before. Together we followed the walkway to the street, moving quickly
but not running.
We were in luck: no witnesses. No traffic was either approaching or
receding along the street. No one was on foot, either.
If a neighbor saw me running from the house just as it went up in
flames, Chief Stevenson might decide to use that as an excuse to come
looking for me. To shoot me down when I resisted arrest.
Whether I resisted or not.
I swung onto my bike, balancing it by keeping one foot on the pavement,
and looked back at the house. The wind trembled the leaves of the huge
magnolia trees, and through the branches, I could see fire lapping at
several of the downstairs and upstairs windows.
Full of grief and excitement, curiosity and dread, sorrow and dark
wonder, I raced along the pavement, heading for a street with fewer
lamps. Panting loudly, Orson sprinted at my side.
We had gone nearly a block when I heard the windows begin to explode at
the Ferryman house, blown out by the fierce heat.
Stars between branches, leaf-filtered moonlight, giant oaks, a
nurturing darkness, the peace of gravestones-and, for one of us, the
eternally intriguing scent of hidden squirrels: We were back in the
cemetery adjacent to St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church.
My bike was propped against a granite marker topped by the haloed head
of a granite angel. I was sitting-sans halo-with my back against
another stone that featured a cross at its summit.
Blocks away, sirens shrieked into sudden silence as firedepartment
vehicles arrived at the Ferryman residence.
I hadn’t cycled all the way to Bobby Halloway’s house, because I’d been
hit by a persistent fit of coughing that hampered my ability to
steer.
Orson’s gait had grown wobbly, too, as he expelled the stubborn scent
of the fire with a series of violent sneezes.
Now, in the company of a crowd too dead to be offended, I hawked up
thick soot-flavored phlegm and spat it among the gnarled surface roots
of the nearest oak, with the hope that I wasn’t killing this mighty
tree that had survived two centuries of earthquakes, storms, fires,
insects, disease, and-more recently-modern America’s passion for
erecting a minimall with doughnut shop on every street corner. The
taste in my mouth could not have been much different if I had been
eating charcoal briquettes in a broth of starter fluid.
Having been in the burning house a shorter time than his more reckless
master, Orson recovered faster than I. Before I was half done hawking
and spitting, he was padding back and forth among the nearest
tombstones, diligently sniffing out arboreal bushytailed rodents.
Between spells of hacking and expectorating, I talked to Orson if he
was in sight, and sometimes he lifted his noble black head and
pretended to listen, occasionally wagging his tail to encourage me,
though often he was unable to tear his attention away from squirrel
spoor.
“What the hell happened in that house?” I asked. “Who killed her, why
were they playing games with me, what was the point of all that
business with the dolls, why didn’t they just slit my throat and burn
me with her?”
Orson shook his head, and I made a game of interpreting his response.
He didn’t know. Shook his head in bafflement. Clueless.
He was clueless. He didn’t know why they hadn’t slit my throat.
“I don’t think it was the Glock. I mean, there were more than one of
them, at least two, probably three, so they could easily have
overpowered me if they’d wanted. And though they slashed her throat,
they must have been carrying guns of their own. I mean, these are
serious bastards, vicious killers. They cut people’s eyes out for the
fun of it. They wouldn’t be squeamish about carrying guns, so they
wouldn’t be intimidated by the Glock.”
Orson cocked his head, considering the issue. Maybe it was the
Glock.
Maybe it wasn’t. Then again, maybe it was. Who knew? What’s a Glock,
anyway? And what’s that smell? Such an amazing smell. Such a
luxurious fragrance. Is that squirrel piss? Excuse me, Master Snow.
Business. Business to attend to here.