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line of trees it was almost deafening. Hanging onto a branch for support, Fennimore looked six feet down to a stony track, rocky at the bottom, with a thin trickle of water oozing over the stones.
    â€˜Mud Creek,’ Guffey said.
    â€˜Wide enough to accommodate an SUV,’ Fennimore said. ‘What about access?’
    Guffey pointed downstream of the sluggish trickle towards a massive turkey oak. ‘Beyond that oak, there’s a bridge runs over the creek. Part of Wilson’s Road; it’s nothing much, just a dusty back road, but it crosses the highway a couple of miles west of here.’
    Now here was a possibility. ‘Who knows about this?’ Fennimore asked.
    â€˜Most folks. Kids hereabouts use it as a shortcut to bike into town.’
    â€˜You said the pond was full after the storm last autumn. Was the creek, too?’
    Guffey shook his head. ‘That creek hasn’t been full in sixty years.’
    Fennimore walked along the ridge, head down, looking for a place that showed no signs of disturbance. He found a convenient spot and scrambled down the slope.
    â€˜Where’re you going, Professor?’ Hicks said.
    â€˜Mr Guffey, would you mind coming down here?’ Guffey obliged. ‘You’re two or three inches taller than me,’ Fennimore said. ‘Can you see over the ridge to the pond?’
    â€˜No sir,’ he said.
    Fennimore headed downstream towards the massive oak and Hicks slid down the gulley after them. The bridge was just fifteen yards beyond the tree and, looking down from the road, he could see nothing of the pond.
    â€˜A man driving aimlessly, looking for a place to dump a body might have left it under the bridge, or in the dry creek, where it would have been perfectly well hidden, but he didn’t. He drove or carried or dragged the body fifty yards further.’ He pointed back the way they had come. ‘You can’t see the pond from here, but he knew there was water on the other side of the ridge.’
    Hicks adjusted her hat. ‘Local knowledge.’
    â€˜Or Google Earth,’ Fennimore said. ‘The point is, he planned this. Your killer is methodical, he plans ahead.’ He turned his back on the bridge and looked across acres of unenclosed land, planted with wheat; so much empty space where the killer could have dumped the victim. He turned again and looked down onto the sad trickle of water which was all that remained of Mud Creek. ‘He didn’t chance upon your pond, Mr Guffey, he chose this place.’

8
    Basically, I’m for anything that gets you through the night – be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
    F RANK S INATRA
    â€˜They’re praying for her,’ Fennimore said.
    He and Deputy Hicks were headed back to Westfield. She was just as pretty as he remembered. Her hair, black with a rusty tinge, was straight and lustrous; just now, it was tied in a French knot under her hat. She had startling blue eyes with a darker rim, but her high cheekbones and the almond shape of her eyes suggested native lineage, and Fennimore was reminded that this north-eastern area of the state was part of the Cherokee Nation’s Tribal Jurisdiction.
    â€˜The Guffeys are country folk, born and raised,’ Hicks said. ‘They believe in God and family and that every child is born in God’s likeness. It surprises you, they pray for her?’
    How could it surprise him, when thousands had done the same for him, and for Suzie and Rachel? He didn’t believe in God, or an afterlife. Was it perverse to find it comforting that at least some of the people who prayed for him were like the Guffeys?
    â€˜You still haven’t had anything from CODIS?’ he asked to change the subject.
    â€˜I’m waiting on the call,’ she said. ‘But she would have to’ve committed a felony crime for her DNA to be on there. You heard of NamUs?’
    â€˜The United States