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hills as dry as kindling.” He waved a flabby arm toward the foothills, where wild chaparral was waist high and thirsty from lack of rainfall.
    “Is that what you told the cops on the phone,” she asked. “That somebody was lighting firecrackers?”
    “Yeah, but I said it sounded more like cherry bombs to me. And I told them about him running around out here naked.”
    “Naked?”
    “As a jaybird.”
    Savannah didn’t know what to say to that. The mental picture nearly overloaded her brain circuits. She left Harry Biddle, his boxers and beer behind, and hurried up to Dirk’s trailer. The door was ajar a couple of inches. A dim gold light came through the opening and cut a line across the dark porch.
    Carefully, hand on her Beretta, which was in a shoulder holster beneath her jacket, she climbed the three wooden steps to the door.
    “Dirk? It’s me, Van. I’m coming in.”
    No point in charging into a crime scene unannounced. No point in spooking a guy who had sounded pretty shook on the phone less than ten minutes ago.
    When she didn’t hear an answer, she pulled the Beretta from its holster with her right hand and held it, pointed down-ward, beside her thigh. She eased the door open a few inches with her left hand.
    “Hey, buddy. I’m here. Where are you?”
    She didn’t see him at first. She saw Polly.
    The body was lying sprawled on the floor in front of the sofa. The copious amount of blood puddled on the linoleum and the vacant stare in her glassy eyes told Savannah immediately that Dirk was right. Polly Coulter wasn’t hurt; she was very dead.
    When Savannah opened the door the rest of the way and stepped inside, she saw Dirk. And the sight made her knees grow weak.
    He was sitting on the floor about six feet from Polly’s body. As Mr. Biddle had said, Dirk was naked, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. His head was down, and she couldn’t see his face, but his hair was wet and plastered to his scalp in dark strands. He was shivering violently.
    As Savannah reholstered her gun and took a few steps toward him, he looked up, as though realizing for the first time she was there. His eyes were red and puffy, and they had a lost, frightened look. Savannah recognized the look. It was the one human beings wore when visited by sudden tragedy.
    She hurried across the room and dropped to her knees beside him. When she placed her hands on his shoulders, she was shocked to feel how cold and clammy his skin was. And slick… as though he had some kind of soap on him.
    “Th-thanks for… coming,” he said through chattering teeth. “I didn’t know who else to…”
    “Don’t be silly. Of course you should call me. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
    He seemed surprised at her question, as though it hadn’t occurred to him to check. Unwrapping his arms, he looked down at his bare chest. So did she.
    It was covered with blood. His arms and hands were smeared with the dark red gore as well.
    “Are you shot?” Savannah said, as she quickly checked his skin for anything resembling an entrance wound. But she found nothing.
    “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.” He glanced over at Polly and shuddered. “It’s hers. I… I was holding her, you know, when she…”
    “When she was shot?”
    “When she died.”
    “Oh, okay.”
    With her hands on his shoulders, she could feel his cold, damp gooseflesh, and his shaking seemed to vibrate through her own body. She was afraid he might go into shock if he didn’t get warm.
    “Wait right there,” she said. “I’ll be back in a second. Okay?”
    He nodded.
    She jumped up from the floor and made her way through the tiny kitchen to the equally tiny bedroom in the back of the trailer.
    As she grabbed his ancient, tattered bathrobe off its hook on the wall beside his bed, she was aware of a sound… the spraying of the shower, going full blast.
    She stepped into the bathroom and reached for the handle, intending to turn it off. Then she