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of his left arm.
    The only other thing she knew about him was that on his lunch hour, he took a sack lunch across the street from the office and sat alone in the city cemetery. Every day, the exact same thing. Bizarre, to be sure. Someday she was going to walk over there and see whose grave he sat and stared at for so long.
    A minute later, Saucier walked into the room. Funny thing was, she found the guy strangely attractive, strangely being the operative word. He was tall and looked to be in his mid-forties, maybe even in his fifties, with graying blond hair in a buzz cut, his eyes usually hidden by aviator sunglasses, and his face weathered by lots of sun exposure. He looked like retired military, a mystery man, to be sure. Today he had on a camouflage T-shirt and matching utility pants.
    â€œWhat d’we got?” he said, staring down at the corpse. He squatted down beside the altar, and she saw a long and ugly scar down the side of his neck. It looked almost as if his throat had been slashed from ear to ear. Can’t get more mysterious than that. He had some kind of interesting past all right, one nobody knew anything about, and they were all afraid to ask.
    â€œVoodoo?” he asked, looking sidelong up at Claire.
    â€œThat’s what Zee says. Or, could be a very good fake.”
    â€œTrue, they don’t usually have dead bodies on them. This looks like somebody wants us to experience a bit of drama. You live on that boat down there, right?”
    Claire wondered how he knew that. “I’ve been staying out here some.”
    â€œAnd this happened right under your nose?”
    Claire frowned. “Yeah, I guess it did. How’d you know I’ve been out here?”
    â€œI saw your car when I was frog giggin’ the other night. I’ve got a cabin downstream a ways.” He stopped, actually grinned up at her. Yes, he had a nice smile, but it was the first one she’d seen. “I heard you playing your violin the other night.”
    Well, that was embarrassing. Even more than that, she was shocked at his new Chatty Cathy routine. “You could hear me?”
    â€œClear as a bell. I’m just about a mile downstream. The music just floated down over the bayou like an angel’s song.”
    Claire and Nancy exchanged startled glances. Good grief, that sentence had to total ten or twenty words. That was a record for Saucier. Not to mention that he had even waxed poetic. She had never heard him say so much. Maybe voodoo altars got him all revved up and made him spout iambic pentameter.
    â€œWell, hope I didn’t keep you awake. I was out on the upper deck looking at the stars and picked up an old fiddle I found on the boat.” Bored and missing Black like crazy , she added to herself.
    â€œYou’ve got to be professionally trained, right?”
    â€œOh, God, no. Learned when I was young, had to practice a lot, but I haven’t played for years until recently.”
    â€œDidn’t sound like you were out of practice.” Saucier looked up at her, his sunglasses now pushed atop of his head. His eyes were vivid blue with very dark lashes. She’d never seen them before. “I actually got out of bed and sat on the porch where I could hear you better. What was it? Violin Concerto in E Minor, right? Mendelssohn? I think that’s probably the most exquisite violin piece ever composed. And you played it so hauntingly and beautifully that I actually got choked up.”
    Exquisite? Haunting? Choked up? Good God, this guy was definitely more than met the eye. Maybe he’d never said much until now, but he knew his classical music.
    However, Saucier was evidently finished comparing notes on violin music. He said, “Okay, what’d you know so far?”
    Back to harsh reality. Dave Mancini and Eric Sanders showed up and tramped into the room. Both were patrol officers that she’d only met once, right after she’d joined up. Dave Mancini