Floods wipe out entire villages. Men do horrible things to children every day." He paused. "Did you, for example, read this aftemoon's paper?"

"What are you rambling about?" .

"I'm just trying to make you understand," Win continued in too slow, too measured a voice. "The Coldrens mean nothing to me no more than any other stranger and perhaps less. The newspaper is filled with tragedies that hit me on a more personal level. For example . . ."

Win stopped and looked at Myron very steadily.

"For example what?" Myron asked.

"There was a new development in the Kevin Morris case," Win replied. "Are you familiar with that one?"

Myron shook his head.

"Two seven-year-old boys Billy Waters and Tyrone Duffy have been missing for nearly three weeks. They disappeared while riding their bikes home from school.

The police questioned one Kevin Morris, a man with a long record of perversion, including molestation, who had been hanging around the school. But Mr. Morris had a very sharp attorney. There was no physical evidence and despite a fairly convincing circumstantial case they found the boys' bikes in a Dumpster not far from his home Mr. Morris was set free."

Myron felt something cold press against his heart.

"So what was the new development, Win?"

"The police received a tip late last night."

"How late?" .

Again Win looked at him steadily. "Very late."

Silence.

"It seems," Win went on, "that someone had witnessed Kevin Morris burying the bodies off a road in the woods near Lancaster. The police dug them up last night.

Do you know what they found?"

Myron shook his head again, afraid to even open his mouth.

"Billy Waters and Tyrone Duffy were both dead.

They'd been sexually molested and mutilated in ways that even the media couldn't report. The police also found enough evidence at the burial site to arrest Kevin Morris.

Fingerprints on a medical scalpel. Plastic bags that matched ones in his kitchen. Semen samples that offer a preliminary match in both boys."

Myron flinched.

' 'Everyone seems quite confident that Mr. Morris will be convicted," Win finished.

"What aboutthe person who called in the tip`? Will he be a witness'?"

"Funny thing," Win said. "The man called from a pay phone and never gave his name. No one, it seems, knows who he was."

"But the police captured Kevin Morris?"

"Yes."

The two men stared at each other.

"I'm surprised you didn't kill him," Myron said.

"Then you really don't know me."

A horse whinnied. Win turned and looked at the magnificent animal. Something strange came across his face, a look of loss.

"What did she do to you, Win?" _

Win kept staring. They both knew whom Myron was talking about.

"What did she do to make you hate so much?"

"Don't engage in too much hyperbole, Myron. I am not that simple. My mother is not solely responsible for shaping me. A man is not made up of one incident, and I