Page 7 (1/2)

Kale cleared his throat "But she just laughed at me She said I wasn’t a woman-beater and I shouldn’t pretend to be Mr Macho She said, ’Hell, Fletch, if I kicked you in the balls, you’d thankup your day’"

"And that hen you broke down and cried?" Bryce asked

Kale said, "I just… well, I realized I didn’t have any influence with her"

From hisseat, Tal Whitrief-or with a reasonable facsiood

"And when she saw you cry," Bryce said, "that sort of brought her to her senses"

"Right," Kale said, "I guess it… affected her… a big ox likelike a baby She cried, too, and she promised not to take any more PCP We talked about the past, about e had expected fros maybe we should have said before, and we felt closer than we had in a couple of years At least I felt closer I thought she did, too She swore she’d start cutting down on the pot"

Still doodling, Bryce said, "Then last Thursday you came home early from work and found your little boy, Danny, dead in thebehind you It was Joanna, holding a meat cleaver, the one she’d used to kill Danny"

"She was stoned," Kale said, "PCP I could see it right away That wildness in her eyes, that animal look"

"She screamed at you, a lot of irrational stuff about snakes that lived inside people’s heads, about people being controlled by evil snakes You circled away from her, and she followed You didn’t try to take the cleaver away from her?"

"I figured I’d be killed I tried to talk her down"

"So you kept circling until you reached the nightstand where you kept a38 automatic"

"I warned her to drop the cleaver I warned her"

"Instead, she rushed at you with the cleaver raised So you shot her Once In the chest"

Kale was leaning forward now, his face in his hands

The sheriff put down his pen He folded his hands on his stoers "Now, Mr Kale, I hope you can bear with er Just a few et on with our lives"

Kale lowered his hands froetting on with our lives" ht, Sheriff Go ahead"

Bob Robine didn’t say a word

Slouched in his chair, looking loose and boneless, Bryce Ha you on suspicion, Mr Kale, we’ve come up with a few questions we need to have answered, so we can set ourNow, sos may seem awful trivial to you, hardly worth s I adh et reelected next year, Mr Kale If my opponents catch me out on one technicality, on even one tiny little da, they’ll huff and puff and blow it into a scandal; they’ll say I’rinned at Kale-actually grinned at him Tal couldn’t believe it

"I understand, Sheriff," Kale said

On hisseat, Tal Whitman tensed and leaned forward

And Bryce Ha why you shot your wife and then did a load of laundry before calling us to report what had happened"

Chapter 8 – Barricades

Severed hands Severed heads

Jenny couldn’t get those grueso the sideith Lisa

Two blocks east of Skyline Road, on Vail Lane, the night was as still and as quietly threatening as it was everywhere else in Snowfield The trees here were bigger than those on the ht The streetlamps were ht were separated by oateposts, onto a brick walk that led to a one-story English cottage set on a deep lot Warlass ith diamond-shaped panes

To cottage, which actually had seven rooes andthe season Both were amateur radio operators, and they owned a shortwave set, which hy Jenny had coed the radio at the sheriff’s office," Lisa said, "what et this one, too?"

"Maybe they didn’t know about it It’s worth taking a look"

She rang the bell, and when them was no response, she tried the door It was locked

They went around to the rear of the property, where brandy-hued light flowed out through the s Jenny looked warily at the rear lahich was left moonless by the shadows Their footsteps echoed hollowly on the wooden floor of the back porch She tried the kitchen door and found it was locked, too

At the nearest , the curtains were drawn aside Jenny looked in and saw only an ordinary kitchen: green counters, creans of violence

Other casement s faced onto the porch, and one of these, Jenny kneas a denLights were on, but the curtains were drawn Jenny rapped on the glass, but no one responded She tested the , found that it was latched Gripping the revolver by the barrel, she smashed a diamond-shaped pane adjacent to the center post The sound of shattering glass was jarringly loud Although this was an eh the broken pane, threw open the latch, pulled the halves of theapart, and went over the sill, into the house She fuh the drapes, then drew them aside, so that Lisa could enter more easily

Two bodies were in the s on the floor, on her side, legs drawn up toward her belly, shoulders curled forward, arms crossed over her breasts-a fetal position She was bruised and swollen Her bulging eyes stared in horror Heropen, frozen forever in a screa," Lisa said

"I can’t understand why the facial muscles didn’t relax upon death I don’t see how they can remain taut like that"

"What did they see?" Lisa wondered

To in front of the shortwave radio He was slumped over the radio, his head turned to one side He was sheathed in bruises and swollen hideously, just as Karen was His right hand was clenched around a table- to relinquish it Evidently, however, he had not e out of Snowfield, the police would have arrived by now

The radio was dead

Jenny had figured as much as soon as she had seen the bodies

However, neither the condition of the radio nor the condition of the corpses was as interesting as the barricade The den door was closed and, presued a heavy cabinet in front of it They had pushed a pair of easy chairs hard against the cabinet, then had wedged a television set against the chairs

"They were deter in here," Lisa said

"But it got in anyway"

"How?"

They both looked at thethrough which they’d come

"It was locked from the inside," Jenny said

The room had only one other

They went to it and pulled back the drapes