One question popped out at him: why the lights on the body? The body would have been discovered the next morning, at the latest, sitting, as it was, so close to the street. If the killer had left the body in the dark, he'd have been certain of more time to get away. Was it possible that he didn't need more time, that he'd come from very close by?

VIRGIL GOT A MAP at the front desk and asked the clerk about the Gleason house. The clerk was happy to put an ink dot on its precise location: "You go up this little rise here, and you come around to the right, I think, or is it left? No, right. Anyways, you'll see a mailbox down on the street that says Gleason, and the house is reddish-colored and modern-looking."

"Thank you."

"Folks say you're with the BCA," the clerk said. He was young and ginger haired and weathered, and looked a little like Billy the Kid.

"Yup. We've been asked to look in on the Gleason case, bring a new point of view," Virgil said.

"Seen anything yet?"

"Got a couple of things going," Virgil said. He smiled and wrinkled his nose: "Can't talk about them, though. You know, though, you could give me a little help…"

"Me?"

"I've had one too many meals here. They're fine, but you know what I mean. Could you recommend another restaurant…?"

THE PRAIRIE LANDS around Bluestem were not exactly flat; more a collection of tilted planes, with small creeks or farm ditches where the planes intersected, the water lines marked by clumps of willow and cottonwood and wild plum. The creeks and ditches eventually collected into larger streams, usually a snaky line of oxbows cut a few dozen feet deep in the soil; and sometimes into marshes or shallow lakes. Sticking out of the planes were isolated ridges and bumps, with outcrops of red rock, much of the rock covered with green lichen.