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Climb the bank, a matter of a hundred yards in distance and fifty feet in height, and there you were. Back out the same way. There’d probably be enough light from the houses along the edges of the slope, and coming in from town, that you wouldn’t even need a flashlight.
    Huh.
     
    H E FINISHED his circuit of the house, took the key out of his pocket, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside. The inside smelled like a crime scene: like whatever was used to clean up blood, some kind of enzyme. He stepped into the stillness, to the sense of dustiness, and walked through the entry, past the entrance to the kitchen, into the living room.
    The couch where Anna was shot was in a semicircular niche off the living room, designed as a small theater, and aimed at a wide-screen television. The bullet hole was in the far left back-cushion, next to an end table with a TV remote and several magazines, a crossword-puzzle book, a wood cup with a selection of pens and pencils, and a couple of books. That was, he thought, Anna’s regular spot, because Russell’s regular spot was in a leather recliner at the other end of the couch, under a reading light. The bloodstain on the seat and back of the couch had been doused with the blood-eating enzyme.
    The other scrubbed-out stain was in the entrance to the dining room. There were three dug-out bullet holes in the carpet. Standing there, in the quiet, Virgil saw how it must have happened. They knew the killer—Anna was comfortable in her regular spot, and hadn’t bothered to get up. Russell and the killer had both been standing, and fairly close to each other. The killer pulled the gun, if it wasn’t already out, and leaned into Anna and fired once. She hadn’t made a move to get off the couch. Russell turned, got three steps, and was shot in the back.
    But they knew the killer, Virgil thought: they must have. Anna was facing the TV, as though she might not even have been part of the conversation. If she’d been ordered to sit down, or forced to sit, she would have been facing into the room, where the killer was; she wouldn’t have been facing the TV.
    He quickly checked the end table for any possible effort by Anna to leave something behind—a scribbled name, anything. Felt foolish doing it, but would have felt more foolish if he hadn’t, and something was found later. Nothing. The books were a novel by Martha Grimes and a slender volume titled Revelation , which turned out to be, indeed, the book of Revelation.
    Virgil muttered, to nobody but the ghosts, “And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him…”
     
    H E CHECKED the table by Russell’s reading light; nothing interesting. Drifted out of the shooting area, through the rest of the place. A den opened off the dining room, with file cabinets and an older computer. A hallway next to the den led to a big bathroom, but without a tub or shower—the public bath—and three large bedrooms, each with a full bath.
    He walked through the master bedroom, looking, not touching, and into the kitchen. He was in the kitchen when he heard the sound of a vehicle outside. He went back to the front door, and found a sheriff’s patrol car stopped behind his, and a deputy looking at his license plate.
    He stepped out on the porch, and the deputy’s hand drifted to his hip, and Virgil called, “Virgil Flowers, BCA.” Across the way, at the next house down the ridge, he could see a man standing in his backyard, watching them with binoculars.
    The deputy said, “Larry Jensen. I’m the lead investigator for the sheriff.”
    Jensen was another of the tall, thin types, burned and dry, sandy hair, slacks and cowboy boots, sunglasses. They shook hands and Jensen asked, “See anything in there?”
    “Nope. I’d like to come back later and go through those file cabinets.”
    “You’re welcome to…” Jensen turned and waved at the man in the next yard, who waved back. “That’s the guy who