“Well, see,” the Inspector repeated, “he didn’t have time to finish. So he must not have had time to get too far away.” In the background whispers and talk, someone playing a harmonica passed close to the microphone. “Somebody, Inspector, just told me … I just was handed a note that the officer who, minutes ago, discovered the mutilated body of little Chuck, floating in the water, was also the first to hear the gunshots and shouts of the victims and to come running to their aid, apparently scaring Harkner—the alleged killer—away. And that it was he, not Officer Pelham, who was first to enter the cabin, to be greeted by the horrendous sight.”

“Yeah,” the Inspector said. “He’s one of our regular Crawhole fellas. Whitey’s a good old boy.”

“Thank you, Inspector. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Edward Sawyers, and we’ve been talking to Inspector Haley, here at the Crawhole docks, not thirty feet from the barge on which, perhaps half an hour ago, occurred another in the series of slayings that have branded this day as one of the blackest in the annals of mass murder. The Inspector has assured us that the capture of the killer, alleged to be seventeen-year-old Dennis Harkner, is imminent. A net of police has been set around and throughout Crawhole. From evidence at the scene of the murder, we have been assured that the killer is somewhere in the—”

Then the door crashed back.

Honey-Pie’s fists jumped onto the table and she jerked her chair half a foot, without standing.

“Aw, shit,” Hogg drawled. Grinning, he lowered his booted foot to the floor, and let go of the jambs. His bare foot was guncolored with filth, to the frayed cuff. On the sill, his club-like toes, the nails picked back like they were bitten bad as the ones of his dirty, sausage-thick thumbs, flattened. The workboot, crusted with dirt, flexed with the foot inside. He grinned, wide enough for me to see, as well as his big, yellow front teeth, some of the side, rotten ones. His close green eyes were bright in his grimy face. Greasy hair clawed his forehead. Chin, cheek, and upper lip were dark with stubble like sand. He looked around the galley. When his eyes went from me to Honey-Pie and back, his grin got even looser.