Kaiser reaches into his pocket and takes out a folded photo print. At first it looks like a bad underwater shot of the Loch Ness monster. Then I realize I’m looking at a rectangular metal plate with rounded edges and several faint numbers and letters engraved on it.

“One of my divers shot this forty-five minutes ago.”

“The numbers look like they’re in groups,” I muse, taking the photo from him. “One—five-nine—P—four … zero-three-five?”

“The VIN number,” he explains. “On that model Pontiac, it’s on the left front door hinge pillar. The ‘one’ represents the model series: Catalina. The second number is the year of manufacture: 1959. The P means the car was built at the home plant in Pontiac, Michigan. And this last number is the car’s serial number: four-zero-three-five. According to Dwight Stone’s case notes, Pontiac Catalina number 4035 was registered with the Adams County Department of Motor Vehicles in 1961 by one Luther Elijah Davis, age twenty, a Negro veteran of the U.S. Army.”

“Jesus,” I breathe, thinking of Henry. “You did it.”

“I called Dwight as soon as I matched the VIN. That old hardass was ready to fly down from Colorado and start digging into the case himself. I couldn’t allow that, of course, even if his health was good—which it’s not. But Dwight’s daughter works at headquarters in Washington, and she’s helping me grease the skids for all this support.”

“Lucky you. But why keep draining the Hole, since you’ve already ID’d Luther’s car? Why not just pull the car up with a cable?”

Kaiser doesn’t answer immediately. “We have a lot of unsolved crimes on our books in this parish. I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years about bodies being dumped into water. I think it’s time the sun shone on the bottom of this little lake.”

“Is that the only reason?”

Another enigmatic smile. “Well … you might say I’m poking my stick in the rattlesnake hole and waiting to see what crawls out.”

I point toward the massive pump trucks. “It won’t take long for word of all this to get out.”

Kaiser starts walking again, and I follow. “I want every ex-Klansman and Double Eagle in this parish to know the federal government just stomped in here with the biggest boots we’ve put on the ground since 1964. I want ’em pissing their geriatric diapers by morning.”

His audacity leaves me speechless for the moment. Pointing to a fallen cottonwood log, he moves toward it, meaning to sit. Before he can, I grab the back of his shirt, then kick the log to scare off any snakes that might be nesting under it.

“Snakes don’t hibernate up here any more than in New Orleans,” I tell him.