Decker was silent. Truscott grabbed his shoulders. He had an alarmingly tight grip for a man his size.

“Did he do anything to her?” he shouted.

“He might have,” Decker said quietly. “He might have told her to come with him to meet you. And then he might have abducted her.”

The boy’s scream came out a strangled, sucking gasp. Then he collapsed into Decker’s arms.

Decker slept in the station’s dormitory from 6:30 to 8:30 A.M. Bleary-eyed at 9 A.M., he placed a call to the information operator in Klamath Falls. There were three Armbrusters. The second one was the winner. Kate had left home seven years ago and hadn’t been heard from since. Decker explained the situation, expecting to hear emotional upheaval on the other side, but the mother’s only comment was good riddance to bad rubbish. She gladly supplied the name of Kate’s dentist and made it a point to tell him not to bother to ship the body home. Katie was trash, and a Christian funeral for her would be sacrilegious and a waste of hard-earned money.

Decker reminded himself that Katie had been born with congenital syphilis. The indignation of the hypocrites.

Katie’s dentist had only X rays of current patients at his fingertips. It would be a couple of days before he could find her radiographs. He did remember working on her once or twice. The Armbrusters really couldn’t afford too much. If he found the X rays, he’d be glad to send them down. A shame about Katie, he said to Decker. She was a wild kid, but that was no reason to die.

Morrison sat across his desk, eyes fixed on Decker’s face.

“You want to tell me what the hell is going on, Pete? You’ve requested two search warrants and a tail on some stockbroker named Dustin Pode.”

“The warrants are for his father’s home and studio. Cecil Pode is a snuff film distributor. I’m betting he’s involved in Lindsey Bates’s abduction and death. After I questioned him, I think he cut town. I want to see if he left anything incriminating behind.”

“Who says he’s a snuff distributor—the pimp you talked to?”

“He and another source.”

“Who?”

Decker rubbed his eyes and suppressed a yawn.

“A hooker. Her street name’s Kiki. She seems on the up-and-up.”

Morrison thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s do it this way. We’ll try for search warrants for Pode’s house and studio based on what you found out from Truscott. Unlikely we’ll get them without something concrete. A still or a film or at least someone who saw Bates and Pode together the day of her disappearance.”

“Dunn is going to comb the Galleria and ask around at all the stores. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe,” the Captain said.

“What about the tail?” Decker said.