The sheriff was more than happy to give them access to all the files he had on hand, presumably under the assumption that it'd make their township filing process look more favorable if they had nothing to hide.

" So what's with the Bavarians?" Allen asked, as Christel scanned through the paperwork at breakneck speed.

" The Perlmutter family. German Protestants that own a cattle ranch. Five adults and thirteen children. Edvard Perlmutter and his wife, Apollina Perlmutter. Their son, Conradt, is married to a woman named Enid, and they have an unmarried daughter, Doris. The children are all Conradt and Enid's; they range in age from 6 months to 17 years. As the sheriff said, the entomologist is renting a room from them, along with two cattlehands."

" The cattlehands?"

" Avery Niemeyer, 26, Dewey Lorchester, 30."

" Are there any police reports on file concerning any of the aforementioned parties?"

" Last year, Edvard Perlmutter filed a report accusing another rancher of killing one of his prize bulls," Christel said. " Ernest Carey. But he was found to be innocent, as his wife was in labour and the entire family attested to his never leaving the property."

" Someone who lives such a plain life doesn't seem the kind that would commit this kind of crime, anyway," Allen said. " Was there anything strange about the bull dying?"

Christel paused, switching to his internal browser.

" The police report is undetailed," he said. " Starting fifteen years from now, an anecdotal account of the bull's death begins to circulate in occult magazines, and in the latter half of the 20th century, it's often included on lists of alleged 'cattle mutilation' incidents. Oddly enough, none of these ever seem to mention the entomologist, despite his case's similarity to these mutilation incidents. The last printed reference to the entomologist we have on file is in 1944, in his nephew's obituary."

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