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laugh.

"What would you say if I got a tattoo and a ring through my eyebrow?" he said.

"I'd definitely want to watch," I said. "And it would be interesting to see what kind of tattoo you picked." I looked at him for a moment, trying to imagine Tolliver with a silver hoop in his eyebrow or nostril, and I grinned. "And where you put it."

"Oh, if I ever got one, I'd get it on my lower back," he said. "So I could cover it up almost all the time."

"You've put thought into this."

"Yeah. A little."

"Hmmm. You've picked out the tattoo?"

"Sure."

"What?"

"A lightning bolt," he said, and I couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

Chapter seven

DURING our cab ride back from the suburban Cineplex to the downtown hotel, I had a little time to think. Xylda was nuts, but she was a true psychic. If she said Tabitha had lived a few hours after the abduction, I believed her. I should have asked different questions, I realized. I should have asked Xylda why Tabitha's abductor had kept her alive for that long. A sexual reason? Some other purpose?

"Did it seem to you that Xylda was nuttier than usual?" Tolliver asked, echoing my thoughts to an eerie degree.

"Yes," I said. "The kind of nutty that made me wonder how old she really is."

"She couldn't be over sixty, right?"

"I would have said younger, but today..."

"She looked okay."

"As okay as Xylda ever looks."

"True. But she seemed to walk just fine, and maneuver all right physically."

"But mentally, she was quite a bit more off... so vague. 'In the time of ice, you'll be happy.' What the hell does that mean?"

"Yeah, that was weird. And the part about being truthful."

I nodded. " 'The time of ice.' She could have told us things that would have been a hell of a lot more to the point. Maybe it's the loss of Robert that's thrown her for such a loop? Not that she was ever Miss Stability. At least Manfred seems to be taking good care of her, and he respects her talent."

"Think we should mention that guy we met in San Francisco to the Morgensterns? Think they'd be open to a clairvoyant?"

"Nah," I said instantly. "Tom will make something up if he doesn't get a genuine reading."

"So would Xylda."

"But only when it didn't matter, Tolliver." He looked at me as if he couldn't see the difference.

"Like if it was some teenager visiting her on a dare, wanting to know if she'd be happy in the future, Xylda might make up stuff so the kid would leave confident and cheerful. That kind of thing, that can't hurt. But if a lot depended on it, if the client took her seriously, Xylda wouldn't say, 'Oh yes, your missing son is really alive,' unless she got a true vision. Tom will tell you something under any circumstances, whether or not he really knows anything. He'll just make it up."

"Then I won't mention him," Tolliver said, though he sounded a little huffy. "I was trying to think of some way to help them get through this, and I think the only way they're going to come out the other side of it is to find out who did kill Tabitha. That is, if it really wasn't one of them."

"I know," I said, surprised at his irritation.

"What did you get from her yesterday? When you were standing on the grave?"

I was very reluctant to return to that moment. But then I thought of the faces of Diane and Joel Morgenstern, and the cloud of suspicion surrounding them, and I knew I had to return to Tabitha's last resting place.

"You think we could go back to the site?" I asked. "I know there's no physical remains there, but it might help."

Tolliver never questioned my professional judgment. "Then we'll go," he said. "But I think we better go tonight, so no one'll follow us. We won't want to be in a cab for that."

I agreed, especially after I caught our current cabbie's curious look in the rearview mirror.

"You want him to drop us off on Beale?" Tolliver asked. "Maybe we could go listen to some music before supper?"

I glanced at my watch. It seemed unlikely that there would be good blues playing at five in the afternoon. "Why don't you go?" I suggested. "I'll go back to the hotel and take a nap."

So Tolliver got out at B.B. King's Blues Club on legendary Beale Street, and reminded the cabbie where he was to drop