Marino stared intensely at me. “That's what's known as one of your famous bullshit answers. You'd give them free autopsies if you could. And you'd want them would cut real slow. I ever tell you what happened to Robyn Naismith's family?”

I reached for my drink.

“Her father was a doctor in northern Virginia, a real fine man,” he said. “About six months after the trial, he came down with cancer and a couple months after that was dead. Robyn was the only child. The mother move to Texas, gets in a car wreck, and spends her days in wheelchair with nothing but memories. Waddell killed Robyn Naismith's entire family. He poisoned every life he touched.”

I thought of Waddell growing up on the farm, image from his meditation drifting through my mind. I envisioned him sitting on porch steps, biting into a tomato that tasted like the sun. I wondered what had gone through his mind the last second of his life. I wondered if he had prayed.

Marino stubbed out a cigarette. He was thinking about leaving.

“Do you know a Detective Trent with Henrico?”

“Joe Trent. Used to be with K-Nine and got transferred into the detective division after he made sergeant a couple months ago. Sort of a nervous Nellie, but he's all right.”

“He called me about a boy -”

He cut me off. “Eddie Heath?”

“I don't know his name.”

“A white male about thirteen years old. We're working on it. Lucky's is in the city.”

“Lucky'-s?”

“The convenience store where he was last seen. It's off Chamberlayne Avenue, Northside. What did Trent want?”

Marino frowned. “He gotten word that Heath ain't going to pull through and is making an appointment with you in advance?”

“He wants me to look at unusual injuries, possible mutilation.”

“Christ. I hate it when it's kids.”

Marino pushed back his chair and rubbed his temples. “Damn. Every time you get rid of one toad there's another to take his place.”