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with this little old lady who called in when he was all fucked up, but he can’t find her. It’s the one time he’s ever done this. He’s ashamed. The little old lady had given him the license plate number of a car.”
    Du Pré waited.
    “Finally I say, look, here’s what you do. Go back and work out from the places where the little girls were found. See if any little old ladies croaked after the day you were too fucked up to take the call.”
    “By midafternoon the cop’s got a name of an old lady who stroked out three days after one of the bodies was discovered. He goes to look at the house. House has a clear view though it’s pretty far off. Goes up to the house. It’s sealed, pending probate. He gets a court order and gets in. What do you think he finds?”
    “This old lady,” said Du Pré, “she has this telescope, she looks out the window with. She writes things down. There is a note by the telephone, got description of a guy, a car, the license plate number, the time, and everything.”
    “Exactly,” said Harvey. “How’d you guess that?”
    “I never heard you speak more than fifty words at once, all the time I know you,” said Du Pré. “So I figure it has to be a real story and so that is how a real story would work out.”
    “Indeed it did,” said Harvey. “Picked the guy up, grilled him, sent in Come-to-Jesus Wilkins, and the guy confessed just like that.”
    “Come-to-Jesus?” said Du Pré.
    “FBI agent who, so help me, can go into a room with a raving sociopath and convince the motherfucker that he ought to do the best thing. Come-to-Jesus, get it off his chest and straight with the Lord. I saw him do it once with a wacko who ate everyone he killed.”
    Du Pré snorted.
    “So,” said Harvey Wallace/Weasel Fat, “I’d appreciate it if as a personal favor to me you would take the polygraph.”
    “Fuck,” said Du Pré.
    “Fine,” said Harvey. “Just after you take the polygraph. Now, after you take the polygraph I can be more helpful than I can before.”
    “Shit,” said Du Pré.
    “Du Pré,” said Harvey, “humor me. This is almost the twenty-first century and gadgets rule us.”
    “You think I maybe done this?” said Du Pré.
    “Don’t be an asshole,” said Harvey. “Of course not. But once you take it then all the guys in the agency who live and die by the damn things are stalemated and they cause less trouble. I won’t be assigned to that case. Wish I could be. I keep telling them they are fools and they keep promoting me.”
    “OK,” said Du Pré. “You gonna have Benny take it? He is so upset he probably flunk it .”
    “You don’t worry about that,” said Harvey. “Benny’s the Sheriff and he’s not the problem. You are. You have no official status.”
    “Oh,” said Du Pré.
    “Which means I can’t talk to you much,” said Harvey.
    “I am going, this murderer, I am going to find him,” said Du Pré.
    “Probably,” said Harvey. “Benny won’t. You might.”
    “OK,” said Du Pré, “I get him to deputize me?”
    “Yup,” said Harvey.
    “Then what?” said Du Pré.
    “I send Agent Pidgeon to see you.”
    “Why?” said Du Pré.
    “She’s a specialist in serial killers,” said Harvey.
    “She?” said Du Pré.
    “Yeah,” said Harvey. “We quit binding their feet, taught ‘em how to read, write, things like that. Nothing to be done about it now, we got ‘em.”
    “How long she been doing this?” said Du Pré.
    “Couple years,” said Harvey. “She got her doctorate in psychology and then she joined the FBI. Nice young woman. Beautiful, too. Ambitious. Great knockers. Smart. If she heard me tell you she had great knockers, I’d be jailed for sexual harassment. Lose my job.”
    “Why she pick serial killers?” said Du Pré.
    “You’d have to ask her,” said Harvey. “I’d be afraid to, myself.”
    “OK,” said Du Pré. “I go to this polygraph.”
    “It makes things simpler,” said Harvey.
    “Who do I call?” said