The darkness of closed spaces is profoundly different from the darkness
of the night; the night has no boundaries, and it offers endless
mysteries, discoveries, wonders, opportunities for joy.
Night is the flag of freedom under which I live, and I will live free
or die.
I was sickened by the prospect of getting back into the patrol car with
the dead man long enough to wipe down everything on which I might have
left a fingerprint. It would be a futile exercise, anyway, because I’d
surely overlook one critical surface.
Besides, a fingerprint wasn’t likely to be the only evidence that I’d
left behind. Hairs. A thread from my jeans. A few tiny fibers from
my Mystery Train cap. Orson’s hairs in the backseat, the marks of his
claws on the upholstery. And no doubt other things equally or more
incriminating.
‘d been damn lucky. No one had heard the shots. But by their nature,
both luck and time run out, and although my watch contained a microchip
rather than a mainspring, 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 mouth shaped a silent gasp of ecstasy, and his teeth
were bloody, as though he had fulfilled his dreams, had been biting
young girls.
Drawn by a meager cross-draft, entering through the shattered window, a
scrim of fog floated toward me, as if it were steam rising 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 clammy gray hand could reach out to clutch at me, I
plucked the keys from the ignition, backed out of the car, and finally
exhaled explosively.
In the trunk I found the large first-aid kit that I expected. From it,
I extracted only a thick roll of gauze bandage and a pair of
scissors.
While Orson patrolled the entire perimeter of the squad car, diligently
sniffing 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 the middle, and a third at the lower end.
After repeating this exercise, I joined the two multiple-strand lengths
together with a final knot-and had a fuse approximately ten feet
long.
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 fumes wafted out of the
neck of the tank.
At the trunk again, I replaced the scissors and what remained of the
roll of gauze 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 my worried dog’s paws.
Although 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 knew how easily even
fiendishly clever criminals could be tripped up by an ingenious
homicide detective. Or by a best-selling female mystery novelist who
solves real murders as a hobby. Or a retired spinster schoolteacher.
All this between the opening credits and the final commercial for a
vaginal deodorant. I intended to give them-both the professionals and
the meddlesome hobbyists-damned little with which to work.
The dead man croaked at me as a bubble of gas broke deep in his