It didn't take long to convince Sir William to let us rent his stump grinder, no questions asked; Eddie's tongue had more silver than I'd ever given him credit for.  In a few minutes we were headed to Sir William's house. 

The pill had taken the edge off of Lexi's hysteria, and Eddie felt comfortable enough to let her drive.  Her increased calm was matched by his own growing impatience.  I mentioned to him that I had reasons to have issues with riding in a car with an impaired driver, but he wasn't listening to anything I said and snapped that I could stay behind if I wanted to.  I stopped talking after that. 

Lexi drove slowly, though, and didn't seem to have a problem.  "Speaking of trucks," Lexi said, "what are you going to do with this one, Mister Doctor Edward Sharp, now that you've killed the fellows who brought it I presume?"

"I didn't kill them," Eddie said indignantly.  I worried about how messed up he was over killing Taiisha; defensiveness didn't suit him, either.

"Feh.  I didn't see you not do it, did I?"

"No…"

"Then it's obvious to me that you did," she teased.

"No," I said.  "I did."

"Of course you did," she said over her shoulder, then turned on Eddie again.  "Quit avoiding the question, Sasquatch.  What are you doing with this big fat piece of British al-you-minny-um?"

Eddie glanced into the back seat at me as if he wondered if he could talk in front of me, then turned back to Lexi.  "If it belongs to the Ravens, it might be registered in Ile du Soleil, which, as you probably know is the auto theft capital of the civilized world."

"Actually, Florida is worse.  But I pre-zoom that what you mean is that the VIN will be etched on every single panel and that it's probably full of little spy widgets so they can find it, and if I were to keep a single bolt, someone would figure it out and subsequently blame me for its owners going missing.  Is that the implication?"

"In a nutshell." Eddie glanced at me again.  "I can get rid of it for you," he said.

"Solid pleasure," Lexi said, "and a massive shame.  I like Range Dogs."  The Range Rover rumbled forward through the snow.

Sir William was an older man with a steel-gray goatee and a woolen tam with a cheerful red ball on top.  He was bundled against the cold, but that didn't mask his small stature.  He was also in a wheelchair.  The four-foot deep snow around his farm sported neatly plowed, square-sided canyons through which he could get from house to garage to barn and back again.  He had wheeled himself outside, turned on some floodlights, and pulled the stump grinder out of the garage--it was a big one, a trailer that was attached to a tractor--by the time we got there.  Its large, unmuffled motor roared as we pulled up.  The orange box's gaping maw was big enough to accept a telephone pole without effort.  I looked back at Taiisha, as if expecting her to figure it out and come back to life.

Eddie saw my gaze.  "Think she'll be able to heal herself from that?"  I didn't answer.

Lexi bit her lip.  "But..."

"What, Lexi?"

She considered a moment, then shut the engine off.  "Nothing."  She made no attempt to move from the driver's seat.  "I don't want this in my brain," she said as Eddie wrestled Taiisha's body out of the car.  He didn't ask for help.  Lexi's voice faltered a little bit.  "Nikki?  Would you tell me when it's...?"

"Sure," I said softly.

Lexi began singing to herself with her fingers in her ears and her eyes closed.  "That's right, it starts with an earth, quake, birds and snakes and airplanes, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid…"

I watched Eddie drag Taiisha to the mouth of the woodchipper and lift her like a log.  Her arms flopped over his back.  Sir William had wheeled himself studiously to one side; I couldn't tell if he was watching.  I didn't know if it would work or not.  But if Taiisha had no body to come back to...

Eddie threw her in, feeding her feet-first.  As much as I hated her, as hungry as my mind was for images, I didn't watch.  I forced my eyes shut, just for a few seconds.  Lexi sang louder--"it's TIME I HAD SOME TIME ALONE"--as the woodchipper's drone deepened, faltered just a little, rose again, and then it was over.  When I looked back, something stringy and black hung from the chipper's mouth, and the top of the compost heap was deep red in the glare of the floodlights.  Eddie handed Sir William something--presumably money--and then came back to the truck.  I tapped Lexi's shoulder just before he got there, and she opened her eyes.

"Well," he said, "the bitch is compost now.  Next order of business is getting you into a hot bath and a bed, Poppet."

"Don't call me that," I said absently.  I kept looking back at the woodchipper, which Sir William was spraying water into.  Nothing was changing.  The rope of flesh still hung from the end of it, swaying a little bit.

"We can go," Eddie told Lexi.  She looked at him as if she was going to say something, and then went.  Eddie looked out the window without saying anything.  "The buzz starts to wear off fast," he said after a minute staring into the snowy dark.  "Today, I have learned that it's no fun killing people."

"Not even evil chiclets," Lexi said.

"I have to shut off some emotions so I can live with myself.  Play it rational."

"The woodchipper was self-defense," she said.

Eddie looked at Lexi with irritation in his eyes.

"Well, it was, if she'd going to try to come back from the death you so carefully sent her to." Her hand went up as Eddie's mouth opened.  "Don't want to talk about it any more," she said.  "You slipped a pill into my drink and I'm going to pretend I don't hate you for that because I'm too tired to beat you about the face and neck until you apologize.  Be quiet till we get home."

"S'what I wanted in the first place," he muttered.  We drove through the snow in silence.  I looked at my reflection in the glass and felt much like I had the first time I'd killed Taiisha; that I had done something she hadn't expected and gotten the upper hand.  Deep inside, I wasn't convinced it was time to celebrate yet, though.