can look at them and discover how far behind he is. Also tends to claim he has sent the file to the county attorney, and the CA is sitting on it for some obscure and mystical reason.
    Lamar is bighearted and can’t bring himself to fire Theo. Besides, it’s Lamar’s fault we have him in the first place. The rest of us don’t want him on the night shift, so he can’t really transfer him out of investigations. It makes it a little difficult for us, though, because Lamar won’t trust him with an important case. At least, not anymore.
    I got to the office and met with Lamar, Art, Mike, Theo, and Hester Gorse. I was finding her to be extremely efficient and free with her opinions. Which were usually right. She doesn’t have that disturbing feminine trait of deferring to men, or to officers of experience. A definite asset.
    I handed my list to Hester, who looked at it and raised her eyebrows.
    “I’ll explain that a little later.”
    She nodded and put it under her briefcase.
    “Well,” said Lamar, thereby bringing the meeting to order, “let’s get started. Sorry to wake you guys up, but you know how it is.” He paused. “We gotta get the son of a bitch who did this, and we gotta get him quick.”
    Lamar