LITMIR.BIZ

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that Giselle Winslow’s killer had not been here, after all. The intruder had been Lanny Olsen.

      Lanny knew where the spare key was kept. When he had asked for the first note, as evidence, Billy had told him that it was here, in the kitchen.

      Lanny had also asked where to find him in an hour, whether he would be going directly home or to Whispering Pines.

      A sense of deep misgiving overcame Billy, a general uneasiness and doubt that began to curdle his trust.

      If Lanny had all along intended to come here and collect the note as essential evidence, not later with Sheriff Palmer but right away, he should have said so. His deception suggested that he was not in a mood to serve and protect the public, or even to back up a friend, but was focused first on saving his own skin.

      Billy didn’t want to believe such a thing. He sought excuses for Lanny.

      Maybe after driving away from the tavern in his patrol car, he had decided that, after all, he must have both of the notes before he approached Sheriff Palmer. And maybe he didn’t want to make a call to Whispering Pines because he knew how important those visits were to Billy.

      In that case, however, he would have written a brief explanation to leave in place of the killer’s note when he took it.

      Unless…If his intention was to destroy both notes instead of going to Palmer, and later to claim that Billy had never come to him prior to the Winslow murder, such a replacement note would have been evidence to refute him.

      Always, Lanny Olsen had seemed to be a good man, not free of faults, but basically good and fair and decent. He’d sacrificed his dreams to stand by his ailing mother for so many years.

      Billy dropped the spare key in his pants pocket. He did not intend to tape it again to the bottom of the can in the workshop.

      He wondered just how many bad reports were on Lanny’s ten card, exactly how lazy he had been.

      In retrospect, Billy heard markedly greater desperation in his friend’s voice than he had heard at the time:

       I never really wanted this life…but the thing is…whether I wanted it or not, it’s what I’ve got now. It’s all I have. I want a chance to keep it.

      Even most good men had a breaking point. Lanny might have been closer to his than Billy could have known.

      The wall clock showed 8:09.

      In less than four hours, regardless of the choice that Billy made, someone would die. He wanted this responsibility off his shoulders.

      Lanny was supposed to call him by 8:30.

      Billy had no intention of waiting. He snatched the handset from the wall phone and keyed in Lanny’s personal cell-phone number.

      After five rings, he was switched to voice mail. He said, “This is Billy. I’m at home. What the hell? What’ve you done? Call me now.”

      Instinct told him not to attempt to reach Lanny through the sheriff’s-department dispatcher. He would be leaving a trail that might have consequences he could not foresee.

      His friend’s betrayal, if that’s what it was, had reduced Billy to the cautious calculations of a guilty man, although he had done nothing wrong.

      A transient sting of mingled pain and anger would have been understandable. Instead, resentment swelled in him so thick, so quick, that his chest grew tight and he had difficulty swallowing.

      Destroying the notes and lying about them might spare Lanny dismissal from the force, but Billy’s situation would be made worse. Lacking evidence, he would find it more difficult to convince the authorities that his story was true and that it might shed light on the killer’s psychology.

      If he approached them now, he risked looking like a publicity seeker or like a bartender who sampled too much of his wares. Or like a suspect.

      Riveted by that thought, he stood very still for a minute, exploring it. Suspect.

      His mouth had gone dry. His tongue cleaved to his palate.

      He went to the kitchen sink and drew a glass of cold water from the tap. At first he could barely choke down a mouthful, but then he drained the glass in three long swallows.

      Too cold, drunk too fast, the water wrung a brief sharp pain from his chest, and washed nausea through his gut. He put the glass on the drain-board. He leaned over the sink until the queasi-ness passed.

      He splashed his greasy face with cold water, washed his hands in hot.

      He paced the kitchen. He sat briefly at the table, then paced some more.

      At 8:30, he stood by the telephone, staring at it, although he had every reason to believe that it would not ring.

      At 8:40, he used his cell phone to call Lanny’s cellular number, leaving the house phone open. He got voice mail again.

      The kitchen was too warm. He felt stifled.

      At 8:45, Billy stepped outside, onto the back porch. He needed fresh air.

      With the door wide open behind him, he could hear the telephone if it rang.

      Indigo in the east, the sky overhead and to the west trembled faintly with the iridescent vibrations of an orange-and-green sunset.

      The encircling woods bristled dark, growing darker. If a hostile observer had taken up position in that timber, crouching in ferns and philodendrons, none but a sharp-nosed dog could have known that he was out there.

      A hundred toads, all unseen, had begun to sing in the descending gloom, but in the kitchen, past the open door, all was silent.

      Perhaps Lanny just needed a little more time to find a way to tweak the truth.

      Surely he cared about more than himself. He could not have been reduced so totally, so quickly, to the most base self-interest.

      He was still a cop, lazy or not, desperate or not. Sooner than later he would realize that he couldn’t live with himself if, by obstructing the investigation, he contributed to more deaths.

      The ink-spill in the east soon saturated the sky overhead, while in the west, all was fire and blood.

       9

      At 9:00, Billy left the back porch and went inside. He closed the door and locked it.

      In just three hours, a fate would be decided, a death ordained, and if the killer followed a pattern, someone would be murdered before dawn.

      The key to the SUV lay on the dinette table. Billy picked it up.

      He considered setting out in search of Lanny Olsen. What he had thought was resentment, earlier, had been mere exasperation. Now he knew real resentment, a dark and bitter brooding. He badly wanted confrontation.

       Preserve me from the enemy who has something to gain, and from the friend who has something to lose.

      Lanny had been on day shift. He was off duty now.

      Most likely he would be holed up at home. If he was not at home, there were only a handful of restaurants, bars, and friends’ houses where he might be found.

      A sense of responsibility and a strange despairing kind of hope held Billy prisoner in his kitchen, by his telephone. He no longer expected Lanny to call; but the killer might.

      The mute listener on the line the previous night had been Giselle Winslow’s murderer. Billy had no proof, but no doubt, either.

      Maybe he would call this evening, too. If Billy could speak to him, something might be accomplished, something learned.

      Billy was under no illusion that such a monster could be charmed into chattiness. Neither could a homicidal sociopath be debated, nor persuaded by reason

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