Thinner(79)

'No, sir,' Ginelli said. 'It wasn't a matter of a few shots. It was at least three bursts fired from an automatic rifle. Private ownership of machine guns and rapid-fire automatic weapons is against the law in the United States. The FBI is involved in this case and I must sincerely advise you that you are currently waist-deep in shit, it's getting deeper, and I don't think you know how to swim.'

The man looked at him sullenly for a moment longer and then said, 'My name's Heilig. Trey Heilig. You coulda gotten it from those guys.' He nodded.

'They've got their jobs to do, I've got mine. Now, are you going to talk to me?' The big man nodded resignedly.

He put Trey Heilig through an account of what had happened the night before. Halfway through it, one of the state detectives wandered over to see who he was. He glanced at Ginelli's ID and then left quickly, looking both impressed and a little worried.

Heilig claimed he had burst out of his camper at the sound of the first shots, had spotted the gun flashes, and had headed up the hill to the left, hoping to flank the shooter. But in the dark he had stumbled over a tree or something, hit his head on a rock, and blacked out for a while - otherwise he surely would have had the bastard. In support of his story he pointed to a fading bruise, at least three days old and probably incurred in a drunken stumble, and his left temple. Uh-huh, Ginelli thought, and turned to another page in his notebook. Enough of the hocus-pocus; it was time to get down to business.

'Thank you very much, Mr Heilig, you've been a great help.'

Telling the tale seemed to have mollified the man. 'Well ... that's okay. I'm sorry I jumped on you like that. But if you were us' He shrugged.

'Cops,' his wife said from behind him. She was looking 'I out the door of the camper like a very old, very tired badger looking out of her hole to see how many dogs are around, and how vicious they look. 'Always cops, wherever we go. That's usual. But this is worse. People are scared.'

'Enkelt, Mamma,' Heilig said, but more gently now.

'I've got to talk to two more people, if you can direct me,' he said, and looked at a blank page in his notebook. 'Mr Taduz Lemke and a Mrs Angelina Lemke.'

'Taduz is asleep in there,' Heilig said, and pointed at the unicorn camper. Ginelli found this to be excellent news indeed, if it was true. 'He's very old and all of this has tired him out real bad. I think Gina's in her camper over there - she ain't a missus, though.'

He pointed a dirty finger at a small green Toyota with a neat wooden cap on the back.

'Thank you very much.' He closed the notebook and tucked it into his back pocket.

Heilig retreated to his camper (and his bottle, presumably), looking relieved. Ginelli walked across the inner circle again in the growing gloom, this time to the girl's camper. His heart, he told Billy, was beating high and hard and fast. He drew a deep breath and knocked on the door.

There was no immediate answer. He was raising his hand to knock again when it was opened. William had said she was lovely, but he was not prepared for the depth of her loveliness -the dark, direct eyes with corneas so white they were faintly bluish, the clean olive skin that glowed faintly pink deep down. He looked for a moment at her hands and saw that they were strong and corded. There was no polish in the nails, which were clean but clipped as bluntly close as the fingernails of a farmer. In one of those hands she held a book called Statistical Sociology.

'Yes?'

'Special Agent Ellis Stoner, Miss Lemke,' he said, and immediately that clear, lucent quality left her eyes - it was as if a shutter had fallen over them. 'FBI.'

'Yes?' she repeated, but. with no more life than a telephone-answering machine.

'We're investigating the shooting incident that took place here last night.'

'You and half the world,' she said. 'Well, investigate away, but if I don't get my correspondence-course lessons in the mail by tomorrow morning I'm going to get grades taken off for lateness. So if you'll excuse me -'

'We've reason to believe that a man named William Halleck may have been behind it,' Ginelli said. 'Does that name mean anything to you?' Of course it did; for a moment her eyes opened wide and simply blazed. Ginelli had thought her lovely almost beyond believing. He still did, but he now also believed this girl really could have been the one who killed Frank Spurton.

'That pig!' she spat. 'Han satte sig pa en av stolarna! Han sneglade pa nytt mot hyllorna i vild! Vild!'

'I have a number of pictures of a man we believe to be Halleck,' Ginelli said mildly. 'They were taken in Bar Harbor by an agent using a telephoto lens -'

'Of course it's Halleck!' she said. 'That pig killed my tantenyjad - my grandmother! But he won't bother us long. He . . .' She bit her full lower lip, bit it hard, and stopped the words. If Ginelli had been the man he was claiming to be she would already have assured herself of an extremely deep and detailed interrogation. Ginelli, however, affected not to notice.

'In one of the photographs, money appears to be passing between the two men. If one of the men is Halleck, then the other one is probably the shooter who visited your camp last night. I'd like you and your grandfather to identify Halleck positively if you can.'

'He's my great-grandfather,' she said absently. 'I think he's asleep. My brother is with him. I hate to wake him.' She paused. 'I hate to upset him with this. The last few days have been dreadfully hard on him.'