She opened the crime scene suitcase. Said to Jesse, “I want a known of the dirt around here.”

“Known?”

“Exemplars—samples, you know.”

“Just of the dirt here.”

“Right.”

“Sure,” he said. Then asked, “Why?”

“Because if we can find soil that doesn’t match what’s found here naturally it might be from the place Garrett’s got those girls.”

“It could also,” Lucy said, “be from Lydia’s garden or Mary Beth’s backyard or shoes of some kids fishing here a couple of days ago.”

“It could,” Sachs said patiently. “But we need to do it anyway.” She handed Jesse a plastic bag. He strode off, pleased to help. Sachs started down the hill. She paused, opened the crime scene case again. No rubber bands. She noticed that Lucy Kerr had some bands binding the end of her French braid. “Borrow those?” she asked. “The elastic bands?”

After a brief pause the deputy pulled them off. Sachs stretched them around her shoes. Explained. “So I’ll know which footprints’re mine.”

As if it makes a difference in this mess, she thought.

She stepped into the crime scene.

“Sachs, what do you have?” Rhyme asked. The reception was even worse than earlier.

“I can’t see the scenario very clearly,” she said, studying the ground. “Way too many footprints. Must’ve been eight, ten different people walking through here in the last twenty-four hours. But I have an idea what happened—Mary Beth was kneeling. A man’s shoes approach from the west—from the direction of the canal. Garrett’s. I remember the tread of the shoe Jesse found. I can see where Mary Beth stands and steps back. A second man’s shoes approach from the south. Billy. He came down the embankment. He’s moving fast—mostly on his toes. So he’s sprinting. Garrett goes toward him. They scuffle. Billy backs up to a willow tree. Garrett comes toward him. More scuffling.” Sachs studied the white outline of Billy’s body. “The first time Garrett hits Billy with the shovel he gets him in the head. He falls. That didn’t kill him. But then he hit him in the neck when he was down. That finished him off.”

Jesse gave a surprised laugh, staring at the same outline as if he were looking at something completely different from what she saw. “How’d you know that?”

Absently she said, “The blood pattern. There’re a few small drops here.” She pointed to the ground. “Consistent with blood falling about six feet—that’s from Billy’s head. But that big spray pattern—which’d have to be from a severed carotid or jugular—starts when he was on the ground…. Okay, Rhyme, I’m going to start the search.”