Some people say, when a person completes a stretch in a Tennessee correctional facility, they’ve paid their debt to society. They don’t know Noyd LeQuire.

After his release from Brushy Mountain State Prison and a bus ride to Knoxville, a taxi delivered him to the town square in Prospect.

As soon as he rented a single-wide on Doc Beasley Road, it became known as a bad neighborhood and property values dropped drastically.

All that happened just before Thanksgiving.

Four weeks later, I sat double-parked in my unmarked police car outside Prospect Bait & Tackle waiting for Sergeant Bettye Lambert to purchase a Christmas gift for her son.

The city’s Department of Buildings and Grounds had once again overdone the holiday decorations with illuminated wreaths on every utility pole, millions of twinkling lights in the bare branches of trees on the town square, and a Christmas tree to rival the monster at Rockefeller Center in front of the municipal building. If the citizens of Prospect didn’t know the city’s kilowatt-hour meter was spinning at warp speed, they should have.

I looked in the rearview mirror and watched a GMC suburban vacate a spot three car lengths behind me. As the big SUV drove past, I tapped the gear shift into reverse and parallel parked in the vacant spot.

Two minutes later, a twenty-year-old Chevy Caprice slid into a parking spot near the Prospect Citizen’s Bank & Trust.

As I looked away from the yellow Caprice, Bettye startled me by opening the back door of the Crown Victoria and tossing in a disassembled fishing rod. Then she jumped into the passenger’s seat, next to me.

“Hey,” I said. “That was quick.”

“I sure hope you’re right about what rod and reel to buy for Li’l Donnie.”

“Of course I’m right. My friend Richie is a fisherman and he says a Penn reel and Ugly Stik rod is the way to go.”

To my left, three car doors slammed. I looked across the street just as a trio of men wearing night-watch caps and rain coats exited the Caprice and headed toward the bank.

“Damn it,” I said. “This does not look good. Get on the radio and tell all units we’ve got a 10-15 in progress at the bank.”

At 11:30 Saturday night six of the twelve cops employed by Prospect PD and I waited outside the Iron Skillet on Sevierville Road. Five of us had driven our personally-owned pick-up trucks to haul away the furniture, file cabinets, and other accouterments used by the owner to promote gambling and sell untaxed alcoholic beverages.

I keyed the portable radio I held. “Prospect-one to all units, do it.”

Officers Bobby John Crockett and Vernon Hobbs slammed on the front door. Harlan Flatt, Leonard Alcock, and Junior Huskey covered the back door and the windows at the rear of the restaurant. Stanley [Rose]and I moseyed up to the front.

A man looking like a bartender answered the door. The two cops pushed their way in. Stan and I followed.

“Police department, we have a search warrant. Nobody move!” Bobby called out. No one moved.

“Where’s Audie Blevins?” I asked, waving a copy of the [search] warrant in my left hand.

“That would be me,” said a short, well dressed man of about sixty. I handed him the paper.

“This is a warrant to search your premises for evidence of illegal gambling and untaxed liquor,” I said. “I see two card games, care to explain anything?”

“Jest some friendly games, officer. We get t’gether ever once’t in a while t’ play cards, nothin’ more.”

“Have a seat, Mr. Blevins, and don’t touch anything.”

I told Bobby Crockett to open the back door and let the three other cops in. While Stan and I took names and capped the drinks on the tables with Glad-Wrap, the boys searched the restaurant, the adjacent office, and the storerooms.

The quickest way to put pressure on a restaurant owner is to threaten to take away their liquor license. I demanded a copy of his from Audie Blevins. As I recorded all that information, Junior Huskey got my attention.

“Sam, look-it here.” He gave me two folders and a well stuffed, padded manila envelope. One folder was marked players, the other was unmarked; the envelope was full of cash. I looked over the two page list of players. There were over thirty names with telephone numbers. The unmarked folder had several loose-leaf pages showing dates and dollar figures. The dates went back more than two years to March of 2005.

Crockett and Harley Flatt carried in four plastic gallon milk jugs all full of clear liquid.

“They’s about six or seven more jest like these in the back,” Harley said. “Take a whiff, boss.”

He popped the cap off one jug and lifted it to my nose.

“Yahoo.” I took a half step backwards. “Smells like pure alcohol; must be 190 proof or better,” I said, and turned to the closest table of players. “Any of you guys feel like you’re going blind?” No one seemed to enjoy my attempt at humor. “Confiscate everything and box up all these glasses we’ve put tops on. We’ll let the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms people analyze this for us,” I told Harley.

Then Vern Hobbs walked up, extended his hand and showed me a large revolver.

“Got this in the office, boss. Nice lookin’ gun.”

It was an old Smith and Wesson model 1917, .45 caliber revolver; a revolver that fired .45 automatic ammunition.

“Bag it and tag it, Vern. I’ll send it off to be checked.”

#

“Hey, can you buy the luck you always seem to have?” [FBI Special Agent] Ralph Oliveri asked, several days later.

“What luck? I’d prefer to think of it as superior police ability. What are you talking about anyway?”

“The gun you gave me [to check out]. Give yourself a gold star. You got a jackpot.”

“Keep talking, Ralphie, I’m starting to get excited.”

“The gun was used in a homicide near your neck-of-the-woods. In September of ‘06 a guy named Harvey-Dean Mullins was shot to death in his Maryville home. The Blount County Sheriff has the open case. Two distinct sets of prints on the gun. One matches to your defendant. The other is an unidentified partial. The gun’s on its way back to us as we speak. Pretty good stuff from your little jerk-water PD.”

She had a black and blue mouse under her left eye and the beginnings of a cauliflower ear—not things you expect to see on a fifty-year-old woman with plenty of money.

She sat on the exam table, a doctor to her left and a nurse on her right. Sergeant Stan Rose stood next to me, ten feet from that small corner of the emergency room.

“I doubt you have a concussion,” the doctor said, “but it would be best if you stayed the night.”

The patient shook her head gingerly.

“Okay, but you should see your family doctor tomorrow.”

The woman said nothing. The doctor understood.

“Or if you have problems, come back and see us,” he offered. “Sign the papers for Teresa and you’re free to go.” He smiled and walked away.

The nurse began her explanation as if it had been recorded. I thought of the dolls my sister had years ago—pull the ring on their neck and listen to a recorded message. Maybe graduates had rings installed as they left nursing school.

Ella Mae Swope slowly slid off the exam table, grimaced at a stabbing pain in her side, and took a moment to steady herself. She turned around and signed three hospital forms while resting the clipboard on the table’s surface. The nurse swept the privacy curtain back against the wall. Ella Mae started her walk to the lobby.

“Ella, we need to talk,” I said.

“I’m really not in the mood, Chief.”

“I won’t keep you long, and I have to insist.”

She nodded.

I looked at my watch—quarter-to-midnight. I looked at Stanley. “Go ahead and close up shop. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He nodded and left.

“The waiting room is crowded,” I said, “Let’s walk down the hall to the coffee shop.”

Mrs. Swope followed me, declined my offer to buy her coffee, and chose a table away from the half-dozen other patrons scattered around the room.

I assumed Ella had once been an attractive woman. Actually, she still was, until you saw the pain and hopelessness behind her outward appearance. Too many years of getting tuned up, and the stress of living with a violent man had hardened a once pretty face. The extra few pounds she wore probably came from no longer caring or from a few too many alcoholic calories each day. Her medium-length brown hair needed a combing as we sat at a small, round table in the hospital coffee shop.

“Are you going to sign the assault complaint this time?” I asked.

“What’s the use? Nothing will happen to him, nothing will change. You won’t do a damn thing yourself.”

“Ella, I could jump up and down on this table telling you that’s not true, and you wouldn’t believe me. I’ll just say this once, I will do something, but you have to sign the complaint and follow through by going to court.”

“What’s the use?”

“What’s the sense of being used as a punching bag every time Danny has a bad day?”

“He’s not a bad guy. It’s only when he has trouble at the yard or when he’s been drinking.”

“How many times has he smacked the crap out of you? How many black eyes, bruised ribs, or other physical damage do you have to suffer before it sinks in that getting beaten is not part of a good marriage?”

“I know you’re right, it’s just . . .”

“Stop.” I held up a hand to squelch her rationalization. “Your excuses may work on you, but not on me. Bottom line, Ella, come into the PD tomorrow and we’ll do the paperwork, or not—your choice.”

“All right, I’ll sign. But are you really going to lock up a member of the city council?”

“I haven’t had to before, but sure, why not? Danny needs some quality time with a good shrink. If a court order is the only way to get him there, so be it.”

“You’re a city employee, Sam; they’ll make your life miserable.”

“I’m the cop; it’s my job to make people miserable. Politicians are pussycats. Besides, that’s my problem

“Now for tonight,’ I said, “where can I take you, mother, daughter, or sister’s?”

“My sister’s, please.”

* * *

The chief assistant district attorney told me I was nuts. I often annoy her. Moira Menzies lectured me on the trouble I might encounter in prosecuting a local politician for domestic violence. An accurate assessment, of course, only I didn’t much care.

Later that morning I picked up my assault warrant at the Blount County Justice Center. I received a few more bits of similar advice from the judge, designed to make my professional life easier, but ever since I was a kid I had this thing about seeing justice done. It’s just what cowboys do.

Ella Mae’s husband, Danny, owned Swope Lumber and Supply in Prospect, Tennessee, a pretty little town in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.

In no way a self-made man, Danny inherited the business from his father, who in turn inherited it from his father, who founded the business in 1930-something.

For the several years I’ve known Danny Swope, I recognized him as a spoiled fifty-three-year-old child who drove a big Cadillac Escalade and constantly spoke of his hunting adventures. Danny had never bothered me personally, but I still didn’t like his act.

“You believe that whoaman, Sam?” Danny asked. “You believe I hit her? I thought you knew your job. I’m disappointed in you, Sam. She had too much ta drink and tripped on the cellar stairs, is all.”

Danny thought his clever ploy of making me doubt myself would work.

“I know the difference between bruises from a fall and the marks of a good beating, Dan, and I don’t much give a rat’s ass what your opinion of me is.”

“You callin’ me a liar?

I guess he wanted to play chicken.

“If you persist in telling me you haven’t beaten your wife, then you’re a lying sack of shit. Clear enough?”

“Well, I’ll tell you this, Mister Sam, Po-leece Chief, Jenkins, you ain’t lockin’ me up, nosir.”

“Danny, keep your mouth shut and listen carefully. I came in here as a courtesy to you in deference to your position in the community. I could have sent two cops and had them drag your ass out in cuffs. But no, I told you to get with your lawyer and come into my office this afternoon or tomorrow morning and surrender yourself. I’ll make you that offer once more, but if you piss me off again, I’ll cuff you myself and arrest you right now—in front of all your employees. Understand?” I stood up and glared at him.

He came around from behind his desk. I didn’t like how fast he moved and I poised to hit him. But he stopped, about three feet from me, and he began to percolate.

Danny was not a tall man, only about five-foot-seven or eight, but he was built like a fire-plug. He had broad shoulders and thick arms. His wide, ruddy face had turned even redder with anger.

“Careful, Danny, looks like your blood pressure is on the rise.”

“Careful yerse’f, Jenkins. Last time I looked I’s one o’ your bosses. Push me an’ I’ll make life miserable fer ya.”

I laughed, not because I found what he said humorous, but because I thought it would anger him more. If he had a stroke right there in his office, my troubles might have been over.

“I’m my own boss, Danny, but I might admit to working in the best interest of the people.”

He snorted and put his hands defiantly on his hips.

“Last time I looked. I’m the cop and I can take away your freedom. You own a lumber yard. The best you can do is sell me a two-by-four. Don’t act tough with me.”

I think that one got to him. He stood there seething, his jaw muscles working overtime.

“Alright, y’all will hear from my lawyer.”

“Thank you, sir. Nice doing business with you.”

That was how my Monday ended.

Ned’s Bucket O’ Blood. The name suggested a real class joint. The typical Southern road house, sat on a secondary highway, about fifty feet off the blacktop in a dog-eared neighborhood.

Large clumps of Dallis grass dotted the gravel parking lot, and a bumper crop of ragweed grew along the exterior walls of the bar.

A half dozen vehicles, four of them pickup trucks, were scattered around the lot in no particular order. I parked near the door and walked in.

The smell of stale beer and old cigarette smoke could have gagged a maggot.

The occupants of those six parked vehicles perched on stools and lounged at tables throughout the dingy gin mill.

A not quite pretty blond in a short black dress sang her rendition of It Takes Balls to be a Woman. Her guitarist wore a fancy two-tone cowboy shirt and looked vaguely like Stephen King, if Steve hadn’t washed his hair in a decade.

I took a stool at the close end of the bar.

“What’ll ya have?” the bartender asked as he dropped a stained coaster in front of me.

I placed him somewhere between forty and sixty, broad and short with a crew cut and a walrus mustache. From the twists of his nose, you could count the number of times it had been broken. His teeth were stained yellow as were two fingers of his right hand. He might have single-handedly accounted for the nicotine stink inside the Bucket O’ Blood.

“What do you have on tap?” I asked.

“Bud.”

“That’s it?” I gave him a friendly smile.

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t return the smile.

“How about in a bottle?”

“Bud Light . . . an’ more Bud.”

“A company man, huh?” I managed another smile.

“Do what?” Still the same blank expression from him.

So far a tip was out of the question.

“I’ll have a pint of Bud.”

“Don’t got no pints.”

“Okay, make it easy on yourself.” I grew tired of our erudite debate.

He took three steps to the tap handle and came back with a twelve ounce mug.

The beer was cold and fresh. The bartender went to check on his other customers and I looked over the room. It probably wasn’t the worst place I’d ever seen, but it made my bottom ten.

As the blond ended her song, the barman walked back toward me drying a glass.

“Are you Ned,” I asked.

“Nope, I’m Jake. Ned won’t be here till mebbe eight-thirty, nine o’clock.”

“Got a few minutes to talk?”

“Ain’t exactly got a crowd takin’ up my time,” he said.

“I need some information.”

My statement caused a wrinkle on his brow and a general look of distrust to alter his expression.

“You the po-leece or sumpthin’?”

“Or something,” I said, and showed him my badge. “You know a guy named Melvin Kite? I understand he comes here.”

“Melvin Kite? Hmm, not sure.”

Jake’s momma taught him how to play hard-to-get.

“How much was that beer?” I asked.

“Two-fifty.”

I took a twenty from the folded wad of cash in my pocket and placed it on the bar.

I grinned and said, “I guess you could keep the change . . . if you knew something about this Melvin Kite guy.”

Jake liked that idea; finally his turn to smile.

“Melvin Kite? Melvin Kite? he said. “Sounds familiar now. He a short, stocky guy with a scar on his chin?”

“Sounds like my man, but the picture of him I saw was almost five-years-old.”

“I know him,” Jake said. “What’s he done?”

“I’m not sure he’s done anything,” I lied. “Someone reported a hit-and-run and gave his plate number. I need to find him and straighten that business out.”

“Why don’t you go to his home?”

Jake was a practical thinker.

“All the addresses I can find are old. Melvin moves around a lot.”

“Comes in here some,” Jake said, “exspecially when they’s live music. I ‘spect he’ll be here tonight t’ see Marla.”

He used his chin as a pointer and gestured toward the stage where the blond flipped through the pages of a spiral notebook and Steven King tuned his guitar.

“You’ve been a big help, Jake,” I said.

He took hold of the twenty with his thumb and forefinger. I grabbed the opposite end and tugged. I won.

“I done thought you said . . .” Jake looked surprised and disappointed.

I tore the twenty in half, gave one part to Jake, and filed the second half in my top pocket.

“Give me a wink, Jake, old buddy, when Mr. Kite shows up. Then the other half’s yours, okay?”

Jake nodded. He liked that idea, too.

I looked at my watch; 7:30. I had some waiting to do. I picked up Jake’s copy of the News-Sentinel and took that and my beer to a table in the far corner of the room. There wasn’t much light to read by, so I looked at the pictures.

Marla and Steve started playing again; something with a Nashville sound. I heard lyrics about a cheatin’ man, a pickup, and possibly a ratchet wrench – but I’m terrible at music comprehension.

At 8 PM a stocky, blue-collar guy dressed in the ubiquitous outfit of the Smokies walked into Ned’s. Washed-off blue jeans rode low on his wide hips. A faded orange UT jersey hung outside his pants, and a dirty Atlanta Braves ball cap sat on his head.

He bellied up to the bar and grabbed the mug of Bud Jake had ready for him. After taking a sip, he did a right face and stepped over to an unoccupied table.

I looked at Jake. He put a finger up to his nose and nodded. My twenty dollar signal. He must have learned that gesture from Paul Newman in The Sting.

I folded the paper, picked up my mug, and headed toward the bar. I dropped my half of the twenty on the counter, winked at Jake and touched my nose. Robert Redford all the way.

After waiting thirty seconds for Marla to finish her song, I took a short walk to Melvin’s table and sat down.

He swiveled his head and gave me a surprised look.

“Hi,” I said, “I’ll bet you’re Melvin Kite.”

“Do what?” was the best he came up with.

“My name’s Jenkins, but you can call me chief – as in police chief – from beautiful downtown Prospect, Tennessee.”

“I ain’t done nuthin’” he said, shifting in his chair to look at me square on.

The dark hair sticking out from under his cap needed a trim, and his five o’clock shadow looked several hours old.

“Sure you have, Melvin,” I said. “Let’s start out on the right foot. I won’t bullshit you so don’t bullshit me. Okay?”

“What the hell ya talkin’ about?”

“Copper, Melvin, I’m talking about copper.”

“Oh,” he said, and his shoulders dropped three inches.

“Where’d you get all the copper you’ve been selling at Knoxville Scrap Metal and Salvage?”

“I ain’t sold much there, not but a few pounds.”

“Goddamnit, Melvin, now you’ve gone and pissed me off. I thought we had a no bullshit treaty.”

He frowned at that.

“If we weren’t in a public place,” I said, “I’d have taken offense to that lie and smacked you upside the head with this mug of beer. Wanna try answering that question again?”

“Whatcha wanna know?” he asked.

“The salvage yard has records of you bringing in hundreds of pounds of copper. Where’d you get it?”

“I guess ya done already figgered that out.”

“Yeah, ya think?”

Marla started another tune and Steve closed his eyes as he strummed his guitar.

“Now why don’t we listen to the young lady sing about her shithead boyfriend, finish our beers, then take a ride to my office and talk about your midnight scrap metal business?

The parking spots next to the PD back door allow us to walk suspects and prisoners inside without giving them much chance to escape. I used one when Melvin Kite and I pulled in behind the municipal building.

We bypassed the squad room and I led Melvin directly to my office. We sat in the guest chairs in front of my desk and faced each other. I didn’t offer to make coffee.

“Okay, Melvin,” I said, “let’s talk copper.”

Somewhere in my town, someone was dragging a really big cow behind his pick-up truck. That didn’t make me happy.

“How the hell can someone steal a fourteen-foot, brown and white cow and not be seen?” I asked.

“Beats me, boss. If I had time to get into this I wouldn’t have called you,” Sergeant Stan Rose said. “After midnight we go on overtime and that doesn’t make the mayor happy.”

“Where’s Mr. Patel now? He owned the cow didn’t he?”

“Not exactly. When he remodeled the store and advertised his grand re-opening, the dairy sent the cow over to draw attention to the business.”

“They sent the cow? It travels alone?”

“Don’t break my chops, boss. They hauled the cow here with a truck. You must have seen it somewhere before. It’s on wheels and has a trailer hitch.”

“And the dairy just left it here, unlocked, and unattended? Anyone could back up a truck, set the hitch on their ball, and drive away with a fourteen-foot Jersey cow in tow?”

“Yep, that’s about it,” he said.

“And now we’ve got to find it.” I really didn’t sound happy.

“Isn’t our motto, to protect and serve? I guess this comes under the broad category of serving.”

I nodded and scratched my head, not having a clue why I should care.

“It must be pretty hard to hide a fourteen-foot cow,” I said.

“If it was me, I’d put it on my front lawn so my neighbors could see it.”

“Yeah, but that’s you,” I said. “You’d probably buy one for your lawn if they sold them.”

“I’d rather have a dozen pink flamingoes.”

“Sure you would. Where’s Patel now?”

“He’s home, won’t open the store again until seven o’clock tomorrow morning. He’s waiting for you.”

“I’m too old for this shit, Stanley.”

“I know, boss. Sorry to call you out, I just thought …”

“Where’s he live?”

Stan gave me Sanjev Patel’s address. Patel owned and operated the Git-N-Go market and gas station in Prospect, Tennessee.

With the nearest super-market twelve miles away in Maryville, Patel’s store became the place most everyone in town shopped for their small grocery orders.

You wouldn’t have to know much about East Tennessee to infer that Sanjev Patel wasn’t a native of Southern Appalachia. Originally, he came from Madras, India.

I’m not a Tennessee native either. I’m from New York. Stan Rose – he’s from Los Angeles. Stanley and I share one thing in common; we’re cops for the City of Prospect. I’m the chief and he’s the road sergeant on the four-to-midnight shift.

At 11:45 on a Tuesday night – three quarters of an hour after Patel closed his store, we stood in the Git-N-Go parking lot staring at the empty spot where the big cow once stood. Twenty minutes earlier, Stanley called me about the larceny of that fourteen-foot-tall, trailer-mounted mascot from Richfield Dairies of Philadelphia, Tennessee.

I felt tired. Most middle-aged men are tired at 11:45 PM after they’ve worked a full day. I felt a little extra drowsy that night because for dinner my wife Kate and I made a crab-meat casserole with chopped artichoke hearts and fresh mushrooms in a Parmesan white-sauce with sherry. And we drank a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with it. For dessert I sipped one of my St. Patrick’s Day favorites, Bailey’s Irish Cream and vodka on the rocks. More in the mood to snuggle up with my good-looking wife then play detective and find an oversized cow, I had less than a positive attitude. But that night Prospect paid me to locate the mammoth bovine. I played detective.

* * *

After a few minutes of questioning, I learned neither Mr. Patel nor his twenty-year-old son, Narang, a full-time college student who worked in the store after classes, could offer any leads. Neither saw anyone hanging around the store or the cow before closing.

During the days prior to the theft, no one noticed a customer with an abnormal fondness for king-sized cows. In short, I got bupkis from the proprietors.

Actually, I got much more than bupkis. Mrs. Patel made chicken korma for dinner and warmed up the leftovers for me. With a piece of Nan bread, mango pickle, and a cup of spiced tea, I enjoyed a great midnight snack.

At 7:45 Sergeant Stanley Rose and I sat in my unmarked Crown Victoria parked in a lonely clearing in the hinterlands of Prospect. Once the hideout of moonshiners, that wooded area changed its economic use from untaxed liquor to a different cash crop until the DEA busted up a lucrative marijuana growing business.

After the pot disappeared, the desolate woodland, connected by makeshift trails, accommodated clandestine lovers and the occasional thief needing privacy. And then it became a place for me to meet informants.

“Wonder what John Deere has this time?” Stan asked.

“He wouldn’t say. Likes to play the man of mystery. Who knows, maybe some old man with a still is back in business.”

“Hope the mosquitoes don’t find us when we get out of the car.”

“You’re a born pessimist. Didn’t mosquitoes bite you when you were an LAPD cop?”

“Not me.”

Stanley is six-four. Few creatures would dare to bite him.

“I think our boy is heading this way,” Stan said.

A solitary figure suddenly appeared on the trail no more than a hundred feet from where we sat. John Deere, as we called him, appeared to be in his forties, of medium height and build. The bright green and yellow baseball cap with the tractor manufacturer’s logo sat on his head. His wardrobe consisted of a plaid short-sleeve shirt and blue denim overalls.

We got out of the car and met him in the middle of the trail.

“Howdy,” I said, trying to embrace the local culture. Stanley nodded to him.

“Whatcha say?” he responded and waited.

“You understand I don’t have money to always pay for information.”

“I done tol’ ya, I owed ya one more favor for the extry cash ya got me. Ya coulda kept it yerse’f. We been through that.”

“I know.”

“Don’t know if ya gonna like what I show ya, but it’s a good’un. Ya gotta foller me.”

“We driving?”

“No, it ain’t fer.”

He turned and walked down the trail.

Stan and I followed. When we reached the narrow gravel road he turned right. The daylight began fading, but even under the forest canopy, enough light filtered through for us to follow him without using our flashlights.

A few minutes walk put us in a clearing ten times larger than the one we left.

“This here’s where they used t’ grow the mary-wanna,” he said. “Look over yonder at this.”

In the upper left corner of the circular clearing I saw a pile of hastily mounded leaves. We walked closer. Poking out from the bottom of the leaves, I noticed a two-tone brown cowboy boot.

“What the hell?” I said. “Stan, give me some light here.”

Both our flashlights probed the pile of leaves. Directly opposite the boot I saw a hand. I turned my light to where our informant last stood. He was gone.

We didn’t disturb much of the scene and it didn’t take long for us to learn that the man under the mulch was dead.

Stan called it in, requesting a county crime scene unit and a medical examiner. He arranged for Officer Will Sparks to meet them both on the main road near the Prospect Air Park and guide them into the clearing.

Crime Scene Investigators Jackie Shuman and David Sparks, Will’s cousin, set up enough portable lighting to illuminate a night baseball game. They puttered around processing and photographing the crime scene while Stan and I looked on with interest.

The on-call pathologist, Dr. Morris Rappaport and his assistant Earl Ogle, represented the ME.

“Wild guess, Mo,” I said, “how long’s he been dead?”

“I don’t mean to be either didactic or pedantic–or facetious, for that matter, but how many homicides have you investigated, Sam, both here and back in New York?” The doctor spoke with a New Jersey accent.

“I don’t know–lots.”

“As well as I, you know when a body goes into rigor and when it relaxes. You can read lividity, and you have a working nose. How long do you think?”

“Couple of days.”

“Ah, a couple of days–bingo, that would be my guess, too. I’ll only know more after the autopsy.

“God bless you, Sam-a-la, you’re a credit to your profession. I say that with all sincerity.”

“Thanks for the compliment. You’ve boosted my ego for another thirty days. Have you found any bullet holes, knife wounds, bludgeon or ligature marks, tire tracks, blah, blah, blah?”

“You’ll plotz when I tell you, but you know what first comes to mind?”

“How could I possibly know, Morris?”

“Vampires.”

The doctor stared at me with a smug look. Earl frowned, perhaps wondering if Morris had been serious, and Stan shook his head, probably wishing he’d taken a vacation day.