Page 34 (1/2)

I’d been damn lucky No one had heard the shots But by their nature, both luck and tih , I swore that I could hear it ticking

Orson was nervous, too, vigorously sniffing the air for monkeys or another menace

I hurried to the back of the patrol car and thumbed the button to release the trunk lid It was locked, as I’d feared

Tick, tick, tick

Steeling myself, I returned to the open front door I inhaled deeply, held my breath, and leaned inside

Stevenson sat twisted in his seat, head tipped back against the doorpost His asp of ecstasy, and his teeth were bloody, as though he had fulfilled his dreaer cross-draft, entering through the shattered , a scri off the still-warm blood that stained the front of the dead man’s uniform

I had to lean in farther than I hoped, one knee on the passenger seat, to switch off the engine

Stevenson’s black-olive eyes were open No life or unnatural light glimmered in them, yet I half expected to see them blink, swim into focus, and fix on me

Before the chief’s claray hand could reach out to clutch at nition, backed out of the car, and finally exhaled explosively

In the trunk I found the large first-aid kit that I expected Froe and a pair of scissors

While Orson patrolled the entire peri the air, I unrolled the gauze, doubling it again and again into a collection of five-foot loops before snipping it with the scissors I twisted the strands tightly together, then tied a knot at the upper end, another in thethis exercise, I joined the two ether with a final knot--and had a fuse approxi

Tick, tick, tick

I coiled the fuse on the sidewalk, opened the fuel port on the side of the car, and removed the tank cap Gasoline fuain, I replaced the scissors and what reauze in the first-aid kit I closed the kit and then the trunk

The parking lot remained deserted The only sounds were the drops of condensation plopping from the Indian laurel onto the squad car and the soft ceaseless padding of h it meant another visit with Lewis Stevenson’s corpse, I returned the keys to the ignition I’d seen a few episodes from the most popular crime series on television, and I kne easily even fiendishly clever crienious ho female mystery novelist who solves real murders as a hobby Or a retired spinster schoolteacher All this between the opening credits and the final coive them--both the professionals and the meddlesome hobbyists--damned little hich to work

The dead us

"Rolaids," I advised hi unsuccessfully to cheer es on the front seat In spite of the platoons of aardless of whether having the brass ht help them identify the murder weapon, I didn’t have the nerve to search the floor, especially under Stevenson’s legs

Anyway, even if I found all the cartridges, there was still a bullet buried in his chest If it wasn’t too grossly distorted, this wad of lead would feature score ularities of the bore of my pistol, but even the prospect of prison wasn’t sufficient to ery to retrieve the incri

If I’d been a different man than I am, with the stomach for such an i that Stevenson’s radical personality change--his newfound thirst for violence--was but one sy that this illness could be spread by contact with infected tissues and bodily fluids, this type of grisly as out of the question, which is also why I had been careful not to get any of his blood onme about his dreaht that I was breathing the same air that he’d used and exhaled I doubted, however, that the ious, Moonlight Bay wouldn’t be on a roller-coaster ride to Hell, as he had claio have arrived in the sulfurous Pit

Tick, tick, tick

According to the gauge on the instrument panel, the fuel tank was nearly full Good Perfect Earlier in the night, at Angela’s, the troop had taught me how to destroy evidence and possibly conceal a murder

The fire should be so intense that the four brass cartridges, the sheet-metal body of the car, and even portions of the heavier frame would melt Of the late Lewis Stevenson, littlewould effectively vanish Certainly, none of erprints, hairs, or clothes fibers would survive

Another slug had passed through the chief’s neck, pulverizing thein the driver’s door It was now lying so lot or, with luck, was at rest deep in the ivy-covered slope that rose froher-situated Embarcadero Way, where it would be all but i powder burns marred my jacket I should have destroyed it I couldn’t I loved that jacket It was cool The bullet hole in the pocket ive the spinster schoolteachers some chance," I muttered as I closed the front and back doors of the car

The brief laugh that escaped me was so humorless and bleak that it scared me almost as azine froe from it, which left six, and then slapped it back into the pistol

Orson whined iauze fuse in his ave hiht have picked it up solely because he was curious about it, as dogs tend to be curious about everything

Funny white coil Like a snake, snake, snake…but not a snake Interesting Interesting Master Snow’s scent on it Might be good to eat Alood to eat

Just because Orson picked up the fuse and whined impatiently didn’t necessarily mean that he understood the purpose of it or the nature of the entire scheht be purely coincidental

Yeah Sure Like the purely coincidental eruption of fireworks every Independence Day

Heart pounding, expecting to be discovered at any auze fuse froe to one end of it