“Maybe he thought about something too much and made it happen. Like you’re a black man with a lot of people who hate your guts, and you worry so much about the assholes taking what you got, you end up burning it down yourself. Killing your horses and white girlfriend in the process. Ending up with nothing. Hell, insurance money won’t replace what he lost. No way. Truth is, Sparkes is screwed any way you slice it. Either he’s lost everything he loved in life, or he’s gonna die in prison.”

“If we were talking about arson alone, I’d be more inclined to suspect he was the torch,” I said. “But we’re also talking about a young woman who was murdered. And we’re talking about all his horses being killed. That’s where the picture gets distorted for me.”

“Sounds like O.J. again, you ask me. Rich, powerful black guy. His white former girlfriend gets her throat slashed. Don’t the parallels bother you just a little bit? Listen, I gotta smoke. I’ll blow it out the window.”

“If Kenneth Sparkes murdered his former girlfriend, then why didn’t he do it in some place where nobody might associate it with him?” I pointed out. “Why destroy everything you own in the process and cause all the signs to point back at you?”

“I don’t know, Doc. Maybe things got out of control and went to shit. Maybe he never planned to whack her and torch his joint.”

“There’s nothing about this fire that strikes me as impetuous,” I said. “I think someone knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Either that or he got lucky.”

The narrow road was dappled with sunlight and shade, and birds on telephone lines reminded me of music. When I drew upon the North Pole restaurant, with its polar bear sign, I was reminded of lunches after court in Goochland, of detectives and forensic scientists who since had retired. Those old homicide cases were vague because by now there were so many murders in my mind, and the thought of them and colleagues I missed made me sad for an instant. Red Feather Point was at the end of a long gravel road that led to an impressive farm overlooking the James River. Dust bloomed behind my car as I wound through white fences surrounding smooth green pastures scattered with leftover hay.