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Billy had survived being a suspect once The experience reshaped hiain He had lost too much of himself the first time

He left the cover of the plum tree He quietly climbed the front-porch steps and went directly to the door

The key worked The hardware didn’t rattle, the hinges didn’t squeak, and the door opened silently

Chapter 11

This Victorian house had a Victorian foyer with a dark wood floor A wood-paneled hall led toward the back of the house, and a staircase offered the upstairs

On one wall had been taped an eight-by-ten sheet of paper on which had been drawn a hand It looked like Mickey Mouse’s hand: a plulove

Two fingers were folded back against the palun that pointed to the stairs

Billy got the nore it for the ti He left the front door open in case he needed tothe revolver with the h an archway to the left of the foyer The living room looked as it had when Mrs Olsen had been alive, ten years ago Lanny didn’t use itroom Lanny ateTV

In the hallway, taped to the wall, another cartoon hand pointed toward the foyer and the stairs, opposite froh the TV was dark in the den, fla fireplace, and in a bed of faux ashes, false elowed as if real On the kitchen table stood a bottle of Bacardi, a double-liter plastic jug of Coca-Cola, and an ice bucket On a plate beside the Coke gleamed a small knife with a serrated blade and a lime from which a few slices had been carved Beside the plate stood a tall, sweating glass half full of a dark concoction In the glass floated a slice of li the killer’s first note fro it with the second to save his job and his hope of a pension, Lanny had tried to drown his guilt with a series of ru of Coca-Cola and the bottle of Bacardi had been full when he sat down to the task, he had ress toward a state of drunkenness sufficient to shroud

The pantry door was closed Although Billy doubted that the freak lurked in there a his back on it until he investigated

With his right arm tucked close to his side and the revolver aimed in front of him, he turned the knob fast and pulled the door with his left hand No one waited in the pantry

From a kitchen drawer, Billy re the metal drawer-pull and the knob on the pantry door, he tucked one end of the cloth under his belt and let it hang fro On a counter near the cooktop lay Lanny’s wallet, car keys, pocket change, and cell phone Here, too, was his 9-mm service pistol with the Wilson Combat holster in which he carried it

Billy picked up the cell phone, switched it on, and sue was the one that he hi This is Billy I’m at home What the hell? What’ve you done? Callto his own voice, he deleted the e

Maybe that was a mistake, but he didn’t see any way that it could prove his innocence On the contrary, it would establish that he had expected to see Lanny during the evening just past and that he had been angry with him

Which would make hi the drive to the church parking lot and during the walk through theit seemed the wisest course if he found what he expected to find on the second floor He switched off the cell phone and used the dishtowel to wipe it clean of prints He returned it to the counter where he had found it If soured Billy for a calm, cool piece of work In truth, he was half sick with dread and anxiety An observerby his meticulous attention to detail, had covered up crimes before That wasn’t the case, but brutal experience had sharpened his iers of circumstantial evidence

An hour previously, at 1:44, the killer had rung Billy from this house The phone company would have a record of that brief call

Perhaps the police would think it proved Billy couldn’t have been here at the time of the murder

More likely, they would suspect that Billy himself had placed the call to an acco to establish his presence elsewhere at the time of the murder

Cops always suspected the worst of everyone Their experience had taught the to be done about the phonecoentthe corpse, if one existed

He didn’t think he should waste ti for the killer’s two notes If they were still intact, he would most likely have found the or on the counter with his wallet, pocket change, and cell phone

The flaht, led to a logical conclusion about the notes

Taped to the side of a kitchen cabinet was a cartoon hand that pointed to the swinging door and the downstairs hallway

At last Billy illing to take direction, but a shrinking, anxious fear immobilized hiive hie to proceed at once He did not expect to encounter the freak In so than what he did expect to find

The bottle of rum tempted him He had felt no effect fro for

For a man as not much of a drinker, he’d recently had to reest that a potential rue to proceed ca to proceed and fro this hand of cards to the freak

He left the kitchen and followed the hall to the foyer At least the stairs were not dark; there was light here below, at the landing, and at the top Ascending, he did not bother calling Lanny’s name He knew that he would receive no answer, and he doubted that he could have found his voice anyway