"Then let me ask you a few things," I said. Tolliver took out his pad and pencil. The sheriff looked surprised, as if the last thing she'd ever expected had been that I would ask her questions.

"Okay, shoot," Sandra Rockwell said after a brief pause.

"Are there bodies of water in the county?"

"Yes, there's Grunyan's Pond and Pine Landing Lake. And several streams."

"Have they been searched?"

"Yes. A couple of us dive, and we've searched as well as we can. Nothing's come to the surface, either. Both of those spots are well used, and anything that came up and a lot of things that went down would have been found, if they'd been there to find. And I'm sure the pond's clear. Still, it's possible that there's something in the deepest part of the lake."

The sheriff clearly believed that wasn't likely.

"What did the missing boys have in common?"

"Besides their age range? Not much, except they're gone."

"All white?"

"Oh. Yes."

"All go to the same school?"

"No. Four of them to the local high school, one of them to the junior high, one of them to the private academy, Randolph Prep."

"The past five years, you said? Do they vanish at the same time of year?"

She looked at a file on her desk, opened it. Flipped over a few pages. "No," she said. "Two in the fall, three in the spring, one in the summer."

None in the winter, when the conditions would be worst for an outdoor interment—so she was probably right. The boys were buried somewhere.

"You think the same person killed them all," I said. I was guessing, but it was a good guess.

"Yes," she said. "That's what I think."

It was my turn to take a deep breath.