She patted his hand. “Don’t worry, Dillon, I’ll be right back.”

“They’ll let you in this procedure room?”

“Since you’re special, they’ll allow it this time. Now, I’m going to go get hosed down. Until I get back to you, I want you to think about that really neat coolant loss protection on my truck.”

Ten minutes later, thoroughly scrubbed, Katie settled herself down beside Savich, and picked up his hand. It was a nice hand, strong and tanned, with short buffed nails. She remembered that Carlo’s hands were like that, powerful and strong. A pity that her former husband’s character hadn’t matched his hands. False advertising all around. Good riddance to him.

Savich heard a mellow baritone singing “Those Were the Days,” and saw Dr. Able’s face leaning over him.

10

Here’s what we’re going to do, Agent Savich,” Dr. Able said, his minty breath wafting over Savich’s face. “We’re not going to put you under. We’re going to give you what we call conscious sedation. That means Linda here will inject some morphine and Versed into your IV. It’ll keep you comfortable and sleepy. I’m now going to give you some local anesthetic. All right?”

“All right,” Savich said. They’d slid him from the gurney onto his stomach on a narrow bed, a sheet to his waist.

Savich didn’t feel pain, just Dr. Able’s fingers probing the wound. He wanted to hear more about the sheriff’s truck or maybe even hear Dr. Able sing some more, but words wouldn’t form in his brain, and so he just lay there, enduring. He wished he was with Sherlock, maybe playing with those fat rollers in her hair.

Dr. Able talked as he worked. “Nothing vital seems to be cut, just your skin and a bit of muscle. You’re going to hurt a while, not be able to lie on your back for up to a week, but all in all, you’re a very lucky man, Agent Savich. It could have been worse, much worse, and I’m sure you know that. Okay, I’m going to set the stitches in layers now—the deep ones, and then the surface stitches. This will take a few minutes.”

Savich didn’t feel any pain, just the dragging pull of the thread through his flesh, an obscene feeling he hated.

“You married, Agent Savich?”

Savich wasn’t up to even a yes or no answer and Katie saw it. “Yes, he is, Clyde. I have a feeling his wife is going to show up here even though he told her not to come.”

“Women,” said Dr. Able, “if only they were more like trucks—nice and predictable; you floorboard ’em and they go, right where you tell ’em to.”

“Yeah, I can see what you mean, Clyde,” Katie said. “Not only that, you buy a truck, pay for it, and that’s it. But with women, you gotta pay and pay—and don’t forget the interest.”

“Oh yeah? What about the maintenance?”

“Lots more than your truck’ll ever need.”

Dr. Able laughed hard and Savich was very relieved not to hear him say “Oops.”

He heard their voices, but still felt no particular pain, just the slow pulling of the thread through his flesh; his mind, what was left of it, drifted back to the interviews he’d had yesterday with the husbands of the two slain high school math teachers. It was odd, but their faces blurred together, and he had trouble telling them apart. Then his own face blurred over the both of them.

Troy Ward, tears in his voice, said, “My wife has been dead for six days, Agent Savich, the police don’t have a clue who did it, so how do you think I feel? I’ve told them everything I know, including my mother’s social security number.”

Savich nodded. He didn’t particularly like Troy Ward, the overweight sports announcer. “The thing is, Mr. Ward, the FBI is involved now—”

“Yeah, I’ve heard all about you big boobs waltzing in and taking over. And now the TV’s screaming that it’s a serial killer. God, we don’t need another one. That last one still gives me nightmares.”

“No, we don’t need another one. But I really need to know . . .”

Savich’s brain floated away, and when he managed to snag some of it back again, Troy Ward seemed more overweight now than he had been just an instant before. “Mr. Ward, have you spoken to Mr. Fowler?”

“The other murdered woman’s husband? No, I haven’t. Two grown men sitting together sobbing, it wouldn’t play well in the football locker room, now, would it? Can’t you just see the guys laughing their heads off? No, not much point to that.”