Chapter One

Night fell clean and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air. Gusts shook old windowpanes and sounded like spirits rushing past as I rearranged pillows one more time, finally resting on my back in a snarl of Irish linen. But sleep would not touch me, and images from the day returned. I saw bodies without limbs or heads, and sat up, sweating.

    I switched on lamps, and the Shelbourne Hotel was suddenly around me in a warm glow of rich old woods and deep red plaids. I put on a robe, my eyes lingering on the phone by my fitfully-slept-in bed. It was almost two A.M. In Richmond, Virginia, it would be five hours earlier, and Pete Marino, commander of the city police department's homicide squad, should be up. He was probably watching TV, smoking, eating something bad for him, unless he was on the street.

    I dialed his number, and he grabbed the phone as if he were right next to it.

    "Trick or treat." He was loudly on his way to being drunk.

    "You're a little early," I said, already regretting the call. "By a couple of weeks."

    "Doc?" He paused in confusion. "That you? You back in Richmond?"

    "Still in Dublin. What's all the commotion?"

    "Just some of us guys with faces so ugly we don't need masks. So every day is Halloween. Hey! Bubba's bluffing," he yelled out.

    "You always think everybody's bluffing," a voice fired back. "It's from being a detective too long."

    "What you talking about?