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prickle.
    “He’s dead, Bill. Surprised you haven’t heard about it yet. Truck engine slipped its block and tackle chains while he was mounting it from below, crushed his head like, well, you provide the image. Grape, tomato, whatever. I was on duty at Orangefield General earlier today when they brought him in.” He made a sour face. “If it had been yesterday, would have been my friend Gus Bellow instead of me looking at him. Wish it had been.”
    “Is his body still at Orangefield General?”
    “Probably transferred it to the funeral home by now. He’ll be in the ground in a few days. Won’t be much of a wake, I imagine. I never did like that kid much. He was the kind that would take two lollipops from the jar.”
    Grant said nothing, which caught the doctor’s attention. “You okay, Bill?”
    “Just thinking . . .”
    The nurse appeared again in the doorway and made a scolding motion at Williams.
    “All right, all right,” the doctor said, nodding. He pointed to the watch on his wrist. “One more minute, Martha. I promise.”
    As the nurse retreated Williams turned back to Grant. “They’re stacking up out there like planes over an airport. Gotta go.”
    “Is she really pregnant?”
    “Now, Bill—”
    “I told you, it’s important. She seems to think she is.”
    Williams asked, “When was the last time you saw her?”
    “A week and a half ago. She came to my house. I’ve talked to her on the phone a few times since then, but haven’t seen her.”
    Williams rose and came around his desk as Grant got out of his chair. The doctor put his arm around the detective’s middle, brought it up to his shoulder and squeezed. “You know, if I was your doctor, and I am, I would tell you to cut down on the cigarettes, which I can smell on your breath, and your drinking, since I felt what is probably a pint bottle in your raincoat pocket as I reached around you just now to bring my hand up to your shoulder. You see, I have to be a detective in my work, too.” He sighed. “I remember ten years ago, when your Rose and my Gladys, God rest both of them, dragged us to all kinds of things, it seemed every Saturday afternoon . . .”
    His extended reminiscence was cut off by Grant’s stone face and the reappearance of Martha in the doorway. The doctor nodded to her and then leaned over to whisper into Grant’s ear.
    “Point is, you’re a lousy detective, Bill. She’s got a belly on her you can see a mile away.”
    “Wha—”
    Williams whispered, “She’s five months pregnant, Bill.”

C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
     
    “Think of it as a favor, Mort. A big one.”
    “You got that right. You think I’ve got nothing else to do than run lab tests on closed cases? That kid Ganley’s dead, right?”
    Grant spoke evenly into the receiver. “Right.”
    “And he was your number one, right?”
    “Correct.”
    “And he came up neg, right?”
    “Correct again.”
    “And now you want me to run not the other idiot, what’s his name, Petee Wilkins, but—”
    “Yes, Mort. That’s what I want you to do.”
    A long pause on the other end, then a snort. “You got it, hojo. Though God knows why I’m doing this.”
    “Tomorrow, Mort?”
    “A.M.”
    There was a click in Grant’s ear.

C HAPTER F OURTEEN
     
    Marianne Carlin didn’t answer her phone, so Grant drove to her house. It was chilly and getting chillier, October marching steadfastly away from Indian summer and toward winter. The sky was a stark, cold, deep blue, a shade particular to this season. The elms and oaks were in full riot, bursting with red and yellow, already starting to shed. The road was littered with a beautiful blanket that had not yet become a nuisance and danger, waves and dunes of leaves that filled gutters, washed over curbs and clogged storm drains.
    Already, a few pumpkins were out on stoops, uncarved but waiting for nearing Halloween.
    Grant avoided the center of Orangefield, where the leftover bunting would still be strung for the