She stands in the door with her hands on her hips, nostrils flared, eyes burning. “Damn you, Penn Cage.” She glares at my father. “If I were you, I’d try to talk some sense into my son.” Then she steps through the sliding door and shuts it with a bang.

Dad looks at me with a glint in his eye. “That’s some woman.” He takes a cigar from his shirt pocket, unwraps it, and sticks it between his back teeth. “Desperate times call for desperate measures?”

“What choice do we have? Even if Betty Lou would go public, she might never get the chance. Presley could kill her. And even if we somehow turned Presley, Marston could have him killed. But as soon as I go public, any suspicious accidents make Marston look guilty.”

“I agree. Not only that, I like it.”

“There’s only one problem,” I murmur, fighting the fear germinating in my gut.

“What’s that?”

“Leo is one cool customer. What if I can’t spook him?”

By nine p.m. I’ve pretty much decided to go forward without Caitlin’s help. Finding a newspaper reporter or radio talk-show host who will let me spout off about Leo Marston and a race crime shouldn’t be too difficult. In the current media climate, where celebrity and controversy are the benchmarks of ratings, they’ll probably fight over the story. But Caitlin’s apprehension still worries me. What I need now is positive confirmation that I’m right to go after Marston.

Dwight Stone answers his phone after five rings, but as soon as I identify myself, he hangs up. I try once more, in case he made a mistake, but the result is the same. More curious than discouraged, I take out my wallet and fish out the card with Ike Ransom’s cell phone number. The deputy answers instantly.

“This is your buddy from the Triton plant,” I tell him.

He asks if I’m home, then says he’ll call back from a land line. A minute later, he tells me to meet him at an abandoned warehouse by the river, in the industrial park. This doesn’t strike me as a good way to spend the evening, so I suggest that he pick me up in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He reluctantly agrees.

Fifteen minutes later, I climb into his cruiser, the claustrophobic little world of anger and guns and cigarettes. He looks just as he did the other night, only more nervous. He looks, in fact, like he might be wired on speed.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demands.

“Colorado. I talked to an FBI agent who worked the case in sixty-eight.”

Ransom hits the brake, then catches himself and continues up the bypass. “I thought I told you to stay away from the FBI.”

“You did. And I’m curious as to why.”

He ignores the comment. “What’s this guy’s name?”

“Stone.”