"I hate this job," I said to Morelli. "I hate the bad people, and the ugly crimes, and the human suffering they cause. And I hate the fear. In the beginning, I was too stupid to be afraid. Now it seems like I'm always afraid. And if all that isn't bad enough, I've killed Helen Badijian."

"You didn't kill Helen Badijian," Morelli said. "You can't hold yourself responsible for that."

"How do you get through it? How do you go to work every day, dealing with all the bottom feeders?"

"Most people are good. I keep that in front of me so I don't lose perspective. It's like having a basket of peaches. Somewhere in the middle of the basket is a rotten peach. You find it and remove it. And you think to yourself, Well, that's just the way it is with peaches . . . good thing I was around to stop the rot from spreading."

"What about the fear?"

"Concentrate on doing the job, not on the fear."

Easy to say, hard to do, I thought. "I assume you came to Kuntz's house looking for me?"

"I called to give you the news," Morelli said, "and you weren't home. I asked myself if you'd be dumb enough to go after Kuntz, and the answer was yes."

"You think Kuntz killed Helen?"

"Hard to say. He's clean. Has no record. The fact that he knew you were seeing Helen might have no bearing on this at all. There could be someone out there working entirely independently, turning up the same leads you're turning up."

"Whoever they are, they're ahead of me now. They got to Helen."

"Helen might not have known much."

That was possible. Maybe all she had were the matches.

Morelli locked eyes with me. "You aren't going back after Kuntz, are you?"

"Not tonight."

SALLY CALLED while I was waiting for my morning coffee to finish dripping.

"The code was fun, but the message is boring," Sally said. " 'The next clue is in a box marked with a big red X.' "

"That's it? No directions to find the box?"

"Just what I read. You want the paper? It's sort of a mess. Sugar tidied the kitchen this morning and accidentally tossed the clue in the trash masher. I was lucky to find it."

"Is he still mad?"

"No. He's on one of his cleaning, cooking, interior decorating benders. He got up this morning and made scratch waffles, sausage patties, fresh squeezed orange juice, a mushroom omelet, put a coffee cake in the oven, scoured the kitchen to within an inch of its life and took off to buy new throw cushions for the couch."

"Dang. I was afraid he might be upset because I borrowed the wig."

"Nope. He was all Mr. Congeniality this morning. Said you could borrow the wig anytime you wanted."

"What a guy."