a church—”

“That much I got—” Joe said.

“So Brianna was crying during the satsang,” Gil said over Joe, trying to get her to continue.

“The Guru concluded that she had too much tamas.”

“I’m not sure what that means,” Gil said.

“A person who is tamasic has a force inside that is overwhelmed with shadows and resistance. It is the most negative of the three gunas, which refers to someone’s tendency. It is marked by destruction and darkness.”

“And you thought Brianna had this?”

“Yes.”

“Is there no cure?”

“We tried many remedies, but to no avail,” she said, still almost monotone. “We even held an eternal waters healing rite.”

“Yeah,” Joe snorted. “When the eternal waters healing rite fails, you are just screwed.”

Gil finally had enough. “Detective Phillips, you need to go outside.”

Joe stomped out.

“I’m sorry for that,” Gil said, trying to make his voice calm.

“I’ll say a prayer for him,” she said calmly.

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”

Lucy was sitting outside on the curb next to Nathan’s car, when the tow truck with ALEX’S TOW written in red on the side pulled up. She got up and smoothed her hair.

A stocky man got out of the truck. His gray T-shirt was pulled tight over his chest and only partially tucked into his pants. The jeans were slick in places with oil and dirt. Like so many other Santa Fe men, he sported a small, thin mustache that followed the curve of his upper lip.

Lucy went over to shake his hand, saying, “Hi, I’m Tina. You must be Alex.”

“Nope,” the man said as he wiped his hand on his jeans before reaching out for hers and shaking it. “I’m Manny.”

Lucy smiled as her insides crumbled. She had assumed that Alex Stevens would be the driver. She never considered that he’d send someone else. Especially after she had been so charming and cute and happy and chirpy on the phone.

“Where’s Alex?” she asked, no longer trying to be cute or happy.

“His girlfriend is having a baby,” Manny said. “I’m just helping him out by driving his truck.”

It was a good excuse, but it didn’t make Lucy feel any less crushed. She had done so much research. She knew all of Alex Stevens’s information. She knew the names of his brothers and sisters. She knew what position he played on his high school football team. She knew the address of the house he grew up in as a kid. Damn.

Her plan had been to get Alex talking. She was going to pretend that she knew him. Hence the need for all the personal information. She was going to tell him things about his past that only someone you grew up with would know. He’d inevitably try to hide his ignorance by insisting that he did remember her from high school. As any old friend would, she would ask him about his life. The story about Brianna would come up. Then Lucy, in all her innocence, would say, “Hey, didn’t I see you at Zozobra on Thursday?” Then she would sit back and see what happened. He would have probably denied that he was there, but the man had killed Brianna. He would have had to be at Zozobra to watch the skull burn up in the fire. Or he put it in one of the public boxes. Either way, his face would tell her all she needed to know.

Now her little fantasy was over. Instead of getting the chance to feel smug and righteous as she exposed a killer, she would have to watch Manny and his greasy pants while he hooked up Nathan’s car.

“We did try to make it work,” Ms. Henshaw was saying. For the life of him, Gil couldn’t remember her new name. “I even bought Bibi this gorgeous handmade lace from Ireland to use as her turban, but she refused to wear it, or any turban for that matter.”

Gil thought of Joy and Therese at two years old. They had always refused to wear their sunhats, although Joy did become strangely attached to hers after she found out it worked better as a purse that she could fill with rocks and leaves. It always made Gil smile to think of Joy, barely able to walk, wandering around the house and the grocery store carrying her purse full of dirt.

“Do you know anything about Brianna’s, I mean, Bibi’s father?” he asked, wanting to get into the meat of the interview.

“Nothing,” she said.

“How were your interactions with Ashley?”

“There were none,” she said, pouring some tea for herself but not