“What’re you doing here?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Whatcha think? Lincoln wasn’t sure who he could trust and who he couldn’t so he had me fly down and hooked me up with Deputy Germain here to keep an eye on you. Figured he needed some help, seeing as how he couldn’t trust Jim Bell or his kin.”

“Bell?” she whispered.

“Lincoln thinks he put this whole thing together. He’s finding out for sure right now. But looks like he was right, that being his brother-in-law.” Dellray nodded at Steve Farr.

“He almost got me,” Sachs said.

The lean agent chuckled. “You weren’t in a single, solitary lick of danger, no way. I had a bead on that fellow right ’tween his big ears from the second the back door opened. He’d so much as squinted out a target at you he’da been way, way gone.”

Dellray noticed Mason studying him suspiciously. The agent laughed, said to Sachs, “Our friend in the con-stabulary here don’t like my kind much, He told me so.”

“Wait,” Mason protested. “I only meant—”

“You meant federal agents, I’m betting,” Dellray said.

The deputy shook his head, said gruffly, “I meant Northerners.”

“True, he doesn’t,” Sachs confirmed.

Sachs and Dellray laughed. But Mason remained solemn. But it wasn’t cultural differences that made him somber. He said to Sachs, “Sorry, but I’ll have to take you back to the cell. You’re still under arrest.”

Her smile faded, and Sachs looked once more at the sun dancing over the scruffy yellow grass. She inhaled the scorching air of the out-of-doors once, then again. Finally she turned and walked back into the dim lockup.

… chapter forty-three

“You killed Billy, didn’t you?” Rhyme asked Jim Bell.

But the sheriff said nothing.

The criminalist continued, “The crime scene was unprotected for an hour and a half. And, sure, Mason was the first officer. But you got there before he arrived. You never got a call from Billy saying that Mary Beth was dead and you started to worry so you drove over to Blackwater Landing and found her gone and Billy hurt. Billy told you about Garrett getting away with the girl. Then you put the latex gloves on, picked up the shovel and killed him.”

Finally the sheriff’s anger broke through his facade. “Why did you suspect me?”