Decker knew Crandal had done a lulu to unglue Marge, but now was not the time to ask her about it. Instead, he steered Byron toward the kitchen. Dressed in his work garb, doing what he knew best, Byron was no longer the broken-up man Decker had witnessed a half hour ago. He was the consummate professional, blowing soft puffs of smoke on sections of bees, then gently pushing them into his pine boxes with gloved hands. He worked slowly, and it took around an hour and a half, Decker constantly reminding him to watch his hands and feet so as not to mess up evidence. When Byron was done, almost all the bees and wasps were boxed, the corpses for the most part denuded of the winged creatures. Marge was right. With the bees gone, Decker could see the heinousness of the crime in all its glory—yards of bloodless entrails, open shotgun blasts in the abdominal and thoracic regions, half a heart dangling out of one of the women’s chests. The faces had become blackened with exposure, maggots crawling out of noses and eye sockets.

Decker felt his head go light, and looked down for a moment. By the time he felt his breath coming back, Byron had left. Decker thought about running after him, questioning him on the spot, but squelched the notion. Unless he was prepared to grill him hard, use all the authoritative muscle he had, Byron would keep quiet. It seemed more logical to pry information from the loquacious women of the Howard household or catch the beekeeper when he was off-guard.

Decker kept on the hat, but removed the veil and thick gloves and stuffed them in his shoulder harness. He slipped on a pair of thin surgical gloves, then began the arduous search for evidence, scanning the dead for shotgun wadding, spent shells, evidence from any other weapons that might have been used. He pulled out evidence bags and slipped them over the corpses’ hands—those that still had intact digits. He felt his insides kicking up, anger brewing and boiling deep within him. But his overwhelming emotion was sadness.

Poor, poor Katie.

14

At the top of the hill, just as the unmarked was about to descend into LAPD territory, Decker turned to Marge and said, “Are you going to tell me about Crandal, or are you still too pissed off to talk?”

Marge gripped the wheel, stared out the windshield, the late afternoon sun still a hot spot in the asphalt. The tar seemed to bake before her eyes, the mountains flanking the road quivering in the heat. A depressing fact since once the car hit bottom, the temperature would rise ten degrees. She’d turned off the air-conditioning twenty minutes ago; the car had begun to overheat as they had climbed out of Sagebrush Canyon. Hot wind blew across her face. Marge sighed, wished she’d called in sick this morning.

She said, “He addressed me as ‘little lady.’”