a hunting camp, which wouldn’t be in much use now that deer season was over.

Sure enough, after we’d crunched a few yards down the track, I spotted a sign nailed to a tree. It proclaimed, “Kiley-Odum Hunt Club private property—KEEP OUT.”

We proceeded down the track, Alcide backing slowly and carefully.

“Here,” he said, when we’d gone far enough into the woods that it was almost certain we couldn’t be seen from the road. He put the truck into Park. “Listen, Sookie, you don’t have to get out.”

“It’ll be quicker if we work together.”

He tried to give me a menacing glare, but I gave him a stone face right back, and finally, he sighed. “Okay, let’s get this over with,” he said.

The air was cold and wet, and if you stood still for a moment the chilling damp would creep into your bones. I could tell the temperature was taking a dive, and the bright sky of the morning was a fond memory. It was an appropriate day to dump a body. Alcide opened the back of the truck, we both pulled on gloves, and we grasped the bright blue-and-green bundle. The cheerful yellow fish looked almost obscene out here in the freezing woods.

“Give it everything you got,” Alcide advised me, and on a count of three, we yanked with all our might. That got the bundle half out, and the end of it protruded over the tailgate in a nasty way. “Ready? Let’s go again. One, two, three!” Again I yanked, and the body’s own gravity shot it out of the truck and onto the road.

If we could have driven off then and there, I would have been much happier; but we had decided we had to take the shower curtain with us. Who was to say what fingerprints might be found somewhere on the duct tape or the curtain itself? There was sure to be other, microscopic evidence that I couldn’t even imagine.

I don’t watch the Discovery Channel for nothing.

Alcide had a utility knife, and I did let him have the honor of this particular task. I held open a garbage bag while he cut the plastic away and stuffed it into the opening. I tried not to look, but of course I did.

The body’s appearance had not improved.

That job, too, was finished sooner than I expected. I half turned to get back in the truck, but Alcide stood, his face raised to the sky. He looked as if he was smelling the forest.

“Tonight’s the full moon,” he said. His whole body seemed to quiver. When he looked at me, his eyes looked alien. I couldn’t say that they had changed in color or contour, but it was as if a different person was looking out of them.

I was very alone in the woods with a comrade who had suddenly taken on a whole new dimension. I fought conflicting impulses to scream, burst into tears, or run. I smiled brightly at him and waited. After a long, fraught pause, Alcide said, “Let’s get back in the truck.”

I was only too glad to scramble up into the seat.

“What do you think killed him?” I asked, when it seemed to me Alcide had had time to return to normal.

“I think someone gave his neck a big twist,” Alcide said. “I can’t figure out how he got into the apartment. I know I locked the door last night. I’m sure of it. And this morning it was locked again.”

I tried to figure that out for a while, but I couldn’t. Then I wondered what actually killed you if your neck was broken. But I decided that wasn’t really a great thing to think about.

En route to the apartment, we made a stop at Wal-Mart. On a weekend this close to Christmas, it was swarming with shoppers. Once again, I thought,I haven’t gotten anything for Bill .

And I felt a sharp pain in my heart as I realized that I might never buy Bill a Christmas present, not now, not ever.

We needed air fresheners, Resolve (to clean the carpet), and a new shower curtain. I packed my misery away and walked a little more briskly. Alcide let me pick out the shower curtain, which I actually enjoyed. He paid cash, so there wouldn’t be any record of our visit.

I checked out my nails after we had climbed back in the truck. They were fine. Then I thought of how callous I must be, worrying about my fingernails. I’d just finished disposing of a dead