"No thanks."

"Mind if I keep working?"

"Please."

"Has someone regaled you with the whole strange tale?"

"There are still gaps. Take it from the top."

"H&F was some kind of hybrid between Mensa and the Billionaire Boys Club. It didn't start out that way, was originally just a bunch of businessmen, doctors, and professors coming to the mountains to hunt and fish."

"Back in the thirties."

"Right. They'd camp on Edward Arthur's land, hunt during the day, drink and party all night. Applaud themselves on their extraordinary intelligence. The group got to be very close over the years, eventually formed a secret society which they called H&F."

"The founding father being Prentice Dashwood."

"Dashwood was the first prior, whatever the hell that means."

"H&F stands for Hell Fire," I said. "Hell Fire Clubs flourished in eighteenth-century England and Ireland, the most famous being the brainchild of Sir Francis Dashwood. Prentice Dashwood of Albany, New York, was a descendant of Sir Francis. Mama was an unnamed Hell Fire lady." I'd done a lot of reading during my time on the couch. "Sir Francis had four sons named Francis."

"Sounds like George Foreman."

"The man was proud of his name."

"Or the least creative progenitor in history."

"Anyway, the original Hell Fires had a healthy skepticism for religion and loved lampooning the church. They referred to themselves as the Knights of Saint Francis, to their parties as 'devotions,' to their steward as 'prior.'"

"Who were these assholes?"

"The rich and powerful of Merry Old England. Ever hear of the Bohemian Club?"

McMahon shook his head.

"It's a highly select, all-male club whose members have included every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge. They gather for two weeks every year at a secluded campground in Sonoma County, California, called the Bohemian Grove."

McMahon paused, a folder in each hand.

"That does ring a bell. The few journalists that have gotten in over the years have been thrown out and their stories killed."

"Yep."

"You're not suggesting our political and industrial bigwigs plot murder at these rendezvous?"

"Of course not. But the concept is similar: powerful men camping in seclusion. Bohemian Club members are even reported to use mock-druidic rituals."

McMahon taped a carton, slid it across the floor, and placed another on his desk.

"We've netted all but one of the H&F members, and we're accumulating the story bit by bit, but it's slow. Needless to say, no one's enthused about talking to us, and everyone is lawyered to the gills. Each of the six officers will be charged with multiple counts of homicide, but it's unclear what the culpability is for the rest of the pack. Midkiff claims only the leaders participated in murder and cannibalism."

"Has Midkiff been given immunity?" I asked.

He nodded. "Most of our info is coming from him."

"He sent the code name fax?"

"Yes. He'd reconstructed what he remembered. Midkiff left the group in the early seventies, claims he was never involved in any killing. Didn't know about Stover. He says he reached a point last week where he couldn't live with himself anymore."

McMahon began transferring papers from a file cabinet to the box.

"And he was afraid for you."

"Me?"

"You, darlin'."

I took a moment to absorb that.

"Where is he now?"

"The judge didn't think he was a flight risk or in personal danger, so he's out. He's still living in a rental cabin in Cherokee."

"Why did Parker Davenport call Midkiff before shooting himself?"

"To warn him that the lid was about to blow. Apparently the two remained friends after Midkiff withdrew from H&F. It was largely because of the lieutenant governor that Midkiff remained unmolested all these years. Davenport kept the club convinced that Midkiff posed no threat; in return, Midkiff kept his mouth shut."

"Until now."

"Until now."

"What has he told you?"

"H&F had eighteen members at any given time. Of those, six lucky boys made up the inner circle. Very exclusive. Only when a member of that inner circle died was a replacement chosen from the group at large. The initiation banquet was black tie; red, hooded robe; dessert provided by the inductee."

"Human flesh."

"Yes. Remember the Hamatsa you told me about?"

I nodded, too revolted to reply.

"Same deal. Only our gentlemen cannibals restricted themselves to sharing the flesh of one thigh from each victim. It was like a blood brotherhood pact. Though the whole club met regularly at the Arthur house, Midkiff swears that only members of the inner circle knew what really went on at these initiations."

I thought of Ralph Stover's words to me. "I found my offering."

"Tucker Adams was killed in 1943 when inner-circle member Henry Arlen Preston died, and Anthony Allen Birkby joined the elite. When Sheldon Brodie drowned in 1949, Martin Patrick Veckhoff was the new inner-circle choice and Edna Farrell was his victim. Anthony Allen Birkby perished in a car wreck a decade later, his son was given the inner-circle nod, and Charlie Wayne Tramper ended up on the Communion table."

"Wasn't Tramper killed by a bear?"

"Young Birkby may have cheated a bit. The Tramper funeral was where Parker Davenport met Simon Midkiff, by the way. Midkiff knew Tramper through his research on the Cherokee."

"Did Midkiff know what had happened to Tramper?"

"Claims he had no clue."

"How did Midkiff get hooked up with H&F?"

"In 1955 the young professor was newly arrived from England, and had been told to look up Prentice Dashwood, an old family friend. Dashwood recruited Midkiff into H&F."

"He never made it to the inner circle."

"No."

"But Davenport did."

"Following the Tramper funeral, Midkiff gradually introduced Davenport to the brothers. The idea of an intellectual elite appealed to Davenport, and he joined up."

"Even though he was from Swain County, Davenport had never known about the lodge?"

"Not before he joined. Apparently no one did. These guys were amazing at keeping themselves hidden. They'd sneak in and out after dark. Over the years, everyone forgot the place was there."

"Everyone except old Edward Arthur and Luke Bowman's father."

"Right." McMahon perused the contents of a drawer as if unsure whether to pack or discard them.

"And the club put nothing on paper."

"Very little."

He emptied the drawer into the box, reinserted it in the desk, opened another.

"What is all this shit?" He straightened and looked at me. "Continuing with the chronology, John Morgan died in 1972, Mary Francis Rafferty was killed, and F. L. Warren moved up. By this time, Midkiff was getting disenchanted. He quit shortly after that."

"So he may not have been a party to any murders."

"It looks that way. But Davenport's dirty. In 1979 he was chosen to replace William Glenn Sherman in the inner circle. Davenport's canape was the unidentified black male."

"Was it significant that the victims were drawn from different races and both sexes?"

"The idea was to maximize the breadth of spiritual intake."

"Jesus."

"Kendall Rollins succumbed to leukemia in 1986 and his son Paul took his place."

"Albert Odell was the victim?"

"Correct."

McMahon dumped the second drawer.

"What happened with Jeremiah Mitchell and George Adair?"

"Major fuck-up. When Martin Patrick Veckhoff checked out last February, Roger Lee Fairley was slated for coronation. He was informed of the requirements, and Mitchell was grabbed and killed. Fairley's sudden death on the way to the Veckhoff funeral created a problem, and Mitchell was put on ice while the succession issue was resolved."

"By whom?"

"Ralph Stover was told that it would soon be his turn to move from the outer to the inner circle, was advised of the conditions, and was asked to perform a few extra duties. He stored Mitchell's body in a freezer at the Riverbank Inn."

I suppressed a shudder.

"That's why the volatile fatty acid readings were off."

"Exactly. In early September Stover was officially proposed to succeed Veckhoff, and Mitchell's body was taken back and placed in the courtyard in preparation for an induction ceremony. That's when things began to unravel. Some within the inner circle opposed Stover's promotion, seeing him as too zealous, too unstable. The dispute dragged on, decomposition began, meaning the body couldn't be used for the ritual and the corpse had to be buried in the cave."

"But not before a coyote visitation."

"Bless them."

"Stover did the dirty work again?"

"He's our man."

McMahon upended another drawer, taped the box, and labeled it with a felt-tip pen.

"Anyway, after weeks of wrangling, the Stover faction prevailed. George Adair was abducted on October first. The crash occurred on October fourth."

"I retrieved the foot on October fifth."

He stacked the box with the earlier ones and opened a file drawer.

"As you know, Stover also killed Primrose Hobbs. Lucy Crowe found Stelazine in his apartment at the Riverbank Inn. The prescription was written by a Mexican doctor for none other than Parker Davenport. Stover had four capsules in his pocket Sunday night. The same drug he used on Primrose."

He looked at me.

"She also found a length of wire that matches the garrote from Hobbs's neck."

The cold fist. It still didn't seem possible that Primrose was dead.

"He told me he did it because he could."

"An order may have come from the inner circle, or he may have been acting on his own. Perhaps he feared she'd discovered something. He probably stole her key and password to remove the foot from the morgue and alter the file."

"Has the foot been found?"

"Never will be, I suspect. Hang on."

McMahon disappeared into the hall, returned with two more empty boxes.