Nonetheless, the symmetry appealed to him. A murder twenty-three years ago, and now another as he arrived to do the retrospective. The contrast would be worth reporting, how the separate murders had been handled, if this second killing were indeed a murder. Well, a dead man with no face, that surely wasn't ordinary, and as far as Dunlap cared, the difference was the same. That first murder had been something he hadn't counted on. There hadn't been a mention of it in the files that he had looked through in New York. When Parsons mentioned it in passing-yesterday in Parsons' office-Dunlap had required all his discipline not to show his interest. He had just kept sitting there and nodding as if vaguely bored by all this ancient news, but really he had felt his heartbeat quicken, felt that tug inside him as he guessed that there was more here than he had anticipated. He had kept his guard up all the time he and Parsons made their bargain. He had still looked bored when he had gone down to the paper's morgue and asked the man in charge to bring the microfilm. But when he was alone, he'd squinted in suspense for it, and in an issue twenty-three years ago, the first week in October, he had found it.

  It was pretty much the way that Parsons had described it. The town had evidently feared another rush of hippies coming through, especially if reporters showed up, publicizing what had happened. Once the town had adjusted to its shock, it must have worked to keep the news from going farther. And the tactic was successful. As much as Dunlap knew, the story had been strictly local, a headline the first day, a third-page feature the next day, then a few paragraphs buried near the sports section. A rancher had wakened to find that his eighteen-year-old son was missing. At first the rancher wasn't bothered, thinking that his son had gone out with some friends and simply stayed the night. He'd made some calls but couldn't find him, waiting through the afternoon until at suppertime the boy was still not home, and he got worried. On a chance he phoned the state police, fearing that there'd been an accident or maybe the boy had gotten in trouble and was too afraid to call. The police hadn't heard a thing about him, doing what the father had already done, however, checking with the young man's friends. The friends, though, didn't know a thing about him either, hadn't seen him in a couple of days. He'd been moody, staying to himself. He'd even broken up with his girlfriend. Someone thought of suicide, and then they really did get worried. This was sure-no vehicle was missing from the ranch. The son had either walked off or had gotten a ride. Had he run away? The father spoke of arguments that they'd been having, and as Dun-lap had gone through the story, he had sensed that the arguments were severe. Small town rancher's son who wanted something more. Father who repressed him. Reading through the microfilm, Dunlap had been puzzled why it took them so long understanding. But it did. Indeed it took them several days. But then a friend remembered how the boy had hung out with those hippies when they'd caused that trouble in the town. The friend had even seen him smoking marijuana. The son had talked about the hippies often after they had left. The father and the state police considered this for a while, and then they finally had it figured out. The father wanted to go up and get him, but the state police insisted that they go alone. They evidently saw how furious the father was and concluded that they'd save some trouble if they went up on their own. Besides, there wasn't any guarantee that the boy was up there. This was just a chance. No point in making judgments until they knew.

  The next few details Dunlap had to guess because, while there was plenty of space devoted to the missing son to start with, once the murder occurred the lid came over the story. Dunlap was impressed by someone's thoroughness. That was Parsons, he suspected, working to protect the town. There wasn't any way to know exactly what went on. The rationale was obvious. To guarantee that the trial was fair. To keep the jurors free from bias. After all, a small town, if the trial took place here, news about the murder had to be subdued and dignified. Oh, it was dignified all right. Hell, it was almost non-existent, and back in 1970, a small town in the boonies could get away with that. There hadn't been those recent major court decisions about freedom for reporters at a trial. Not that any local newsman would have worked against the blackout. No, the point was to keep outside newsmen ignorant of what had happened here. Conspiracy is what some people call it, Dunlap thought and sipped his coffee. Now you're thinking like a Woodward or a Bernstein. Let's not make too much of this. Well, make too much or not, he sure as hell was going to find out what went on up in that compound.

  He walked toward the counter and paid fifty cents for his coffee. As he left, he glanced back toward the elderly waitress who was staring puzzled at him, then down at the two-dollar tip he'd put on the table. What now? Showing off? Well, why not? If he felt like being a big-time spender from the city, he was maybe condescending, but at least he didn't hurt somebody, and besides it made him feel good. He might be a boozer, but at least he wasn't stingy. He went outside, and once again the sun stabbed his eyes. It was even worse, though, hotter, more intense, and his elation as he left the diner suddenly was gone. He felt nervous and impatient. He had planned to go back to the newspaper's morgue, but he was doubtful that he'd learn much more. He'd tried to get in touch with the police chief several times last night, but Slaughter had been neither at his home nor at the station when he'd called, and Dunlap was determined now to speak with him. He hitched the straps of his tape recorder and his camera around his shoulder and marched through the glaring sunlight up the street.

  The time was half-past eight. He noticed lots more traffic, mostly pickup trucks with people crowded in them, come to town on Saturday to shop or merely look around. He noticed that the stores were open, and he was thinking that he maybe ought to stop at one and buy a hat. Oh, that would look just great. A city suit and a cowboy hat. Well, keep your pride then, but before long, out here in the sun like this, your face'll be as parched and leathered as those people in the pickup trucks. He passed the newspaper's office, wishing he could hail a taxi, but he hadn't seen a taxi since he'd come here, and he trudged on, beginning to sweat. Well, this would be the last time he would let them send him to a jerk-off town like this. He sensed that there was some good story here, and when he put it all together, he would show them he was just as good as he had once been, and he wouldn't have to take this kind of job. But then an odd dilemma started working on him. Dunlap was anxious to get out of here, but if he meant to guarantee that he would never find himself this low again, he'd have to take more time than he could tolerate. He might be here a week from now. And that was too much for his mind to bear as he walked underneath the trees at last and up the front steps to the police station.

  Of course, the chief had not come in yet. What was worse, the chief had phoned to say that he didn't plan to come in at all.

  He'd had some kind of trouble. "And what am I supposed to do?" Dunlap asked the policeman on duty.

  "Well, maybe if you told me why you had to see him."

  Dunlap slumped in a chair. He'd gone through this the day before, but there had been a different person then, a woman, and Dunlap studied the policeman, sighed, then passing through frustration told him very calmly what it was he needed.

  "That's no problem."

  Dunlap blinked. He didn't think he'd heard correctly. "What?"

  "If you had told me who you were to start with. When the chief called in this morning, he explained you might be stopping by. Just hold on while I call him back."

  And fifteen minutes later, Dunlap stood across from a row of dingy houses, staring at a barren field with stockpens up at one end and a bar, the Railhead, down at the other. He had carefully avoided mentioning his interest in the recent killing, concentrating only on the compound twenty-three years ago. As a consequence, when he had found out where the chief was sending him, he'd been astonished by his luck. The Railhead. He had heard that name on the two-way radio yesterday. This was where the mutilated body had been found. Dunlap looked at the two policemen who were standing in the middle of the field. They turned to study him when the cruiser that had brought him here pulled away. The sun was stark. A wind hurled bits of sharp, hot sand at him. He licked his gritty lips and started through the field.

  The two policemen met him halfway. "Yes, sir, may we help you?" one of them asked.

  And Dunlap thought that things might just be getting better as he told them. But the one named Rettig didn't want to talk.

  Chapter Five.

  Oh, that's wonderful. Just god-damned great. I'm out here in the middle of this stupid field, and this guy Rettig doesn't want to talk. Well, what else did you think would hap-

  pen? Dunlap asked himself. Just because it got a little easier a while ago, you figured everything would be simple now? Hell, you're the one who's simple. Wake up, do your job. Dunlap knew that Rettig wasn't just the man in charge of this investigation: Rettig had been with the state police back then. Dunlap had learned that from the man on duty at the station. He had learned as well that Rettig was the one who'd spent the most time with Wheeler. Twenty-three years ago. "Look, way back then. I don't see what the problem is."

  But Rettig didn't want to talk.

  Wheeler was the rancher who had lost his son. "All right, then, you don't even need to talk about it. Let's try this. I'll tell you what I know." And guess, and less than that, just make up on the spot, Dunlap decided, but at least this was a way to draw out Rettig, to get him talking. "You just tell me if I'm right or not. I'm going to do this story anyway. You'll want to make sure that the parts about you are correct."

  Dunlap studied him, and Rettig wasn't certain, staring back. So as another gust of wind came up, the dust obscuring them, their faces specked with grit, Dunlap started prompting him, anxious to fill the silence and keep Rettig from having a chance to say no. "You drove out toward the commune, looking for the boy. You headed up the loggers' road. The sentries wouldn't let you through the gate. They made you go back to the town to get a search warrant. But in the meantime Wheeler had decided not to follow your advice. He went up on his own, despite what you had warned him."

  "No, that isn't true." Rettig hesitated, then continued. "Wheeler didn't go up in the meantime. We had made him wait back at the station-not the one in town, but the state police barracks out on the highway-and he heard us call in that we had to go to town to get a search warrant. That's when he drove out. The man on duty at the station went to take a leak, and Wheeler left while he was gone."

  "And Wheeler was upset enough, the man on duty called you to go back up to the compound," Dunlap said.

  "That's right."

  "So you couldn't have been very far behind. Wheeler didn't have to go home for the gun. He was a rancher, and he likely had it in the trunk or car or Jeep, whatever he was driving."

  "A pickup truck."

  Dunlap had an image now of all those pickup trucks that he had seen this morning, families come to town: the guns in racks behind the driver's seat.

  "A rifle or a shotgun," Dunlap said. The last word made Rettig's eyes flicker. "Yes, a shotgun," Dunlap said, and now he understood why there'd been no details about the murder. "Wheeler was cursing, angry at the boy for running off, angry at the compound for the trick that it had pulled. More than that, he didn't understand those hippies. He was afraid, going up to find the boy and rescue him. He roared his truck right up that loggers' road and crashed straight through the gate. He drove until the road came to an end, then jumped out with his shotgun, running through the woods, the sentries racing after him. He almost made it to the clearing when they tackled him. There was a fight. He jumped back, shotgun ready, and he blew one bearded hippy's head apart."

  Dunlap had to pause, to check for some reaction. He was guessing, based on what he'd read, but it made sense, except he didn't know exactly how the shooting had occurred, especially what part of the body. But it had to be the head. Head or groin-otherwise the paper would have been more specific. But a shotgunned head or groin was something that you didn't mention if you wanted to be delicate, and since as far as Dun-lap knew there was no sex involved in this, the head, its long hair and its shaggy beard, would have been what the rancher likely shot at. Hell, it was symbolic of the trouble. Dunlap kept waiting as the wind died.

  In the silence, Rettig murmured, "His face looked like somebody had squashed a quart of strawberries on it. Just this mushy red stuff, no eyes, no mouth, nothing. Just this mushy red stuff." Rettig guided him toward the cruiser. "I've said more than I intended."

  "Look, I understand. I'll make a deal. You call your chief, and he'll explain that it's all right. I told you at the start. I cleared this first with Parsons, then with him."

  Rettig looked skeptical. "I have to go to his place. I'll be sure to ask him."

  "Take me with you?"

  Rettig frowned.

  "I mean, I don't have any car. You can't just leave me." "I can leave you. If you cleared this as you say, I don't want any trouble, though." Rettig thought about it. "You get in. We'll drive you. But you'd better not be lying."

  Dunlap smiled and hurried into the back. The other cop got in the front beside where Rettig drove, and both were taking off their hats, and Dunlap wished that they had rolled their windows down when they had parked the cruiser. The heat had built up in here so that his clothes stuck to him and to the seat. They drove up past the stockpens, Dunlap glancing at the cattle in there and then watching how the slums diminished as they turned left and headed toward a newer section of the town. They were going through an underpass, and quicker than he had expected, they were in the country. Dunlap had noticed in the phone book that the chief's address was R. R. something, but he hadn't really understood how far out that might be. They went past sun-baked grassland. No one spoke. On occasion, there were static-distorted voices on the two-way radio, but neither man picked up the microphone to answer.

  Dunlap studied them. Rettig with his red, curly hair. The other man, much younger, blond, his hair cut short in imitation of the style back in the fifties, with the difference that out here the style was not an imitation, rather a continuation. They both looked like football players, big and tall and husky, and the man back at the station had been big and tall as well, and Dunlap was thinking that their size might be a part of what the chief had looked for when he hired them. If that were true, then Slaughter maybe had some big-time notions about how to handle trouble. He might not be just some hick, and Dunlap considered that, then tried to get Rettig talking again. 'You were close enough to hear the shot." Rettig stared at his rearview mirror. "Look, I warned you-"

  But you answered me regardless, Dunlap thought. Oh, you were close enough, all right. Hell, you were nearly there to see it happen. Once you heard the shot and saw that shattered gate, you sped up through it, stopping by the pickup truck and running farther up the trail to find the rancher with his shotgun aimed at several other hippies. Oh, yes, Dunlap could imagine what the scene had been like, the hippies looking down the barrel of the shotgun, terrified, not knowing what to do. If they ran, Wheeler would fire. If they stayed, he'd likely do the same, the rancher too far gone to maintain control, his eyes wide, his face stark, breathing hard and tensing his finger on the trigger. And the two of you, the last thing that you wanted was to shoot the guy. You didn't want him shooting someone else, though, either, even if that someone else was just another hippie, the first one spread out on the ground, his face like someone had squashed a quart of strawberries on it. And the others. Sure, there would have been other hippies from the compound who'd heard the shot and come running through the trees, and when they saw the body, they stumbled back or maybe just froze in shock, and soon the rancher became more nervous, seeing people all around him, hippies, his finger tight on the trigger as he squinted at the two cops who had their guns out, telling him to stop this, inching toward him.

  "How'd you manage to take it from him?"

  "What?"

  "The shotgun. How did you take it?"

  Dunlap hoped that the question would appeal to Rettig's pride, but the cop just stared down the highway.

  "Some dumb hippie tried to grab him," Rettig said abruptly. "Wheeler turned, and I jumped close to get the shotgun. I had it pointed toward the ground when it went off. It blew up bits of dirt and pine needles. But I had him, and he couldn't work the pump to slide another shell in."

  My, my, my, and sure, you didn't have much trouble telling me how well you did, Dunlap thought. He knew that soon he'd have it all, especially what happened to the rancher's son.