“You want to sleep outdoors, let’s go back home and I’ll set up some sleeping bags. This isn’t really camp ground. Besides, I don’t want you to go home with a bad case of poison oak…in an awkward place of your body.”

Rina punched Decker in the shoulder.

The phone woke them at nine-thirty in the morning.

“Morning, Pete,” Marge said.

“What’s up?” Decker said.

“Who is it?” Rina asked sleepily.

“Marge,” Decker whispered. He came back on the phone. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry to disturb you.”

Decker rubbed his eyes. “No sweat. What is it?”

“Are you listening?” Marge said. “As in fully awake?”

“Uh-oh.”

“Prelim blood forensics on the kid’s PJs. At first, it’s just all ordinary O-positive blood. Same kind as the kid’s. But the electophoresis of the blood enzymes shows we have an amalgam of blood typings. Almost as if someone mopped up the crime scene with the kid’s PJ’s.”

“Oh boy. How many different groups are we talking about?”

“At least two, maybe even three or four. Forensics still has more tests to run.”

Looking at Rina, Decker muttered the obscenity instead of saying it out loud. At least two bodies baking in the heat somewhere. The kid’s parents?

Marge filled in the silences. “Not a good thing, partner. Also, there were tissue fibers mixed with the blood.”

Decker turned away from Rina and whispered into the receiver, “Skin? Hair? What kind of tissue?”

“Not that kind of tissue,” Marge said. “White facial tissue. Like in Kleenex. Like in someone tried to wipe the mess off the kid.”

Decker said, “Clothes show up any prints or latents?”

“Dead end there, Pete. Nothing retrievable off of the clothes.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, well…now for the good news,” Marge said. “You can use a break, right?”

“Right.”

“Sophi Rawlings called about the doctor report. I took the liberty of picking it up for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Ain’t we a team,” Marge said. “Do you remember telling Sophi to ask about a rash on Baby Sally’s arm?”

“Sure.”

“Well, she did. You know what the pediatrician said it was?”

“What?”

“Bee stings.”

“Bee stings?”

“Bee stings. He thought it was unusual that such a small child would have so many bee stings on her forearms.”

“How many were there?”

“About a half dozen on each arm.”

“Anywhere else?”

“Nope.”

“Kid must have stuck her hand in a hive.”

“I just got off the phone with the doc—his name is Andrew Trapper. He said something else was unusual. The stings caused little, tiny bumps, but not much inflammation. That only happens, he said, when the child has been repeatedly exposed to stings.”

Decker said, “Are there any bee farms around the Manfred area?”

“I called up the agricultural commission. They gave me the name of the bee commissioner. I’m waiting for him to call me back.”