Her promotion to district ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway was taking its toll. The Trace was a road, hence Anna was a cop. Asphalt could be relied on to be a conduit for crime.

The boys in the picture frames: not potential victims but future promise made flesh. Attitude screwed around the right way, Anna asked, "Arc those your sons?"

"Luke and John," Joan said.

Good apostolic names. Anna smiled. "What happened to Matthew and Mark?"

"Stillborn."

Anna's brain skidded to a halt; a feeble jest had struck the jugular. "Shit," she said sincerely.

"Yup."

Silence settled around them, oddly comfortable this time, more so given this silence's root.

"John graduates high school this year. Luke's a junior. I got pregnant while nursing. Another old wives' tale bites the dust. They live with their dad in Denver."

There was no need for elaboration. The park service, though sublime in many respects, was hell on marriages.

Anna was all too familiar with the forlorn photographs of shattered families.

Accompanied by an alarming creaking noise that she hoped was the ladder-backed chair and not Joan's sacroiliac, the researcher rose. She crossed to the television, returned with the pictures and set them down amid the BIMS reports and scat sample tubes.

"They're good-looking boys," Anna said, to make up for her evil pedophiliac thoughts.