Beside me, the car radio said: “… are hoping out there, that he has not been hurt. We’re going to talk now with Mr. Andy Prescott, who works on a boat not far from the barge on which the most recent multiple slaughter took place. Mr. Prescott told me earlier that he comes from Mitchuan, Kansas, but that he’s been a fisherman out of Crawhole for the past seven years. We’re going to be talking to Andy in just a moment now. Come right on, yes, that’s right, over here: You want to tell us what it’s been like down here today?” Somewhere in there was a click, but it went by pretty soft.

“Eh … well. People fight some. Sometimes they … you know, mess around. But usually it’s pretty peaceful.”

“Until tonight?”

“Well, this here tonight is just …”

But the assistant was leading Andy from the man with the microphone, while another was escorting up a black policeman. Sawyers was saying: “… you, very much. We’re going to talk now with Officer Horace Pelham, who was the first police officer at the scene of the crime; who was, indeed, the first person to enter the barge cabin: Without getting too gory, Horace, can you tell us what you saw when you went in?”

“I wasn’t the first one in,” the cop said. He looked pretty sober. “It was another guy, one of the dock cops—one of the guys who works Crawhole regular. I told him that.”

The man with the microphone grimaced at the assistant. Behind the cop’s shoulder, the assistant shrugged.

The cop started to glance back, and Sawyers practically followed him around with the microphone. “Well, you were one of the first ones in, then—”

“I was the second,” the cop said, turning back. He pushed his cap up and scratched his forehead. “I don’t think I can describe it without gettin’ gory. The woman had been all hacked up. First we thought the man was just shot, but when we turned him over, it looked like he got hacked up too. It’s just a mess in there! I mean, I’ve seen killings before, but this is about the worst one I ever …”

The fisherman with the harmonica, and the first assistant, had come over to watch from near the police car. They stopped about three feet from me. After a few more moments, the fisherman said: “I thought he was gonna let me play my mouth harp. You said before, I was maybe gonna get a chance to play my mouth harp on the radio.” He turned the instrument around in his horny black hands, frowning. “That’s what you said.” Suddenly he lifted it to his mouth and blew a clutch of bending blues notes, loud and twisting—they ended squawking: the assistant had grabbed the harp away and was making Shushing motions.