After a long chilly silence, Grady managed to clear his throat and nod.

  “Lovely. Now, dear, Mendoza and I will need a few things from storage. I trust that’s all right?”

  “Perfectly,” Carling agreed, and opened a desk drawer. She passed over a card key. “Try to get the body transferred to Quantico, or, failing that, get the forensic reports and get me some tissue and blood samples. Anything else, Martin?”

  “Uh—yes, his clothes. I’ll need to see test results on those. Also, local water samples.”

  “He was in a baptismal tank,” Mrs. Womack reminded him. “I think they’ve drained it, but I’ll see what I can find.”

  She bustled out, shutting the door behind her. Grady looked at the photos again, flipped through the narrative reports.

  “What are we missing?” he asked. On the other side of the desk, Carling shrugged and played with a Mont Blanc pen. “It’s not random,” he added. “If it were random, we’d have female victims.”

  “Unless women simply are immune to it somehow.”

  “That doesn’t fit with the standard pattern of spontaneous human combustion. The typical SHC victims are usually women, usually over forty, and the cases occur during the late evening and early morning. These have almost exclusively been daytime occurrences. Public.”

  “Strikes a little more terror that way, doesn’t it?” Carling asked. He gave her a disgusted look. “Oh, come on, Marty. You said yourself, it isn’t random. And it doesn’t follow established patterns, if you believe in that sort of thing. So what do we have left? Human agency. Deliberate murder.”

  He continued to study the picture of Pastor Zeke Clayburn, mouth open in a rictus of horror. Nearly normal down to his nose, charred meat from mouth to waist.

  His white Sansabelt slacks looked sooty but intact. No burning of the legs and pelvic region.

  “Files,” he said, and snapped his fingers. “The El Paso file. Where is it?”

  Carling dug in a desk drawer and passed him another red folder. He pulled the picture and stared at the mashed charred corpse. The feet looked intact in battered running shoes. Other than that, he was a mess.

  “Clayburn was in a baptismal tank,” he said. Carling came around the desk to examine the photos side by side. “No combustion below his waist. I’ll bet he was sopping wet.”

  “So?”

  “So if the water’s making them burn, why would it keep him from burning below the waist?”

  Carling met his eyes.

  Grady sat back, photos still held at eye level, and shook his head.

  “The water’s safe. My god, the water’s safe! It is murder. God, that’s great!”

  Carling leaned over and kissed him, a chaste gentle peaceful kiss. “I like to think so.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Velvet

  Two pimply teenaged boys in oversized pro football jackets were staring at her. Velvet pointed her shoulder at them and curled closer around the pay phone, wishing the wind would let up, wishing she had her day-glo blue jacket with the fake fur lining. Damn, that thing was warm.

  Instead, she had to settle for Robby’s hiking shit—L.L. Bean or something, made for one-hour hikes in the fall, not for winter windstorms. Besides, she looked like shit in flannel.

  And the goddamned penny loafers were killing her feet.

  A thin recorded voice in the phone receiver said The number you have reached is not a working number. Please check your number and—

  “Fuck you,” Velvet grumbled, and slammed the receiver down. She chewed her lip and fingered a quarter in her pocket. She’d lost Lenny Bradshaw’s number, of course; never had been able to hang onto things like that, not even when her life depended on it. And here she had things to tell him, too. Big things.

  She needed to replace the money she’d lost, fast. What the hell was that rag he worked for? Weekly World— no—Dallas Met— no—Big D Gazette. That was it. Big D Gazette.

  She dialed 1411 and demanded the number. A computer that sounded like the one she’d just told to fuck itself gave her a number that didn’t sound at all familiar. She scribbled it on the back of her hand with a ballpoint pen, and fed her last quarter into the phone.

  The two teenagers were still staring, nudging each other. She gave them a shark smile and dialed the number, listened to the grinding blurry rings. Five. Ten. Jesus, didn’t they ever—

  “BigDGazette. Holdonaminute.” Before she could tell him to fuck off, he’d jammed her on hold—silent hold, not Muzak hold—and she spent another minute rubbing her chilled hands together, smearing the phone number. Great. She’d have to get it again, if she needed to call back. “Yeah. Whatdoyouwant?”

  “Lenny Bradshaw.” She had to say it slow, because her teeth were chattering. The plastic of the phone felt like a block of ice on her ear. “Hey, buddy, hurry it up, I’m dying out here.”

  The guy grunted and put her back on hold. Silent hold. She danced uncomfortably from one foot to the other, thinking about central heating and peeing. She was on her left foot when a voice picked up and said, “Yeah, go ahead.”

  Not right. Didn’t sound right.

  “Hey, you got two seconds to start talking or I’m gone.” He breathed heavily into the phone, a wheeze at the end like a three-pack-a-day addict. This wasn’t Mr. College Boy Dimple-Chin. No way.

  “Lenny Bradshaw?” she asked, like an idiot. He wheezed some more.

  “Yeah, yeah, you got him. What?”

  “Lenny Bradshaw, like, the reporter, with the Big D Gazette?”

  “No, baby, Lenny Bradshaw with the fucking Peace Corps. What are you, crazy? You called me, right? So?”

  So. She leaned heavily against the pay phone, almost rested her forehead on the cold metal, but realized it was covered with some mysterious white stuff that could have been snot.

  “So—let’s say, just for grins, I been talking to a guy who says he’s Lenny Bradshaw. Only he isn’t you. He’s been giving me money for information.”

  “Money?” Bradshaw’s laugh sounded more like springs squeaking. “Baby, you got a guy paying you to talk, I’d hang on to that bad boy, ’cause it damn sure ain’t me, and anyways, I don’t pay for information. I’m a journalist. People give it to me.”

  “Yeah, sure. Listen, this guy, he’s been pretending to be you. Isn’t that like, against the law or something? ’Cause, you know, I told him a lot of stuff.” She hesitated. “Personal stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  Here she was, scared to go home, stranded at a snot-laced pay phone in the freezing wind wearing L.L. Bean shit, for god’s sake, shacked up in a house that Ringling Brothers decorated. Why worry about one more asshole?

  “Like, I’m the one who was in the hotel room with Burt Marshall when he burned up.”

  The silence seemed to go on forever. Papers shuffled, or static hissed, she wasn’t sure which. Finally, he said, “Burt who?”

  “Come on, you did a big story about it, I read it. Guy burned up in a hotel. You were offering a reward. I was there. I saw it.” She sucked in a deep breath. “That isn’t all, not by a long shot. I saw plenty. I think it was murder, and I think I know who did it.”

  “Yeah, I remember this guy. That was last week, fer crissake. But, uh, yeah, there’s a reward. If you’ve got good info. What’s your name, honey?”

  “Velvet. Velvet—uh—look, don’t print my name, okay? Just call me an unnamed source or something. Look, I need the money. I need to get out of town, like, fast. Get it?”

  “Got it. Okay, Velvet, you want to come down here?”

  “Here where?”

  He gave her an address out in the ’burbs, a long cold bus ride. She wrote it on the back of her hand next to the smudged telephone number and chewed her lip some more, winced when a cut opened and she tasted blood.

  “Yeah, okay, it’ll take a while. Like, a couple hours. Okay?”

  “I ain’t going anywhere. Come on down.” Bradshaw sounded friendlier now, like a tamed bear. “Got a pot of coffee with your name on it.”

  “Long as, you got a check with my name on it.”

  “We’ll discuss it.” He hung up without any good-byes, which was fine; she felt warm and fuzzy enough. Whoever Mr. Dimple was, fuck him. If he came back, she’d get some more cash out of him, even if she had to do him a favor or two.

  Things were starting to look up for her, she decided, and gave the two teenaged boys another smile. The taller one wandered over, deliberately casual.

  “You waiting for somebody?” he asked. She lifted an eyebrow. Under the glasses, her eyes were still puffy and red, but what the hell, the only thing he was going to care about was her mouth.

  “Why honey,” she purred, and linked her arm in his. “I was waiting for you. How about your friend? Might as well make it a party.”

  Might as well. She didn’t intend to make her money back one blow job at a time, but, hell, she had to start someplace.

  And the bus would be late. It always was.

  The offices of the Big D Gazette had an office-supply-warehouse feel—assemble-them-yourself desks, cheap bookcases that leaned forward like vultures, computers that looked put together from garage sales and public auctions. None of the chairs matched. Most of the desks were empty—and too clean.

  “What happened?” Velvet sidestepped a dented trash can and waved a hand at the empty bullpen. Lenny Bradshaw—who turned out to be tuberculosis-victim thin, pencil-necked, and a big fan of garlic and Old Spice—shrugged slumped shoulders. He had on paisley suspenders, a blue-striped shirt, and a polka-dot bow tie, a man in terminal pattern indecision.

  “You know. The usual.”

  Cutbacks? Mass cult suicide? Ptomaine? She hadn’t seen any funeral wreaths on the door, but there hadn’t been a receptionist, either.

  “Okay, Miss—what’s your name again?”

  “Velvet.”

  “Velvet.” His voice turned nasal and snide. She knew the tone, knew without looking that he’d be staring down her cleavage, except that Robby’s L.L. Bean wardrobe didn’t give that kind of view, not without a lot of work. “Yeah. So, you want to tell me what happened at the hotel?”

  “Gee, Lenny—may I call you Lenny?—I’d love to, only I got this problem.” She seated herself in the chair he waved at, leaned over, and rested her elbows on his desk. It was clean, too—not ex-employee clean, but not-much-to-do clean. “See, I need money. That’s why I just took a long boring bus ride to get here.”

  He coughed in her direction, a wet rattle that smelled like a six-day-full Dumpster. She’d bought a trial-sized bottle of Listerine and gargled at the bus stop—just to get the taste of the condoms out of her mouth. She thought about offering the bottle to Bradshaw.

  “Ah.” He tapped a sharp-pointed pencil on a clean pad of paper. The eraser had never been used. “Well, why don’t you just let me be the judge of that.”

  “Hey. Buddy.” Velvet pressed her hands flat against the desktop and stood up to lean over him. He either had a dandruff problem, or it had started snowing outside while she wasn’t looking. “Let’s get something straight. I’ll deliver. I … always … deliver.”

  She used the patented Ming low-octave purr in the last of it, saw it register in his eyes. The pencil stopped tapping.

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, “Yeah, I can see that. Tell you what, I got five hundred bucks that says—”

  “Let me see it.”

  He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a ragged cigar box. He flashed it open, showing an equally ragged stack of bills.

  “Count it.”

  Bradshaw’s eyes were a washed-out brown, squinty and tired.

  “Count it,” she said again, very quietly. “Or I walk right out the door.”

  “Cocky bitch,” he muttered, and slammed the lid back on the box. He laid out twenties, old and used, in stacks of five. At five stacks, he’d emptied the box. “Satisfied?”

  “I believe in total quality management. I’m never satisfied.” She grinned when his eyes started to narrow more. “Forget it. We’re cool.”

  When she reached out for the money, his hand came down over hers, hot as summer sweat.

  “Uh-uh. Not until I’ve heard what I want to hear.”

  Before she was done, he’d let her take the five hundred, fold it into neat halves, and stick it in her socks. After that, he took out a half-full bottle of Chivas Regal and poured two paper cups.

  When that was empty, he found a full bottle.

  “’Slate,” Bradshaw mumbled. He tried to pick up his paper cup, but turned it over. Whisky peed off the edge of his desk onto his pants. “Shit. Shit. See that? Shit.”

  For some reason, it was ungodly funny. Velvet laughed until the room started spinning, then put her head down on the desk until it stopped. From time to time, giggles bubbled up and dribbled out of her mouth, gooey with Chivas.

  “Not the first time,” she said. “Not the firsht time shomebody died with me. Y’know?”

  “Yeah?” He snorted wetly and searched for a handkerchief. “Damn. Damn.”

  “My sister.”

  He started laughing, a high thin laugh like a jackass. She wished she was close enough to slap him; it seemed like way too much effort to go around the desk to do it. She settled for throwing the rest of her drink on him, then reached for the bottle and poured. Most of it missed the cup.

  “Don’t fuckin’ laugh, you asshole. Ash-hole. Good kid. She was … you know … young.”

  “Lemme guess.” Bradshaw’s laugh sawed at her again. “Drunk driving.”

  “No.” She tried to sit up straight, but the room took a funny lurch. “Drunk, not driving. Blow jobs.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was blowing this guy—y’know—in the backsheat. Seat. I dinnit know she wanned to go home. She started walking an—an—thish other guy he—” All of a sudden she was crying, bawling, shaking all over. “Amy—”

  She didn’t remember any of it too well—just crawling out of the car, half-dead from the booze, seeing the other boy throwing up in the bushes. Seeing Amy lying in the mud, her face in the mud.

  “Suffocated,” she said, clearly. “Dinnit mean to do it.”

  That’s what he’d said on the witness stand, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know she couldn’t breathe, I didn’t mean it—

  And she’d sat up there looking out at the courtroom, at her friends, her mom, and said, I didn’t know, I didn’t hear it, I was drunk, I was in the backseat giving his friend a blow job while he raped my sister and she choked to death.

  God, oh God.

  “Life sucks,” Bradshaw said solemnly, and hee-hawed like a jackass. Velvet stood up with all the dignity she had left and pointed her ink-smeared left hand at him.

  “Fuck you,” she said, and staggered away.

  The freezing night air cleaned her up a little. She sat down shivering on the curb and waited for the bus. Her mouth tasted like Scotch and semen.

  She opened the trial bottle of Listerine and gulped it down in two quick shots.

  She had the distinct feeling that when she sobered up, she was going to regret this whole thing.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ming

  Ming liked the quiet, late at night. Sometimes, in the distance, she heard a siren wail, but all in all it was silent, and cold. She never turned the heat on unless it was cold enough to kill, and even then only enough to keep her alive.

  Cold focused. Cold crystallized purpose.

  She sat naked on her rough cotton mattress, hands clenched into fists, and stared at a blank brick wall. There was nothing in this room. No clothes were allowed here. This was the place of utter nakedness.

  The room of punishment.

  There were no light switches; the bulbs were unshaded, too bright, harsh. They burned constantly. The light slid gold over her skin, black over her hair. She opened one fist and watched blood flush pink back into her palm.

  Paolo had been to Velvet’s apartment. Someone had been there first. She was gone—either fled or dead. Dead, she was a great loss.

  Fled, she was a great liability.

  Ming turned her hand palm-down and laid it on her thigh, never quite relaxing.

  Velvet did not know very much about this room. About the drain in the center of the floor, the water taps placed low to the ground to flush the floor clean. Velvet had never watched the red whirlpool disappear.

  “No one leaves,” Ming said softly. The air in the room was dead, no echoes. Voices fell into immediate silence, lost. “No one leaves here. It is the rule.”

  She had managed to conquer her need for this place—now she indulged it only once a year, rarely more than that. She had planned to bring Velvet here, to let her understand the silence.

  It might still be possible. It might still be necessary.

  A knock on the door. She smiled slightly, though she felt no joy.

  “Come in,” she said. The door creaked. “Come inside.”

  Paolo hesitated in the doorway, looking nervously at the empty walls, the plain concrete floor, the drain like a dark eye in the center.

  “Uh, no, ma’am, I just—uh—”

  “Did you find her?”

  Paolo’s silence gave her an answer. She closed her hand into a fist again.

  “Unfortunate.” She considered the uneven bricks in the wall, the red brown that concealed so many stains. “Perhaps it’s time to have another session with Mr. Julian. He seemed so—eager.”

  “He didn’t call.”

  “Then call him. Tell him Velvet’s ready for him.”

  “Uh—” Paolo straightened when she looked at him. His eyes went blank and businesslike. “Ma’am. Uh-huh.”

  She turned her head back to contemplation of the wall.

  “Close the door when you leave.”

  Such a small sound, the closing of the door. She shut her eyes and listened to the metal snick of the lock closing, played and replayed it in her head like a favorite song.