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Even then, because of the chair and depending on the angle of view, a casual look risly secret

Shadoould be helpful Billy switched off the overhead light He left only the desk lalow

In the bathroom once more, he saw a smear of blood on the floor None had been there before he’dthe board walls of his chest One mistake If he made one mistake here, it would finish him His time perception hacked He knew that only a few minutes had passed since he’d set out to search the house, but he felt as if ten minutes had fled, fifteen

He wished that he had his atch He didn’t dare take the ti

With a wad of toilet paper, he wiped the blood off the floor The tiles carout It looked like rust, not like blood That’s what he wanted to believe

Into the toilet he dropped the wad of paper as well as the Kleenex hich he had swabbed the blade of the knife He flushed them away

The murder weapon lay on the counter beside the sink He buried it at the back of a vanity drawer, behind bottles of shaving lotion and suntan oil When he slaed like a gunshot, he knew he needed to get a tighter grip on himself Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still

He would remain calmer if he remembered his true purpose His true purpose was not the endless cycle of idea and action, was not the preservation of his freedom or even his life He must live that she could live, helpless but safe, helpless and sleeping and dreanity, no evil He was a shallow man He had often proved that truth to hi, he had not possessed the strength of will to pursue his gift for the written word He rejected the gift not just once but a daifts conferred by the power that had conferred this one are perpetually offered and can co only if they are perpetually rejected

In his suffering, he had been hue, which he should have been He had also been defeated by the lie, which he should not have been

He was a shallow man He did not have within him the capacity to care deeply about hbor into his heart without qualification The power of compassion was in him merely an ability, and its potentiality see for one woman Because of this shallowness, he believed himself to be a weakHe had been chilled but never surprised when the stewbum had said I see the way you’re a little like , was his true purpose and also his only hope of redemption For that, he must care and not care; he must be still Calmer than when he had slammed the drawer, Billy reviewed the bathroom one more time He saw no evidence of the cri wheel

Hurriedly but thoroughly, he retraced the route along which he had dragged the deadfor additional smears of blood like the one in the bathroo hi rooh the eyes of suspicious authority

Only the situation on the front porch reht He had left that task for last because it was less urgent than the need to conceal the corpse In case he didn’t have time to address the porch, he took from a kitchen cabinet the bottle of bourbon hich he had spiked his Guinness stout on Monday night He swigged directly fro, he swished the whiskey between his teeth, around his er he held the alcohol, the ue, cheeks

He spat it in the sink before he re but also let it churn in his throat for several seconds

With a wheeze but not a choke, he spat this second mouthful in the sink just as the expected knock came at the front door, loud and protracted Perhaps fourup the phone after his conversation with Rosalyn Chan Maybe five It felt like an hour; it felt like ten seconds

As the knock sounded, Billy turned on the cold water to wash the reek of booze out of the sink He left it strea

In the quiet after the knock, he capped the bourbon and returned it to the cabinet

At the sink once ain

Answering at once on the first knock htat all

Crossing the living rooht to examine his hands He did not see any blood

Chapter 28

When Billy Wiles opened the front door, he found a sheriff’s deputy standing three cautious steps froht hand rested on the pistol in the swivel holster at his hip, rested there not as if he were prepared to draw it, but as casually as anyone ht stand with a hand on his hip

Billy had hoped that he would know hit V Napolitino At forty-six, Lanny Olsen had held the saer man

In his early twenties, V Napolitino had already been proeant He had the well-scrubbed, clear-eyed, intelligent, and diligent look of a man ould make lieutenant by twenty-five, captain by thirty, commander by thirty-five, and chief before forty

Billy’s preference would have been a fat, rumpled, weary, and cynical specimen Maybe this was one of those days when you should stay away from roulette because every bet on black would ensure a red number

"Mr Wiles?"

"Yeah That’s eant Napolitino shifted his attention back and forth between Billy and the living rooeant’s face remained expressionless His eyes revealed neither apprehension nor even disquiet, nor as much as wariness, but were only watchful

"Mr Wiles, would youout to my car with me?"

The sheriffs-department cruiser stood in the driveway

"You want to come in?" Billy asked

"Not necessarily, sir Just to the car for a minute or two, if you don’t mind"

This almost sounded like a request, but it wasn’t

"Sure," Billy said "All right"

A second patrol car pulled off the county blacktop, into the driveway, and halted ten feet behind the first

As Billy reached for the knob to pull the front door shut after hieant Napolitino said, "Why don’t you leave it open, sir"

The deputy’s tone of voice did not signify either a question or a suggestion Billy left the door open

Napolitino clearly expected him to lead the way

Billy stepped over the pint bottle, past the spilled Seagrah the puddle was at least fifteen minutes old, less than half of it had evaporated in the heat In the still air, the porch stank of whiskey Billy went down the steps and onto the lawn He didn’t pretend to be unsteady He wasn’t a good enough actor to play drunk, and any attempt to do so would call his sincerity into doubt

He intended to rely on his potent breath to suggest functional inebriation and to give credence to the story that he intended to tell As a deputy got out of the second patrol car, Billy recognized hieant, and perhaps five years older than Sergeant Napolitino

Sobieski visited the tavern once in a while, usually with a date He came for the bar food more than to drink, and two beers were his limit Billy didn’t know hi hiers

On the front lawn, Billy turned to look back at the house Napolitino was still on the porch He in to descend without fully turning his back on either the open door or the s, yet appearing unconcerned all the while

Now he took the lead and brought Billy around the patrol car, putting it between theeant Sobieski joined theeant Sobieski How’re you doin’?"

Everybody called a bartender by his first name In some cases, you knew familiarity was expected in return; in this case not

"Yesterday was chili day, and I forgot," said Sobieski

Billy said, "Ben od," Sobieski said

The car was a lodestone to the sun, scorching the air around it and no doubt blistering to the touch