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“I don’t know. I haven’t even an idea.”

“Did the doctor know her?”

“No, but he brought in the colored preacher over there, Mr. Bail. He knew her. Name was Jelda May Sykes. He said she was a local prostitute. Now and then she came to the church to talk to him about getting out of the trade. He said she got salvation about once a month and lost it the rest of the time. She worked some of the black juke joints along the river. Picked up a little white trade now and then.”

“So no one has any ideas who could have done it?”

“Nobody over there gives a damn, Marilyn. No one. The coloreds don’t have any high feelings for her, and the white law enforcement let me know real quick I was out of my jurisdiction. Or as they put it, ‘We take care of our own niggers.’ Which, of course, means they don’t take care of them at all.”

“If it’s out of your jurisdiction, you’ll have to leave it alone.”

“Taking her to Mission Creek was out of my jurisdiction, but where she was found isn’t out of my jurisdiction. Law over there figures some hobo ridin’ the rails got off over there, had his fun with her, dumped her in a river and caught the next train out. They’re probably right. But if that’s so, who bound her to the tree?”

“It could have been someone else, couldn’t it?”

“I suppose, but it worries me mightily to think that there’s that much cruelty out there in the world. And besides, I don’t buy it. I think the same man killed her and displayed her. I did a little snoopin’ while I was over in Mission Creek. I know a newspaperman over there, Cal Fields.”

“He the older man with the younger wife? The hot patootie?”

“Yeah. He’s a good guy. The wife ran off with a drummer, by the way. That doesn’t bother Cal any. He’s got a new girlfriend. But what he was tellin’ me was interestin’. He said this is the third murder in the area in eighteen months. He didn’t write about any of ‘em in the paper, primarily because they’re messy, but also because they’ve all been colored killings, and his audience don’t care about colored killings. All the murders have been of prostitutes. One happened there in Mission Creek. Her body was found stuffed in a big ole drainpipe down near the river. Her legs had been broken and pulled up and tied to her head.”

“Goodness.”

“Cal said he’d just heard the rumor of the other. Cal gave me the name of the editor of the colored paper. I went over and talked to him, a fella named Max Greene. They did do a report on it. He gave me a back issue. The first one was killed January of last year, a little farther up than Mission Creek. They found her in the river too. Her private parts had been cut out and stuffed in her mouth.”

“My God. But those murders are some months apart. It wouldn’t be the same person, would it?”

“I hope so. Like I said, I don’t want to think there’s two or three just like this fella runnin’ around. Way the bodies are mistreated, sort of displayed, something terribly vulgar done to them. I think it’s the same man.

“Greene was of the opinion the murderer likes to finish ‘em by drowning ‘em. Even the one found in the drainpipe was in water. And the law over there is probably right about it being someone rides the rails. Every spot was near the tracks, close to some little jumping-off point with a juke joint and a working girl. But that don’t mean he’s a hobo or someone leaves the area much. He could just use the trains to go to the murder sites.”

“The body Harry found. What happened to it? Who took it?”

“No one. Honey, I paid to have her buried in the colored cemetery over there. I know we don’t have the money, but …”

“Shush. That’s all right. You did good.”

They grew quiet, and I rolled on my back and looked at the ceiling. When I closed my eyes I saw the woman’s body, mined and swollen, fixed to the tree by vines and thorns. And I saw the bright eyes and white teeth in the dark face of the homed Goat Man. I remembered looking over my shoulder and seeing the Goat Man standing in shadow in the middle of the wooded trail, watching me.

Eventually, in my dream I reached the road, and then I fell asleep.