flanked the living room. He emptied the contents on one of the
queen-size beds, sat cross-legged on the mattress, took off his new
sunglasses, and examined the clever props that would ensure Martin
Stillwater’s postmortem conviction of multiple murder and suicide.
He had a number of problems to work out, including how to kill all these
people with the least amount of noise. He wasn’t concerned about the
gunfire, which could be muffled one way or another. It was the
screaming that worried him. Depending on where the hit went down, there
might be neighbors. If alerted, neighbors would call the police.
After a couple of minutes, he put on his sunglasses and went out to the
living room. He interrupted Spicer’s television viewing, “We waste
them, then what police agency’s going to be dealing with it?”
“If it happens here,” Spicer said, “probably the Mammoth County
Sheriff’s Department.”
“Do we have a friend there?”
“Not now, but I’m sure we could have.”
“Coroner?”
“Out here in the boondocks–probably just a local mortician.”
“No special forensic skills?”
Spicer said, “He’ll know a bullet hole from an asshole, but that’s about
it.”
“So if we terminated the wife and Stillwater first, nobody’s going to be
sophisticated enough to detect the order of homicides?”
“Big-city forensic lab would have a hard time doing that if the
difference was, say, less than an hour.”
Oslett said, “What I’m thinking is . . . if we try to deal with the
kids first, we’ll have a problem with Stillwater and his wife.”
“How so?”
“Either Clocker or I can cover the parents while the other one takes the
kids into a different room. But stripping the girls, wiring their hands
and ankles–it’ll take ten, fifteen minutes to do right, like in
Maryland. Even with one of us covering Stillwater and his wife with a
gun, they aren’t going to sit still for that. They’ll both rush me or
Clocker, whoever’s guarding them, and together they might get the upper
hand.”
“I doubt it,” Spicer said.
“How can you be sure?”
“People are gutless these days.”
“Stillwater fought off Alfie.”
“True,” Spicer admitted.
“When she was sixteen, the wife found her father and mother dead. The
old man killed the mother, then himself–” Spicer smiled. “Nice tie-in
with our scenario.”
Oslett hadn’t thought about that. “Good point. Might also explain why
Stillwater couldn’t write the novel based on the case in Maryland.
Anyway, three months later she petitioned the court to free her from her
guardian and declare her a legal adult.”
“Tough bitch.”
“The court agreed. It granted her petition.”
“So blow away the parents first,” Spicer advised, shifting in the
armchair as if his butt had begun to go numb.
“That’s what we’ll do,” Oslett agreed.
Spicer said, “This is fucking crazy.”
For a moment Oslett thought Spicer was commenting on their plans for the
Stillwaters. But he was referring to the television program, to which
his attention drifted again.
On the talk show, the host with big hair had ushered off the
cross-dressers and introduced a new group of guests. There were four
angry-looking women seated on the stage. All of them were wearing
strange hats.
As Oslett left the room, he saw Clocker out of the corner of his eye.
The Trekker was still at the table by the window, riveted by the book,
but Oslett refused to let the big man spoil his mood.
In the bedroom he sat on the bed again, amidst his toys, took off his
sunglasses, and happily enacted and re-enacted the homicides in his
mind, planning for every contingency.
Outside, the wind picked up. It sounded like wolves.
He stops at a service station to ask directions to the address he
remembers from the Rolodex card. The young attendant is able to help
him.
By 2,10 he enters the neighborhood in which he was evidently raised.
The lots are large with numerous winter-bare birches and a wide variety
of evergreens.
His mom and dad’s house is in the middle of the block. It’s a modest,
two-story, white clapboard structure with forest-green shutters. The
deep front porch has heavy white balusters, a green hand rail, and
decoratively scalloped fasciae along the eaves.