'Dad?'
No answer. Junior flipped the light switch. The overhead gave that same unsteady glow, but it dispelled the shadow Junior had taken for the back of his father's head. He wouldn't be exactly heartbroken if his dad vaporlocked, but on the whole he was glad it hadn't happened tonight. There was such a thing as too many complications.
Still, he walked to the wall where the safe was with big soft steps of cartoon caution, watching for the splash of headlights across the window that would herald his father's return. He set aside the picture that covered the safe (Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount), and ran the combination. He had to do it twice before the handle would turn, because his hands were shaking.
The safe was stuffed with cash and stacks of parchment-like sheets with the words BEARER BONDS stamped on them. Junior gave a low whistle. The last time he'd opened this - to filch fifty for last year's Fryeburg Fair - there had been plenty of cash, but nowhere near this much. And no BEARER BONDS. He thought of the plaque on his father's desk at the car store: WOULD JESUS APPROVE OF THIS DEAL? Even in his distress and fear, Junior found time to wonder if Jesus would approve of whatever deal his dad had going on the side these days.
"Never mind his business, I gotta run mine; he said in a low voice. He took five hundred in fifties and twenties, started to close the safe, reconsidered, and took some of the hundreds as w;ll. Given the obscene glut of cash in there, his dad might not even miss it. If he did, it was possible he ct understand why Junior had taken it. And might approve. As Big Jim always said, 'The Lord helps those who help themselves.'
In that spirit Junior helped himself to another four hundred.Then he closed the safe, spun the combo, and hung Jesus back on the wall. He grabbed a jacket from the front hall closet and went out while the generator roared and the Maytag sudsed Angie's blood from his clothes.
4
There 'was no one at the McCains' house.
Fucking no one.
Junior lurked on the other side of the street, in a moderate shower of maple leaves, wondering if he could trust what he was seeing: the house dark, Henry McCain's 4Runner and LaDonna's Prius still not in evidence. It seemed too good to be true, fir too good.
Maybe they were on the town common. A lot of people were tonight. Possibly they were discussing the power failure, although Junior couldn't remember any such gatherings before when the lights went out; people mostly went home and went to bed, sure that - unless there'd been a whopper of a storm - the lights would be back on when they got up for breakfast.
Maybe this power failure had been caused by some spectacular accident, the kind of thing the TV news broke into regular coverage to report. Junior had a vague memory of some geezer asdng him what was going on not long after Angie had her own accident. In any case, Junior had taken care to speak to nobody on his way over here. He had walked along Main Street with his head down and his collar turned up (he had, in fact, almost bumped into Anson Wheeler as Anse left Sweetbriar Rose). The streetlights were out, and that helped preserve his anonymity. Another gift from the gods
And now this. A third gift. A gigantic one. Was it really possible that Angie's body hadn't been discovered yet? Or was he looking at a trap?
Junior could picture the Castle County Sheriff or a state police detective saying, We only have to keep out of sight and wait, boys. The killer always revisits the scene of his crime. It's a well-known fact.
TV bullshit. Still, as he crossed the street (drawn, it seemed, by a force outside himself), Junior kept expecting spotlights to go on, pinning him like a butterfly on a piece of cardboard; kept expecting someone to shout - probably through a bullhorn: 'Stop where you are and get those hands in the air!'
Nothing happened.
When he reached the foot of the McCain driveway heart skittering in his chest and blood thumping in his temples (still no headache, though, and that was good, a good sign), the house remained dark and silent. Not even a generator roaring, although there was one at the Grmnells' next door.
Junior looked over his shoulder and saw a vast white bubble of light rising above the trees. Something at the south end of town, or perhaps over in Motton. The source of the accident that had killed the power? Probably.
He went to the back door.The front door would still be unlocked if no one had returned since Angie's accident, but he didn't want to go in the front. He would if he had to, but maybe he wouldn't. He was, after all, on a roll.
The doorknob turned.
Junior stuck his head into the kitchen and smelled the blood at once - an odor a little like spray starch, only gone stale. He said, 'Hi? Hello? Anybody home?'Almost positive there wasn't, but if someone was, if by some crazy chance Henry or LaDonna had parked over by the common and returned on foot (somehow missing their daughter lying dead on the kitchen floor), he would scream. Yes! Scream and 'discover the body.' That wouldn't do anything about the dreaded forensics van, but it would buy him a little time.
'Hello? Mr McCain? Mrs McCain?' And then, in a flash of inspiration: 'Angie? Are you home?'
Would he call her like that if he'd killed her? Of course not! But then a terrible thought lanced through him:What if she answered? Answered from where she was lying on the floor? Answered through a throatful of blood?
'Get a grip,' he muttered.Yes, he had to, but it was hard. Especially in the dark. Besides, in the Bible stuff like that happened all the time. In the Bible, people sometimes returned to life like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead.
'Anybody home?'
Zip. Nada.
His eyes had adjusted to the gloom, but not enough. He needed a light. He should've brought a flashlight from the house, but it was easy to forget stuff like that when you were used to just flipping a switch. Junior crossed the kitchen, stepping over Angie's body, and opened the first of two doors on the far side. It was a pantry. He could just make out the shelves of bottled and canned goods. He tried the other door and had better luck. It was the laundry. And unless he was mistaken about the shape of the thing standing on the shelf just to his right, he was still on a roll.