bug in their ear,” Virgil said. “I’m gonna go talk to Alma Flood tomorrow, sometime when this weird guy isn’t there—the chicken plucker.”

“Wally Rooney.”

“Yeah. I’m going to let it slip that we’ve got information coming, and see if I can squeeze anything out of her. Talk the Bible to her for a while. There’s something going on with her; I don’t know what. But—I’m gonna let her know that we’ve got a source, and that we’re closing in on them. That’ll give them a push.”

“Can’t talk about child sex to her,” Coakley said. “Not yet.”

“Not yet. But I can talk about Kelly Baker, and how she was abused. I can wonder if more church members might have been involved. Leave the impression that I’m ignorant, but learning, and that we have this source—”

“What do I do?”

“If we snap the trap on these guys tomorrow evening or the next day, you gotta be ready to get a warrant and hit Rouse,” Virgil said. “Rouse is the key. There’re a lot of photos—that’ll bring down the whole thing. So we snap the trap, if we get one inch of info, from anybody we get, about Rouse, I call you, and you go with all the guys you can get.”

“Say I believe you when you say they’ll track her down. But what if the people who show up aren’t the people you know? But she should know? And she goes to the door, and she doesn’t know who Roland is—”

“She knows Roland,” Virgil said. “She saw him a lot, when Lucy was first married. And she can refuse to let him in . . . unless he’s the only one who shows. But I see what you mean.”

“Best shot would be to take Dennis and Gene with you. They might be able to pick out who they are.”

“Let’s talk to them,” Virgil said. “Too late tonight, but first thing in the morning. Damn, this is going to be interesting.”

Her hand slipped down his thigh, and groped, and found him, and she sighed and said, “I’m gonna miss you, Virgil.”

“Yeah? How much?”

THE NEXT DAY was a rush. Instead of picking up Gordon, which would have been a two-hour detour, he called her and she agreed to drive to Hayfield on her own. She was excited.

“This is a lot better than sorting nuts. I bought a new pair of shoes, I just, uh . . . I don’t know why I did that.”

Virgil said, “Take it easy; drive carefully. We don’t need you winding up in a ditch.”

Dennis Brown, the police chief, and Schickel agreed to go, and would drive over together. Virgil told them to take binoculars and be prepared to stay late, and maybe overnight. “We’ll pick up a motel tab, if you have to stay over. If they don’t come by the second day, they won’t be coming.”

Virgil was out of the motel at eight o’clock, heading west on I-90, to the Flood place. When he pulled in, one of the girls, dressed in work clothes, came out of the barn and took a look at him; went back in the barn and, a few seconds later, came back out with her sister, who was carrying a basket containing a half-dozen eggs.

“Whatcha want?” Edna asked.

“I need to talk to your mother again,” Virgil said. “Is Mr. Rooney around?”

“He’s run into town. He’ll be back in an hour,” Helen said. “Whatcha want him for?”

“I don’t,” Virgil said. “Just wondering if he was around.”

The two of them, standing side by side in the snow-covered yard, looked like a black-and-white photo from the 1930s, a couple of orphan girls in a coal town in West Virginia, or out on the prairie in a sod house, or something, drab, colorless clothes, too-fair skin, and pale eyes. And they carried with them the general sense of solemnity he often saw in old photos. Edna said, “Well, Mother’s inside. She’s been a little off-center, ever since the last time you were here. Maybe got a bug. But we’ll go tell her you’re here.”

AND ALMA FLOOD looked like one of the old photos, too, Virgil thought, when the girls took him up to the front room. She was sitting in the same chair, dressed in a long black skirt and a gray shirt with a darker gray cardigan sweater, buttoned almost to the top. The pocket of the sweater showed some wads of toilet tissue; a reading light shone over her shoulder, and she had one finger inserted in