Finally they brought the last victim out. He was covered with blankets, there was an IV running already, and he was strapped to the gurney. His eyes were closed, and tears were leaking down his filthy face.

“What’s your name, son?” Sheriff Rockwell was asking.

“Mel,” the boy whispered. “Mel Chesney. From Queen’s Table, up near Clearstream.”

“Mel, how long have you been down there?” said Klavin, keeping pace on the other side.

“Two days,” he said. “Two days. I think.”

And then he said, “I can’t talk about it.”

I didn’t blame him at all.

The boy had been there yesterday when we’d had our confrontation with Chuck. If Chuck had just told us then…but his father had come in, and maybe he simply couldn’t. I wondered if Mel Chesney had been in the hole when the police were digging up the animals. Oh, God, that was too bitter to think about.

I was sure every law enforcement person on the scene was wondering the same thing. Mel Chesney had been down there for hours by himself and then with a corpse, thinking all the while he was going to be tortured to death. It was almost a miracle he hadn’t died of hypothermia.

No one tried to stop us as we began going to the sheriff’s car. But we couldn’t go back to the cabin and get our stuff unless someone drove us. The sheriff said, “Rob, take them to the station.” Rob Tidmarsh raised his forefinger to tell us he’d be one more minute.

Rockwell glared at us as if we were an annoying detail she had to clear off her slate before she turned her attention to more important things, and I think that was exactly the case. “We got to process this scene, and it’s gonna take a while,” she said. “You two go sit at the station, and when I can spare someone to run you out to the lake, I’ll send ’em back to get you.”

“Rob can’t take us on out there?”

“Rob’s going to pick up more film while he’s at the station. The state forensic boys are going to be here as soon as they can get here, but we want our own pictures. Rob’ll be coming right back here, and for now, this is the most important spot in Knott County. So you two are gonna have to cool your heels for a while.”

We’d been doing plenty of that.

There was no help for it. No matter how irritated we might feel—and I for one felt plenty irritated—Rob was going to dump us at the station.

“Will they take the boy to the local hospital?” I asked the deputy.

“No, they’ll take him on to the bigger hospital in Asheville,” Rob said. “The SBI guys insisted. We got good doctors here.” He sounded deeply resentful.