“Call Chief Porter,” I said, “and give me the phone when you have him on the line.”

Stormy flipped open her cell phone and entered the number as I gave it to her.

The road sloped down for more than a mile, through an uninhabited area of mesquite and purple sage in full spring bloom, toward a hollow in which a grove of cottonwoods flourished because an aquifer lay within reach of their roots. At the trees, the paved road came to a dead end.

“There’s no cell service out here,” Stormy reported as she pocketed her phone. “No cell service, probably no cable TV, no public sewer hookup, most likely well water, no city water lines, but I bet they have plenty of chain saws.”

An oiled-dirt driveway curved among the trees. Through the screen of branches, I could see a two-story house. Gliding toward that residence, the spirit of the murdered man disappeared into the cottonwood shadows.

As I parked across the narrow dirt lane to prevent anyone from escaping the house in a vehicle, I said, “Better stay here while I have a look around.”

“I’m not a delicate flower,” Stormy declared. “As soon as I’m old enough to buy a pistol, I’m going to get a license to carry a concealed weapon.”

Because of the troubles in her childhood, she knew that true Evil walked the world.

“But you’re not old enough yet,” I said.

“Which is why I have this.”

From her purse, she produced a six-inch-long stainless-steel tube about two inches in diameter, with a crosshatched grip. At the top was a stainless-steel knob as shiny as a mirror. She pressed a button, and in an instant the tube telescoped to eighteen inches and locked at that length. Smiling at me, she lightly rapped the palm of her left hand with the knob of the baton.

“Ordered it through an ad in a martial-arts magazine,” she said. “It’ll fracture a knee or even a skull.”

Unconvinced, I said, “You should still stay here with the car.”

“Oh, my adorable fry cook, I am either coming with you or I’m going in there alone.”

“What does that mean? You’re going to test that thing on my head?”

“I wouldn’t want to test it on your head,” she assured me. “But we’re either in this together or we’re not, and I’ve been operating on the assumption that we are in it together.”

“In what together?”

“Life.”

She has these dark eyes as deep as galaxies. It’s easy to get lost in them.

I said, “Well…see…it’s just that…since caveman days it’s been the man’s job—”

“You’re not a caveman.”

“No. But traditionally—”

“I bet some of those cavewomen were totally tough mamas.” She opened the passenger door and got out of the car. “Is Elvis coming with us?”

Mr. Presley was no longer in the backseat. I don’t know where he goes when he’s not with me. Being a spirit, he can’t sing or play the guitar, and he can’t eat his favorite deep-fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich even if he could get somebody to make one for him.