"It's so big," he said. "Bronze body, with two arms held out, and the arms are moving down, to…" He trailed off, and then mumbled something.

"What did you say, Jerry?" "He said it has a bull's head," I said, and I could feel all the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight out.

"The arms come down," he said. "And I feel…really happy. I don't know why. Singing. And I put the two girls into the arms. I cut them with a knife, and they go up to the mouth, and the arms dump them in. Into the fire…"

"Jerry," Debs said, even more gently, "your clothes had blood on them, and they'd been singed." He didn't say anything, and she went on. "We know you have blackouts when you're feeling too much stress," she said. He stayed quiet. "Isn't it just possible, Jerry, that you had one of these blackouts, killed the girls, and came home? Without knowing it?"

He began shaking his head again, slowly and mechanically. "Can you give me a better suggestion?" she said.

"Where would I find a statue like that?" he said. "That's-how could I, what, find the statue, and build the fire inside it, and get the girls there, and-how could that be possible? How could I do all that and not know it?" Deborah looked at me, and I shrugged. It was a fair point. After all, there must surely be some practical limit to what you can do while sleepwalking, and this did seem to go a little beyond that.

"Then where did the dream come from, Jerry?" she said. "Everybody has dreams," he said. "And how did the blood get on your clothes?" "Wilkins did it," he said. "He had to, there's no other answer."

There was a knock on the door and the sergeant came in. He bent over and spoke softly into Deborah's ear, and I leaned closer to hear. "This guy's lawyer is making trouble," he said. "He says now that the heads turned up while his client is in here, he has to be innocent." The sergeant shrugged. "I can't keep him outta here," he said.

"All right," Debs said. "Thanks, Dave." He shrugged again, straightened, and left the room. Deborah looked at me. "Well," I said, "at least it doesn't seem too easy anymore."

She turned back to Halpern. "All right, Jerry," she said. "We'll talk some more later." She stood up and walked out of the room and I followed. "What do we think about that?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Jesus, Dex, I don't know. I need a major break here." She stopped walking and turned to face me. "Either the guy really did this in one of his blackouts, which means he set the whole thing up without really knowing, which is impossible."