Nick leaned toward him and rested his elbows on the table. “You know, our jobs do have something in common: A criminal investigation is about timing too—it’s about who did what and when. That’s what I’m trying to figure out here, and I just might be able to do it if people like you don’t screw it up for me. So if you’ve got a job to do, go do it— but don’t expect any help from me. Elgin never should have talked to you; Marge shouldn’t have either, but they were both too inexperienced to know any better. I don’t have that problem.”

Decker grinned. “Good speech—can I quote you?”

“How? We never met.”

Decker got up from the table. “Well, if we had met, it would have been a pleasure. Tell me, do you eat here every night?”

“There aren’t many options in Endor.”

“Then maybe I’ll see you here tomorrow.”

“I thought you were eager to get back to the Patriot Center.”

“I’m eager to find a story,” he said. “I have a feeling there might be one around here.”

Nick watched him as he left. The last thing he needed was a reporter snooping around Endor. How long would it be before he heard about the “Witch of Endor” and began to get suspicious? Maybe he’d never make the connection—but Nick kept thinking about something Decker had said: “You and I are a lot alike.” What bothered Nick most was that it was true; Decker was the kind of guy who wouldn’t stop digging until he found what he was looking for. The problem was, when he found it, he would broadcast it all over northern Virginia.

Nick’s cell phone rang. He opened it and pressed it to his ear. “Nick Polchak.”

“Nick, it’s Carlyn down at UVA.”

“How’s the research going?”

“Good and bad.”

“I was hoping for a little more detail.”

“I checked for the grave registries like you asked me to—no luck. I did find two sources listed in the online card catalog that might possibly have included those registries—but the books themselves are both missing.”

“Any record of when they were last checked out?”

“They’re part of a special collection, Nick—they can’t be checked out.”

“They were stolen?”

“Or lost, or misshelved—all I know is that I can’t find them. I can’t even say for sure that the grave registries were inside—but they might have been.”

“Who else might have a copy of those books?”

“I did a query with the Library of Congress; I’m also checking with the Library of Virginia down in Richmond and the Virginia Historical Society, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Special collections contain a lot of one-of-a-kind books.”

“So you have nothing to tell me. How much has this cost me so far?”