“Thanks,” Marge said. But her voice sounded unsure. “You want to meet up at Sophi’s, or is that going to be too late for your Sabbath?”

“No, four is fine.” Decker thought, Thank the Lord for long summer days. Allowed you to finish all your paperwork before the Sabbath started. “I’ll even do all the paperwork for Katie’s release. But I want to talk to this Sue Beth before we give her the kid.” He leaned back in his desk chair. “Anyone show the Darcys Polaroids of John Doe?”

“Believe it or not, Crandal had the good sense to take some pics of him and show them around. At this point in time, the family-by-blood was too hysterical to be of any help, and to be honest, John Doe’s face is pretty bad. I spoke to Sue Beth’s husband—Robert, whom they call Bobby Boy, or just B.B.”

“Old B.B.”

Marge said, “Well, B.B. said he might have seen our John Doe, but it was hard to tell since he looked like—I quote again—‘a nigger, and I don’t know no niggers.’”

“Did you explain to him that he was white, and death caused the skin to blacken?”

“Pete, we are not dealing with people loaded down with gray matter. I told him the man was white, he hesitated a moment, then said he might have looked like the kind of guy Carla might have gone out with. But according to B.B., Carla went out with a ton of guys—I quote once again—‘niggers and other kinds and I have a real hard time keeping all the names straight.’”

“Seems Carla and Linda both liked men an awful lot.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Marge said. She excused herself for a sneeze, then came back on the phone. “The upshot is we still don’t have an ID for John Doe. No one found any ID at the crime scene, that’s for sure. His prints showed up negative at the local level; we’re still waiting to hear from Sacramento to see if his fingers have been rolled at either the state or national level.”

Decker paused a moment. “You recall what Mr. Doe was wearing?”

“All I can remember is a pile of rotten meat.”