“You’re on your own if you do, Pete. I won’t back you up.”

“Consider me duly warned.”

Morrison gave him a hard stare. “Speaking of warning, you tailed Dustin Pode yesterday. I told you not to do it.”

“Who told you?”

“No one,” Morrison answered. “Everybody was so busy covering your ass I figured you must be out playing hot dog. I made an educated guess.”

The detective said nothing.

“We’ll let it pass this time,” said Morrison, “but don’t fuck around with my orders again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now what did you find out about Dustin Pode?”

“Nothing.”

“He’s been notified about his father’s death. You can question him about Cecil if you want.”

Decker cleared his throat and told Morrison about his Jack Cohen alias. As he talked, he could see the captain’s expression waver between admiration and disapproval.

“What do you hope to find out?” Morrison asked.

“If Dustin’s making sicko films on the side, maybe I could get him to strike a deal with me as an interested investor. He does legit film syndications, which would make it awfully easy to launder some dirty stuff. I’d like to keep my cover and let Hollander continue with the interviewing.”

“You leaned on Cecil Pode,” Morrison said. “What if he described you to Dustin? You’re a pretty noticeable guy. Your cover would be worthless.”

Decker groaned inwardly. How could he be so fucking dumb!

“Yeah, that’s true,” he said. “Look at it this way, Captain. If Dustin makes me for a cop, then we’re back to square one. If he doesn’t, we’ve got an advantage. I’ll get a better feel after I meet with them.”

In the end Morrison agreed it was best for Decker to stay undercover.

The mountain air was biting. Decker buttoned up his overcoat as he watched the teams dig up the hillside. Hard to believe that a month ago he’d camped in this graveyard with Jake and Sammy. The day had been bright and warm, not like today, which was overcast.

The ground became pocked with potholes—aborted digs—but Decker was sure the bones were there. It just didn’t make sense to dump the girls out here and leave the guy at another location.

Unless the killer was smart.

“Sergeant Decker!” one of the lab men shouted.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve found something—a foot bone.”

“Attached to anything?”

“No, just a foot bone.”

He walked over, bent down, and saw the burnt remains of a foot.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…I think we struck gold,” the man said, digging deeper into a mesa of hard-packed soil.

Gradually, the entire remains were exposed. The skeleton appeared to be large—a male. Had to be the Blade. Decker was reassured. Most of the time killers weren’t that smart.