AFTER PULLING THE TRIGGER, RYAN LAID HIS GUN ON THE MANTEL, unlocked the cuffs, checked Slidell for a pulse, and dialed 911. Units came screaming from all over Charlotte. So did two ambulances, later the ME van.

Vince Gunther was pronounced dead at 10:47 P.M.

Slidell and I were transported to Carolinas Medical Center, both protesting loudly. My concussion was minor. Slidell’s was severe and his scalp required stitches. We gave statements from our hospital beds.

Ryan remained at the Annex to answer questions. I learned details late the next morning.

Returning to the Annex, Ryan had seen the porch light shining. He edged up to the house and spotted my purse in the grass where Gunther had tossed it after removing my keys. Sensing trouble, he’d used his own key, crept into the house, come upon the scene in the hallway, and taken Gunther out with a single round to the head. Providentially, Ryan’s bullet had knocked Gunther sideways, and Gunther’s death throes had not resulted in a squeezing of the trigger.

At the ME office, Gunther’s true identity began to emerge. Prints showed he was a twenty-seven-year-old con man with several aliases. Under his real name, Vern Ziegler, he rented an apartment off Harris Boulevard and attended UNCC. Male prostitution provided but one of many illicit income streams.

Charlie Hunt came to see me early the next morning. Held my hand. Looked genuinely concerned.

Katy called. She was still tagging documents in Buncombe County, but would return to Charlotte for the weekend. She was finding the project, big surprise, boring. The upside was she was talking about graduate studies, maybe law.

Pete also called. He was relieved to learn that I’d suffer no lasting consequences, pleased to hear of Katy’s mention of law school. As we talked, Summer was out perusing china patterns.

I was discharged by 10 A.M. To his dismay, Slidell had to stay longer. Before leaving the hospital, Ryan and I stopped by his room. He’d already talked to members of the Rinaldi task force. Ryan was somber, quiet. Between us, we pieced together the story.

My wild guess had been intuitive and right on the mark. Evans was a closet gay who cruised NoDa wearing a ball cap pulled low to disguise his identity. Usually he picked up Gunther. One night he spotted Klapec and got a taste for fresh talent. Pleased with performance, he switched service providers. Gunther was furious and confronted Klapec, his sometime friend. Klapec argued free trade, things got physical, and Gunther killed him.

I remembered Gunther’s words in my hallway.

“For a guy who prided himself on covering all angles, he sure hadn’t worked out an exit strategy. He didn’t want the body found, but he had no idea what to do with it.”

Buying time, Gunther crammed Klapec into Pinder’s grandmother’s freezer. When he read about Cuervo’s altar and cauldrons, he thought his problem was solved. Knowing nothing about Santería, Wicca, or devil worship, he decided to make the murder appear satanic. After carving symbols in Klapec’s flesh, he dumped the still frozen corpse at Lake Wylie.

“Gunther knew there was a possibility Pinder or one of the chicken hawks might link him to Klapec, so he began feeding false information to Rinaldi,” Slidell said.

“Do you think Gunther knew Evans was Lingo’s right-hand man?” I asked.

“The guy wasn’t stupid, but he definitely had some screws loose,” Slidell said. “They found Tegretol in his apartment. Lots of it.”

“That’s a medication for bipolar disorder.” Ryan.

Slidell’s eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Like I said. The guy was a whack job.”

I considered, decided against attempting to explain manic depression to Slidell.

“He’d stopped taking his meds?” I guessed.

“Clever move, eh? Doc said he was probably in something called an acutely manic period.”

Impatient with the topic of Gunther’s mental health, Slidell segued back to Evans. “Maybe Gunther learned Evans’s name from Rinaldi. Or spotted him on the tube with Lingo.”

“Lingo’s tirades fed right into Gunther’s delusion,” I said.

“And set Asa Finney up as a perfect patsy to take the fall for Klapec,” Ryan added.

“Here’s the biggest mind-fuck,” said Slidell. “Gunther didn’t know Finney and didn’t know he’d been shot by Klapec’s father. If he’d heard that, he wouldn’t have bothered with the frame on Evans, unless he just wanted to burn the guy.”

Slidell shook his head.

“I was way off base on Finney. The guy was just trying to make a dime and be left alone. His income came from Dr. Games and other sites loading ads on gamers. And the Ford Focus spotted near the witch camp turned out to belong to a cousin of one of the locals.”

“Did CSS find anything useful in Granny’s freezer or basement?” Ryan asked.

“Enough blood for a transfusion. DNA’ll show it came from Klapec.”

“I suspect some of the blood may belong to Señor Snake,” Ryan said.

“Gunther left the copperhead on my porch?”

Slidell nodded. “Probably meant as another satanic misdirect. Or maybe Gunther thought he could scare you off the case.”

I just looked at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Slidell said. “Maybe the guy wasn’t so smart after all.”

“Why did Evans come home early last night?” I asked.

“Landlady dimed him. Told you that old harpy was trouble.”

“Why did Evans park way up the block instead of just pulling into the driveway?”

“He was probably worried that our warrant might include his vehicle. He must have surprised Gunther sneaking in from the golf course.”

“To plant the saw and Klapec’s head.”

Slidell nodded again.

“When Gunther learned we’d questioned Pinder he decided it was time to get the goods out of Granny’s basement. After capping Evans, he saw us right there in the garage. Things were spinning out of control and he was thinking wildly. That’s when he dreamed up the murder-suicide plan.”

More came out over the course of that day.

At age six, April Pinder had taken a car bumper to the side of her head. The injury resulted in an inability to properly sequence certain types of information. Time was one area that caused her difficulty. Pinder had mixed up dates, confusing the day Gunther got out of jail with the day before he went in.

Turned out Gunther/Ziegler did have a record. Using a long list of aliases he’d worked a number of con games over the years, most bilking elderly or retarded women. A scam based on checking obits, then delivering COD packages requiring payment of money due. Door-to-door peddling of candy, candles, and popcorn for false charities. Sale of “winning” lottery tickets and counterfeited contest coupons. All petty stuff. Nothing violent. His boyish good looks undoubtedly served him well. It was only after going off his meds in August that he started showing bursts of violent behavior.

Overnight, the weather had turned cold and rainy. For the rest of that day and the next, Ryan and I hunkered down at the Annex. Ryan was moody, quiet. I didn’t press. Shooting someone is never easy for a cop.

Katy visited on Saturday morning. She’d never heard of the Cheeky Girls. We all laughed. She talked more about law school. It was good.

Allison Stallings called shortly after noon. I didn’t pick up, but listened as she recorded a message. She’d decided to write about a multiple murder in Raleigh, apologized in case her deception had caused me problems, promised to set the record straight with Tyrell.

Slidell stopped by around four. With him was a very tall woman who almost matched him in weight. Her skin was caramel, her hair black and woven into a single thick braid. From her posture and bearing I knew she was on the job.

Before Slidell could speak, the woman shot out a hand. “Theresa Madrid. This extraordinarily fortunate detective’s brilliant new partner.”

Madrid’s grip could have cracked coconut husks.

“Chief thinks my cultural sensitivities need broadening.” Slidell, out of the side of his mouth.

Madrid clapped Slidell on the back. “Poor Skinny pulled a lucky double-L.”

Ryan and I must have looked blank.

“Lesbian Latina.”

“She’s Mexican.” Slidell’s lips did that poochy thing they do.

“Dominican. Skinny thinks every Spanish speaker must be Mexican.”

“Astounding,” Slidell said. “All those amazingly rich and diverse cultures evolving the same wife-beater shirts and plastic Jesus lawn shit.”

Madrid’s laugh came from somewhere deep in her belly. “Not as astounding as your girlfriend’s mustache.”

Slidell added another puzzle piece. It came from Rinaldi’s son, Tony. His youngest child had Cohen syndrome. Rinaldi was spending all he had on his grandson’s medical fees and on tuition for special schooling. And then some.

When they’d gone, Ryan and I agreed. Slidell and Madrid would get along fine.

Ryan cooked. Chicken fricassee with mushrooms and artichokes.

I worked on a lecture.

Over dinner, and later, we talked.

There had been so many deaths. Cuervo. Klapec. Rinaldi. Finney. Evans. Gunther.

Like poor little Anson Tyler, T-Bird Cuervo had met a violent but accidental end. A man alone in the dark on a railroad track. Perhaps drunk. Perhaps naive about the high-speed technology that had so recently come to his town. Cuervo was a harmless santero. Beyond selling a little marijuana, he’d done nothing illegal, perhaps eased the way for newcomers marginalized like himself by differences in language and culture.

Jimmy Klapec had been driven into the streets by an ignorant and intolerant father. Like Eddie Rinaldi and Glenn Evans, he died because a man went off his meds and lost touch with reality.

Vince Gunther/Vern Ziegler’s life ended why? Because his own brain betrayed him? Because he was evil by nature? Neither Ryan nor I had an answer for that one.

Asa Finney’s death was the most disturbing of all.

“Klapec, senior shot Finney because he was tormented by guilt,” Ryan said.

“No,” I said. “He was driven by fear.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Americans have become a nation afraid.”

“Of?”

“A shooter on a rampage in a school cafeteria. A hijacked plane toppling a high-rise building. A bomb in a train or rental van. A postal delivery carrying anthrax. The power to kill is out there for anyone willing to use it. All it takes is access to the Internet or a friendly gun shop.”

Ryan let me go on.

“We fear terrorists, snipers, hurricanes, epidemics. And the worst part is we’ve lost faith in the government’s ability to protect us. We feel powerless and that causes constant anxiety, makes us fear things we don’t understand.”

“Like Wicca.”

“Wicca, Santería, voodooism, Satanism. They’re exotic, unknown. We lump and stereotype them and bar the doors in trepidation.”

“Finney was a witch. Lingo’s rhetoric tapped into that fear.”

“That plus the fact that people have lost confidence in the system on other grounds. Klapec was a sad example. There’s a growing belief that, too often, the guilty go free.”

“The O.J. syndrome.”

I nodded. “A bonehead like Lingo stirs the public into a froth and some citizen vigilante appoints himself judge and jury.”

“And an innocent man dies. At least Finney’s death should put an end to Lingo’s political career.”

“It’s ironic,” I said. “The witch and the santero were harmless. The college boy and the commissioner’s assistant led dark double lives.”

“Nothing’s ever what it seems.”

Birdie and I slept upstairs.

Ryan slept on the couch.