“You’re Crowe. John Voss.” He extended his hand and Theo shook it. “We’re supposed to take it from here,” Voss said. “What have you got?”

Theo was at once relieved and offended. Sheriff Burton was going to push him off the case without even talking to him. “No note,” Theo said. “I called you guys ten minutes after I got the call. Joseph said she wasn’t depressed, but she was on medication. He came downstairs to have breakfast and found her.”

“Did you look around?” Voss asked. “This place has been scoured. There isn’t a smudge or a spot anywhere. It’s like someone cleaned up the scene.”

“She did that,” Theo said. “She was a clean freak.”

Voss scoffed. “She cleaned the house, then hung herself? Please.”

Theo shrugged. He really didn’t like this cop stuff. “I’m going to go talk to her psychiatrist. I’ll let you know what she says.”

“Don’t talk to anybody, Crowe. This is my investigation.”

Theo smiled. “Okay. But she hung herself and that’s all there is. Don’t make it into anything it’s not. The family is in pretty bad shape.”

“I’m a professional,” Voss said, throwing it like an insult, implying that Theo was just dicking around in law enforcement, which, in a way, he was.

“Did you check out the Amish cult angle?” Theo asked, trying to keep a straight face. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten high today.

“What?”

“Right, you’re the pro,” Theo said. “I forgot.” And he walked out of the house.

In the Volvo, Theo pulled the thin Pine Cove phone directory out of the glove compartment and was looking up Dr. Valerie Riordan’s number when a call came in on the radio. Fight at the Head of the Slug Saloon. It was 8:30 A.M.

Mavis

It was rumored among the regulars at the Head of the Slug that under Mavis Sand’s slack, wrinkled, liver-spot ted skin lay the gleaming metal skeleton of a Terminator.