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considerable pain. She appeared exceptionally pleased with herself.
    She held the piece of iron up to show Sally.
    “Hey,” said Sally into the walkie-talkie. “Hester got the fragment out of her cheek… yeah. Okay, ten-four, I’ll tell ‘em.” She pointed a finger upward, toward the general area where George was in the loft. “He says, ‘Good, now put gauze in your cheek,’ and that he can’t see anybody out there anywhere moving at all.”
    “Okay.”
    Sally looked me squarely in the eye. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she said. “I just can’t believe it.”
    “Don’t feel bad. Neither can I, and I know a lot more about this case than you do.”
    “So, we got a plan?”
    I shrugged. “Wait for help. Best I can do.”
    Back to square one. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes that can be a very good thing.

CHAPTER 02
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 16:07
    I WATCHED THE BLUE AND WHITE AMBULANCE COMING TOWARD US , lights flashing, the siren silent now that they had us in sight. I hoped they wouldn’t be too irritated, seeing as how their patient was so obviously dead. It was just that we called them automatically, because we weren’t about to take the chance that an amateur diagnosis was absolutely correct. There was nothing worse, from a lawsuit standpoint, than to take the word of a bystander that somebody was dead and decide not to dispatch an ambulance. I mean, we probably should call a mortician for those who we know to be dead, but if there’s any doubt, we use the ambulances. The morticians are really nice people, but their save rate isn’t too high.
    The ambulance rolled to a stop, and the driver stuck his head out the side window. “What have you got for us, Carl?”
    It was Red Schmitt, volunteer driver and emergency medical technician, who managed his uncle’s clothing store in the real world. I’d known him for years.
    “Hey, Red! What we got is one dead, and I mean
really
dead, dude lying in the roadway up around the curve. There’s a bunch of tracks in the gravel right in front of you, so you gotta stop here.”
    “You bet,” he said, setting his emergency brake and opening his door. He left the engine running. Years of experience with the rigs had taught him that. “What, a tractor roll over?”
    “Nope. Not that easy. You guys just follow us on up, now.” Hester and I started walking back up around the curve with the three members of the ambulance crew walking along behind. I felt like we were leading a little parade.
    “Why are you way over there? “asked Hester.
    “Lookin’ for his other shoe in the ditch on this side. I was checking the other side on the way down.”
    I heard Red talking again, and turned around. “What you need, Red?”
    “It’s not one of the Heinman boys, is it? “He sounded really concerned.
    “No. No, it’s not.” I turned back and we led them up to a good spot about ten yards short of the body, over on the left side of the roadway. “You can take a look at him, if you have to. Just close enough so you can see he’s deceased.”
    One of the crew was Terri Biederman. She was in her thirties and had been an EMT with this crew several years ago. I hadn’t seen her since about 1995, though, when she’d left for Milwaukee. I saw from the patches on her jump suit that she’d made paramedic. Cool.
    “Mr. Houseman,” she said. “Still here, huh?”
    “Oh, yeah. How you been?”
    “Pissy, mostly.” As always, direct and to the point.
    “Glad I asked.” We’d always liked her.
    The third member of the ambulance crew was Meg Hastings, about forty, and a clerk at the Coast-to-Coast store in her real life.
    “I’ve been fine,” she said, brightly. “No complaints at all.”
    Terri stuck out her tongue.
    It wasn’t advisable that we have the ambulance personnel actually examine the body, and they did not. If they’d left a footprint or observed something closely enough to form an opinion, they’d have to testify in court. They were