Then, as if in answer to his thought, he sensed the snakes did not want to just kill him, they wanted to consume him whole. Their venom would paralyze, not kill. They wanted him alive and alert but unable to cry out for help when they ate him.

He kept his eyes on the snakes closest to him, and in his periphery saw more dropping from the map, plopping onto the floor, slithering off in different directions.

Almost to the door now, each backward step a monumental effort.

There were fourteen or fifteen snakes, and still the plopping continued. Several were crawling on the wall to his right, like insects. The first was easily four inches thick.

He felt for the doorknob with his right hand, hit the light switch instead, freezing the snakes in a moment of confusion. Two were within striking distance of his leg; he had only seconds before one would strike and inject paralyzing venom into his bloodstream.

He groped for the doorknob with both hands, frantic, near panic. Found it and pulled, forgetting in his urgency to turn it first. A moan escaped his lips when he realized his error. His hands were slippery with sweat. The snakes were moving again, bobbing and swaying their deadly dance. The knob slipped twice and the lead snake hissed, seeming to understand that its prey would not escape, that it would feast on fresh meat today.

Lawless twisted and pulled again, this time hearing the latch open, feeling the door move an inch, two inches, then stop. Pulled harder but the door didn't budge. Just as the lead snake was coiling to strike - there were fifty or sixty now - he realized the door was hitting his foot.

He stepped to his left to allow space for the door to open. The movement momentarily froze the coiling snake, long enough for Lawless to pull the door open and step through into the room beyond. He heard an angry hiss, followed by a thump as something struck the door.

He slammed the door and stared at it, not sure what to do next. He sensed the snakes movement on the other side, felt their swaying. He began moving, side to side ever so slightly as they called to him. Come, they seemed to say. Come and feed us for we are hungry. He knew he needed to run, break free of their spell, but his feet were once again encased in cement.

He saw his hand take on a life of its own, reaching for the doorknob. He willed it to stop but it ignored him. Come, they whispered to him. Bring us your flesh.

His hand touched the doorknob, but he did not feel the metal on his fingers. Yes, they hissed, come and join us, be part of us.

He watched his traitorous hand turn the doorknob...

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, a secretary who had heard the door slam and had been watching Lawless's strange behavior. He turned, screamed into her face, and broke for the elevator. Another secretary, returning from the restroom, crossed the room as Lawless made his break; they collided and Lawless took her to the floor. Later, while nursing a knot on her forehead, the dazed secretary would say the crazy man who ran her over had said someone was after his shoes.

Lawless sprang to his feet, blew by the elevator into the adjacent stairwell, throwing open the heavy door with a bang. He threw himself down the stairs, taking three at a time, and made it to the ground floor in ten seconds. Upon exiting the stairwell, he ran down the hall to the electronic half-door and vaulted it like a hurdler. He sprinted through the lobby and out the front, slamming his shoulder on the old sliding glass door.

His appearance and speed of flight frightened the eight sleepy-eyed customers. They forgot about paying their bills, formed a new line that exited the building, and hurried to their cars before whatever was chasing the man in the suit appeared. Linda watched them go, then grabbed her purse from a desk drawer and followed them out, taking her headset with her.

Chapter 5.

Lawless sat at his desk, staring at the county map pinned to the wall, praying the lines wouldn't move. It was a quarter to six and he'd been sitting in his office with the door closed for thirty minutes. He had some idea he'd left the MID building at about one, and knew he pulled into the Sheriff Department's parking lot at about five-thirty, but what'd happened between those two times was a blur; he couldn't account for the rest of the afternoon.

The snakes weren't a blur, though, he recalled with perfect clarity how they came after him with their hypnotic dance and seductive mind game. The experience had been so real, yet he knew it was impossible; they'd existed only in his mind. He was glad he hadn't thought to pull out his gun and shoot at them, sure that even if he had hit one or two, all anyone would've found in the room were bullet holes in the floor. How would he have explained that?

He was ashamed for the way he ran and hoped he'd never have to see the inside of the MID building again.

He ran the scene through his mind a few times, but couldn't come up with a happy ending. If he'd stayed in the room he would have been bitten by the snakes. Whether they were real or not, they were real to him and he was sure one bite would have dropped him. After that, maybe his mind would have convinced him he was being eaten and he would have died. Maybe the MID people would have found his corpse in Brackston's office, maybe they wouldn't have.

Thirty minutes of this kind of thinking left him frustrated and in a foul mood. Someone knocked on his door.

"Detective, you in there?" It was Busmur.

"What?" Lawless shouted.

The door creaked open and Busmur peeked in, scanning the room. It was unusual for anyone in the Sheriff's Department to work behind closed doors and Busmur was nervous about interrupting something important. Or illegal.

"What is it, Busmur?"

"You busy Detective?"

"Do I look busy?"

Busmur looked around again, thinking it might be a trick question. "Can I come in?"

Lawless sighed. "Yes, come in. What do you want?"

Busmur decided he'd rather not enter Lawless's office, the detective was obviously in a bad mood, and so tried answering him from his position halfway through the door. "We checked three of the grates, like you asked, and-"

Lawless interrupted: "I can't hear you when you talk through the door. Either come in or get out."

Busmur scooted through the door, wishing he'd made Vandertop do the reporting. He didn't think the detective would be in and had written up a brief note to leave on his desk. He had the note, and something else, in his hand.

"We found a hole in each of the three grilles we checked." Short and sweet. Get in, get out.

"What?"

Busmur thought maybe Lawless had forgotten what he'd asked them to do, so he started to remind the detective, "Remember, you asked us to check three more-"

"I remember what I said. Just tell me what canals you checked."

Busmar hurried to Lawless's desk and dropped a photocopy of a map in front of him. "It's easier to show you. I made a copy of the map we used and marked the grilles we checked with a hi-lighter. See?"

Lawless looked at the map and almost passed out; it was a miniature copy of the map on Brackston's wall, the one that spawned deadly black snakes. For a moment, a split second, the dark lines on the map pulsated.

Four or five seconds later, he remembered to breathe.

Witnessing this, Busmur said, "You feeling alright, Detective? You don't look so hot."

"I'm fine," Lawless said, his voice cracking, obviously not fine. His eyes focused on the map and he saw three yellow fluorescent dots, one for each of the grilles the divers had checked. The canals marked were Lateral No. 3, the Butler Lateral, and the Goldworthy Lateral; all in farmland, fairly close together; the divers hadn't gone too far out of their way to complete their assignment.

"All three grilles had holes in them?" he said, trying to keep his voice even.

"Yeah, all three. It's kinda' weird, don't you think? I mean, you can't say it's a manufacturer's defect or anything. You wouldn't think you'd find so many damn holes in those things. It almost seems like someone's cuttin' through them."

He waited for Lawless to reply. When he didn't, Busmur spoke again because the silence creeped him out. "Got any ideas about how the holes got there?

Lawless pulled on an earlobe. "I have ideas. I've also got someone at MID checking into it."

Busmur decided he was done. He dropped the note on Lawless's desk and backed out of the office. "If you don't need me for anything else..."

Lawless waved him away without looking up. "Just make sure you're both here bright and early tomorrow."

Busmar stopped. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, tomorrow. The day after today? You'll be diving again tomorrow and I want both you and Vandertop ready to go at eight."

Busmar, seeing that Lawless was still looking at the map, rolled his eyes and said, "Alright. I'll tell Garrett." He left, grumbling. He was not looking forward to spending another day in canals where people were dying and holes were found where they shouldn't. He wondered how many sick days he had left, decided to check on the way out.

Lawless used his hi-lighter to mark the map where the first two holes had been found, then used a red pen to mark 'Xs' where Weston and Sanchez had been killed. He realized he'd made a mistake by not sending a diver into the canal they pulled Sanchez out of. He would make sure it got checked tomorrow.

After another minute of study, he laid the map down on the desk, then flipped it face down. Looking at it reminded him too much of Brackston's office and he was getting anxious. He didn't think he could handle anything else today.

"What you need is some wine," he said to himself.

He warmed to the idea, thinking he might even splurge for a forty dollar bottle tonight. What the hell? Why not a new opera CD as well?

He would try and forget that Shoe Boy had ran again today, and maybe, with the wine's help, and the lift music always gave, he might even think of something else he could to do besides run.

In the thick of planning his evening, a bachelor's evening, with his spirits on the upswing, the phone rang. He stared at it, considered letting it go to voice mail, then thought it might be Brouchard with news of Weston's autopsy, so he picked up.

"Lawless."

"Detective Lawless?" a young male voice asked.

"That's me."

"This is Tommy Wu of the Bee."

Lawless didn't know any reporter from The Modesto Bee by name. "How can I help you?" he said, hoping to keep it short.

"I understand a rancher, Hank Weston, was found dead this morning and that you're working the case."

"That's right. We don't know much about it yet. Autopsy should have been done today, tomorrow at the latest. Not much I can tell you now." So leave me the hell alone.

"Hmm ..." Wu said. Then, "I hear he died under suspicious circumstances."

Lawless frowned. Suspicious circumstances? "We haven't released any details about his death, it's too early in the investigation. I don't know who you're talking to, but-"

"My source was an eyewitness," Wu cut in. "He says Weston's feet were found by the canal and he died crawling to his truck. Care to comment on that?"

My source?

"Your 'source' doesn't know how Hank Weston died. No one does. I can't comment on the case until I get some facts. I'm sure you know that."

"I also heard an MID employee was killed yesterday, also under suspicious circumstances."

"Yeah, so what? I can't comment on that case, either, for the same reasons."

Then Tommy Wu dropped a bomb: "Did you ever find his arm, or Weston's legs?"

If Wu knew about the missing body parts, he must be talking to someone in the coroner's office, or the Sheriff's Department. Probably Cruff or McCain. No, he couldn't picture either of them hanging out with someone named Tommy Wu. Maybe that guy that works for Brouchard, Louper, the odd one.

"As I said, I can't comment on the cases. Call me again next week." He showed a little attitude, hoping to rattle Wu and get him off the phone.

"Detective Lawless, the story's going to press tomorrow whether you talk to me or not. I was just hoping you could fill in some of the blanks."

Going to press? Lawless wondered if there was a hack-reporter vocabulary list they had to memorize.

"I'm afraid the blanks will have to stay blank for now." Lawless slammed the phone down. Wu's story would end with, "Detective Daniel Lawless of the Sheriff's Department is investigating both deaths and refused to comment." Refusing to comment made it sound like you could comment but for some dark reason wouldn't. He was usually polite to reporters, it made for shorter phone calls, but Tommy Wu had the misfortune of calling at the end of a very bad day.

He left the building without saying a word to anyone, got in his car and drove straight to Consetti's, a small Italian restaurant and bar with bland food but an outstanding wine list. The bar was small, dark, and private, with the added bonus that few cops ever drank there. He ordered a forty-two dollar bottle of California zinfandel from a small Amador County winery he was familiar with. The wine was over fifteen percent alcohol; none of the sissy twelve-and-a-half percent stuff tonight.

He drank at the bar, brooding over his day, thinking that everything looked like a snake now. He was halfway into his bottle when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He didn't want company, would tell the tapper so, turned around and saw it was Sandra Jensen, the bilingual deputy with the mesmerizing eyes. He almost didn't recognize her; she wore a low-cut white blouse and a navy skirt, short and tight but not cheap. Fendi red pumps made her taller. Red, white, and blue: Old Glory never looked so good.

And she did look damn good, even to a man indifferent about the opposite sex. Indifferent about sex period.

And to think all that got hidden under a starched Sheriff Department uniform.

Still, he wanted to drink alone.

"Detective Lawless, what are you doing here?" Jensen said, smiling.

What a silly question. "Drinking."

"I know you're drinking, I meant are you here by yourself?"

He didn't know how to answer that - wasn't it obvious? - so he said, "You on a date?"

"I'm meeting a friend for dinner, but I'm early. Mind if I sit down?"

He did, but instead found himself saying, "No, help yourself. Can I get you something?" Her skirt rode up her thighs a couple of inches as she slid onto the barstool and, when she leaned forward to set her purse down, her blouse fell open. He looked, and liked what he saw.

"I would love a glass of wine. What are you drinking?"

"Zinfandel. What do you like, white wine?" He had yet to meet a woman who preferred red wine over white. Although women drank wine more often than men, in his experience, they always preferred the sweet, cold stuff over the dry, room temperature reds.

So he was surprised when she said, "Zinfandel sounds great." She saw his eyebrows go up. "What?"

Her face was two feet from his now, and he noticed she had done something different with her hair, but wasn't sure what, being ignorant about those kind of things. It fell across her forehead, down into her eyes a little in a way it never did while on duty. He also noticed her face was made up, almost like a model's. Between the hair and the makeup, she looked amazing, even exotic.

"Every woman I've ever met drank either white or pink wine." He waved at the bartender, who put a glass in front of her, filled it, and topped off Lawless's glass.

"I usually drink white but I'm willing to try something new tonight."

He turned and looked at her again, to see if her face gave any clue as to what she might have meant. Even Lawless, in his mostly-sexless state, could recognize potential sexual innuendo when he heard it. She peered at him with innocent eyes and swirled the wine in her glass, sniffing at the aroma. She gave nothing away, if there was anything to give away. She had small ears, but good-sized diamond stud earrings: nice jewelry usually meant a boyfriend.

She caught him staring and smiled.

Embarrassed, he wanted to turn back to his glass but made the mistake of looking into her eyes. As usual, he felt himself being pulled in, unable to look away.

He managed to say, "I'm sorry, it's just that I'm not sure I've ever seen you out of uniform."