'The H&F Investment Group is buried under more layers than Olduvai Gorge. Veckhoff's dead, so he's not talking. Folowing up on your suggestion, Tempe, we tracked down Rolins and Birkby through their fathers. Rolins lives in Greenvile, teaches English at a community colege. Birkby owns a chain of discount furniture stores, has homes in Rock Hil and Hilton Head. Each gentleman tels the same story: inherited his interest in H&F, knows nothing about the property, never visited there.'

I heard a door open, voices in the corridor.

'W. G. Davis is a retired investment banker living in Banner Elk. F. M. Payne is a philosophy professor at Wake Forest. Warren's an attorney in Fayettevile. We found the counselor on his way to the airport, had to spoil his little getaway to Antigua.'

'Do they admit to knowing one another?'

'Everyone tels the same story. H&F is strictly business, they never met. Never set foot on the property.'

'What about prints inside the house?'

'The recovery team lifted zilions. We're running them but it wil take time.'

'Any police records?'

'Payne, the professor, was busted for pot in seventy-four. Otherwise, nothing came up. But we're checking every cel these guys have ever shed. If one of them peed on a tree at Woodstock, we'l get a sample. These assholes are dirty as hel, and they're going down for murder.'

Larke Tyrel appeared in the doorway. Deep lines creased his forehead. McMahon greeted him, went in search of additional seating. Tyrel spoke to me.

'I'm glad you're here.'

I said nothing.

McMahon returned with a folding metal chair. Tyrel sat, his spine so erect it made no contact with the backrest.

'What can I do for you, Doc?' McMahon.

Tyrel removed a handkerchief, wiped his forehead, then refolded the linen in a perfect square.

'I have information that is highly sensitive.'

The Andy Griffith eyes shifted from face to face, but he did not say the obvious.

'I'm sure you are al aware that Parker Davenport died of a gunshot wound yesterday. The wound appears to be self-inflicted, but there are disturbing elements, including an extremely high level of trifluoperazine in his blood.'

We al looked blank.

'The common name is Stelazine. The drug is used in the treatment of psychotic anxiety and agitated depressions. Davenport had no prescription for Stelazine, and his doctor knows of no reason he would be taking it.'

'A man in his position wouldn't have trouble getting what he wanted.' McMahon.

'That's true, sir.'

Tyrel cleared his throat.

'Minute traces of trifluoperazine were also detected in the body of Primrose Hobbs, but immersion and decomposition had complicated the picture, so a definitive finding was not possible.'

'Does Sheriff Crowe know this?' I asked.

'She knows about Hobbs. I'l tel her about Davenport when I leave here.'

'Stelazine wasn't found among Hobbs's belongings.'