“Let’s bring him in.”

“Brinkman’s already giving him the good news.”

“But you don’t like it.” Bentz shook his head. “The other alibis, for the night of Asteria McClellan’s murder and Grace Blanc’s, stand.” Again he met Montoya’s stare. “That doesn’t make sense, does it? Unless we’ve got another killer running around, drugging nuns and forcing them into bridal gowns before killing them with what seems to be a rosary and painting their necklines in the same pattern as the rosary beads.” He was shaking his head. “I can buy that we might have a second killer for the prostitute. But the nuns?” His eyebrows elevated to his hairline. “No effin’ way.”

“Effin’?” Montoya repeated, and Bentz threw him a sheepish smile, then nodded to the recent picture of his baby, framed in silver and positioned on the credenza behind him.

“Yeah, Livvie said the swearing’s gotta stop, that Ginny will pick up the bad language.” He nodded. “Can’t argue with that.”

Page three?

The story about the murdered prostitute was buried on page three?

“Idiots!”

I can’t believe the ineptitude as I read the evening paper, the kerosene lantern giving off an uneasy glow, the wind blowing hot over the bayou. The story of that whore Grace Blanc’s death should be splashed all over the front page.

What kind of imbeciles decide where to place an article?

Ridiculous!

My blood is on fire at the disgrace, and I toss the paper aside, will burn it later.

Crickets and bullfrogs are again making their evening racket, and somewhere far away, a train chugs along, its whistle lonely and sharp, rolling through the forest of spindly, white-barked cypress.

Realizing how late it’s become, I turn on the radio, listen to the program, her insidious radio show committed to helping all the restless souls worried about their current conditions. I hear “Jo”—or is it “Joe?”—in Aberdeen, Washington, complain about her husband’s lack of attention, how he spends more time on the computer in a simulated, inorganic life on the Internet than he does with his family. Then there’s Karen from some unpronounceable town in Ohio complaining that her teenage daughter is sneaking out at night, possibly to meet her boyfriend, who is definitely part of the “wrong crowd.” And there’s Ozzie from Birmingham whose wife wanted that third kid and threatened to divorce him if he didn’t agree. He saw no reason to add to the brood; two sons were enough for him—she could live without a little girl.

Through it all, Samantha, Dr. Sam, is cool and clear, as if she knows what she is talking about.

Fools.

They are all fools.

I glance up at the alligator staring down at me with its glassy, knowing eyes, and as I listen to Dr. Sam, I know my job is not yet finished.