The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

could discuss that, but we have to be getting along. Would you mind signing the petition?" She pulled a clipboard out of her oversized purse and handed it over to Molly with a pen.
    "So if this works, kids will be able to pray in school?"
    "Why, yes." Marge brightened.
    "So the Muslim kids can turn toMecca seven times a day or whatever and it won't count against their grades?"
    The blue and pink pastel ladies looked at each other. "Well,America is a Christian nation, Mrs.
    Michon."
    Molly didn't want them to think she was a pushover. She was a smart woman. "But kids of other faiths can pray too, right?"
    "I suppose so," Katie said."To themselves."
    "Oh good," Molly said as she signed the petition, "because I know that Stevie could move up to the
    Red Jets reading group if he could sacrifice a chicken to Vigoth the Worm God, but the teacher won't let him." Why did I say that? Why did I say that? What if they ask where Stevie is?
    "Mrs. Michon!"
    "What? He'd do it at recess," Molly said. "It's not like it would cut into study time."
    "We are working on behalf of the One True God, Mrs. Michon. The Coalition is not an interfaith organization. I'm sure that if you had felt the power of His spirit, you wouldn't talk that way."
    "Oh, I've felt it."
    "You have?"
    "Of course.You can feel it too.Right now."
    "What do you mean?"
    Molly handed the clipboard back to Katie and stood up. "Come next door with me. It'll only take a second. I know you'll feel it."
    Theo Theo's hopes of finding Mikey Plotznik rose as he drove though the residential areas of Pine Cove.
    Nearly every neighborhood had two or three people out searching with flashlights and cell phones. Theo stopped and took reports from each search party, then made suggestions as if he had the slightest idea what he was doing. Who was he kidding? He couldn't even find his car keys half the time.
    Most of Pine Cove's neighborhoods were without sidewalks or streetlights. The canopy of pine trees absorbed the moonlight and darkness drank up Theo's headlights like an ocean of ink. He plugged his handheld spotlight in the lighter socket and swept it across the houses and into the vacant lots, spotting nothing but a pair of mule deer eating someone's rosebuds. As he drove by the beach park – a grass playground the size of a football field, surrounded by cypress trees and blocked from the Pacific wind by an eight-foot redwood fence – he spotted a flash of white moving on one of the picnic tables. He pulled into the parking strip beside the park and pointed the Volvo's headlights, as well as the spotlight, at the table.
    A couple was going at it right there on the table. The flash of white had been the man's bare ass. Two faces turned into the light eyes as wide as the two deer Theo had surprised earlier. Normally, Theo would have driven on. He was used to finding people "in the act" in cars behind the Head of the Slug, or parked along the more rugged strips of coastline. He wasn't the sex police, after all. But tonight he was irritated by the scene. It had been almost a whole day since he'd had a hit from his Sneaky Pete. Maybe it's a symptom of withdrawal, he thought.
    He turned off the Volvo and got out taking his flashlight with him. The couple scrambled into their
    clothes as he approached, but didn't try to escape. There was nowhere for them to go except over the fence, where a narrow beach was bordered on both sides by cliffs and washed by treacherous, freezing rip tides.
    When he was halfway across the park.Theo recognized the fornicators and stopped. The woman, a girl really, was Betsy Butler, a waitress down at H.P.'s Cafe. She was struggling to pull down her skirt.
    The man, balding and slack-chested, was the newly widowed Joseph Leander. Theo flashed on the image of Bess Leander hanging from a peg in the spotless dining room.
    "A little discretion's in order here, you think, Joe?" Theo shouted as he walked toward them.
    "Uh, it's Joseph, Constable."
    Theo felt his scalp go hot with anger. He wasn't an angry man by nature, but nature hadn't been working the last few days. "No, it's Joseph when you're doing business or when you're grieving over your dead wife. When you're boning a girl half your age on a picnic table in a public park, it's Joe."
    "I – we – things have been so difficult. I don't know what came over us – I mean, me. I mean…"
    "I don't suppose you've seen a kid around here tonight?A boy, about ten?"
    The girl shook her head. She was covering her