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My driver’s license still served its fundamental purpose The door latch popped, and I entered the kitchen

For aThe huerator motor Faint ticks and creaks marked the steady ex­pansion of the old house’s joints in the ascending heat of the new

Instinct told me that I was alone

I went directly to the neatly kept study Currently, it didn’t serve as a train station for incoh, Manson, and Atta watched me as if with conscious awareness

At the desk, I sifted through the contents of the drawers oncenames On my previous visit, I had considered the sed through it with interest

The book contained fewer than forty names and addresses None resonated with ain, but I stared at the about the 58,000 in cash that he’d withdrawn over the past

two months More than four thousand had been in his pants pockets when I found his body

If you were a rich sociopath interested in funding well-planned acts ofa circus of blood could you purchase for ap­proximately 54,000?

Even sleep-deprived, with a caffeine headache and a sugar buzz, I could answer that one withoutcircus of death - bullets, explosives, poison gas, just about anything short of a nuclear bo Quietly, with a soft thu stealthily but quickly, I went to the open door of the study I stepped into the hall

No intruder in sight Except me

The bathroom and bedroom doors stood open, as they had been

In the bedroom, the closet door was a slider That couldn’t have made the sound I heard

Aware that death is frequently the reward for the reckless and the ti roo door to the kitchen could not have been what I heard The entry door to the house remained dosed, as it had been

In the front left corner of the living room, a closet In the closet: two jackets, a few sealed cartons, an umbrella

Into the kitchen No one

Maybe I had heard an intruder leaving Which meant someone had been in the house when I arrived and had crept out when certain that I was distracted

Perspiration prickled le bead quivered down the nape ofheat was not the sole cause of my sweat

I returned to the study and switched on the corams, surfed his directories, and found a library of sleaze that he had downloaded from the Internet Files of sadistic porn Child porn Still others were about serial killers, ritualistic muti­lation, and satanic ceremonies

None of it seemed certain to lead h to resolve the current crisis favorably I switched the coel that the nurse used at the hospital, Imy first visit to this casita, I had conducted a quick search, which concluded when I’d ainst Robertson to the chief Although a countdown clock ticked in rateful that it was shboy, I found several knives of different sizes and curious design Latin phrases were engraved in the blades of the first feeapons that I exah I don’t read Latin, I sensed that the character of the words would prove, on translation, to be as wicked as the sharpness of each razor-edged blade

Another knife featured hieroglyphics froraphs nized a few of the highly stylized ies: fla a second drawer, I discovered a heavy silver chalice Engraved with obscenities Polished Cool in my hands

This unholy chalice was a hateful mockery of the communion cup that held consecrated wine in a Catholic Mass The ornate handles were inverted crucifixes: Christ turned on His head Latin encircled

the ries of naed ed in various acts of sodomy

In the same drawer, I found a black-lacquered pyx likewise deco­rated with pornographic ies On the sides and the lid of this sradation depictednot with one another but with jackals, hyenas, goats, and serpents

In an ordinary church, the pyx contains the Eucharist, communion wafers of unleavened bread This box brimmed with coal-black crack­ers flecked with red

Unleavened bread exudes a subtle, appealing aroma The contents of this pyx had an equally faint but repellent odor First whiff - herbal Second whiff - burnt hboy contained other satanic paraphernalia; but I’d seen enough

I couldn’t fathos and hokey rituals of glamorized satanism Certain fourteen-year-old boys, yes, because so tides of hormones But not adults Even so­ciopaths like Bob Robertson and his unknown pal, as enthralled by vi­olence and as crackbrained as they were, h to see the absurdity of such Halloween gahboy, I closed the drawers

A knocking startled me The soft rap of knuckles

I looked at the bedroohbor tapping the pane Only the hard desert light, tree shadows, and the brown backyard

The knocking caain, as quiet as before Not just three or four brisk raps A stutter of s room, I went to thebeside the front door and carefully parted the greasy drapes No one waited on the stoop out­side

Mrs Sanchez’s Chevy was the only vehicle at the curb The weary dog that had slouched along the street the day before now traveled it again, head held low, tail lower than its head

Recalling the racket of the quarrelso my previous visit, I turned fro

After a ain, I stepped into the kitchen In places, the ancient linoleu a name to put to Robertson’s collaborator, I could think of no place in a kitchen likely to contain such inforh all the drawers and cupboards, anyway Most were elasses, a serator because eventually Stormy would ask if this time I had checked for severed heads When I opened the door, I found beer, soft drinks, part of a canned ham on a platter, half a strawberry pie, as well as the usual staples and condie held four black candles, eight-inch tapers Maybe he kept thee because they would soften and distort if left in this su

Beside the candles stood a jar without a label, filled hat ap­peared to be loose teeth A closer look confirmed the contents: dozens of h to fill at least five or sixto ie collection When I decided that I’d rather not think about it, I closed the door

Had I found nothing unusual in the refrigerator, I would not have