southernmost aisle. The cause of the accident soon revealed itself.
Many of the stacked boxes were sealed with tape, but others were tied shut with cord. The neck of the lug wrench was still caught in the loop of a knot.
Carrying the wrench down at his side, somewhat away from his body, the gunman must have snared the dangling loop of cord. He had pulled Halloween down on himself.
Mitch stacked most of the fallen boxes as they had been. He created a new row of short stacks in front of the breach in the railing to conceal the damage.
If the gunman's pals came searching for him, the splintered balusters and the missing section of handrail would suggest to them that a struggle had occurred.
The ragged gap in the railing would still be visible to them from the southeast corner of the lower level. The stairs were at the northeast corner, however, and the gunman's friends might never be in a position to see the damage.
Although Mitch would have liked to vent some anger by smashing the electronic eavesdropping equipment arrayed in the aisle along the west wall, he left it untouched.
When he picked up the long lug wrench, it felt heavier than he remembered.
In the silence, in the stillness, he sensed deception. Felt watched. Felt mocked.
Nearby, web-hung spiders must be patiently dreaming of ripe twitching morsels. A fat spring fly or two must be droning toward silken snares.
More than flies, worse than spiders, something loomed. Mitch turned, but seemed to be alone.
An important truth hid from him, hid not in shadows, hid not behind the boxed holidays, but hid from him in plain sight. He saw but was blind. He heard but was deaf.
This extraordinary perception grew more intense, swelled until it became oppressive, until it had such a physical dimension that his lungs would not expand. Then it rapidly subsided, was gone.
He took the lug wrench downstairs and hung it on the tool rack where it belonged.
From the wheelbarrow, he retrieved the phone, the wallet, the keys, the two guns, and the ankle holster. He put everything on the front passenger's seat of the Honda.
He drove out of the garage, parked beside the house, and went quickly inside to get a jacket. He was wearing a flannel shirt, and though the night ahead would not be cool enough to require a jacket, he needed one.
When he came out of the house, he expected to find Taggart waiting by the Honda for him. The detective didn't show.
In the car once more, he placed the lightweight sports jacket on the passenger's seat, concealing the items that he had taken from the corpse.
The dashboard clock agreed with his wristwatch—5:11.
He drove out to the street and turned right, with a thrice-dead man in the trunk of the car and worse horrors loose in his mind.
Chapter 16
Two blocks from his house, Mitch parked at the curb. He left the engine running, kept the windows closed and the doors locked.
He could not recall ever previously locking the doors while he was in the car.
He glanced at the rearview mirror, suddenly certain that the trunk lock had not engaged, that the lid had popped open, presenting the swaddled cadaver for viewing. The trunk remained closed.
In the dead man's wallet were credit cards and a California driver's license in the name of John Knox. For the license photo, the youthful gunman had flashed a smile as winsome as that of a boy-band teen idol.
Knox had been carrying $585, including five one-hundred-dollar bills. Mitch counted the money without taking it out of the currency compartment.
Nothing in the wallet revealed a single fact about the man's profession, personal interests, or associations. No business card, no library card, no health-insurance card. No photos of loved ones. No reminder notes or Social Security card, or receipts.
According to the license, Knox lived in Laguna Beach. Something useful might be learned by a search of his residence.
Mitch needed time to consider the risks of going to Knox's place. Besides, there was someone else he needed to visit before the scheduled six-o'clock call.
He put the wallet, the dead man's cell phone, and the set of keys in the glove box. He tucked the revolver and the ankle holster under the driver's seat.
The pistol remained on the adjacent seat, under his sports coat.
Through a zigzaggery of low-traffic residential streets, ignoring the speed limits and even a couple of stop signs, Mitch arrived at his parents' place in east Orange at 5:35. He parked in the driveway and locked the Honda.
The handsome house stood on a second tier of hills, with hills above it. The two-lane street, sloping toward flatter land, revealed no suspicious vehicle following in his wake.
A languid breeze had uncoiled from the east. With a thousand times a thousand silvery-green tongues, the tall eucalyptus trees whispered to one another.
He looked up to the single window of the learning room. When he was eight years old, he had spent twenty consecutive days there, with an interior shutter locked across that window.
Sensory deprivation focuses thought, clears the mind. That is the theory behind the dark, silent, empty learning room.
Mitch's father, Daniel, answered the doorbell. At sixty-one, he remained a strikingly good-looking man, still in possession of all his hair, though it had turned white.
Perhaps because his features were so pleasingly bold — perfect features if he had wished to be a stage actor — his teeth seemed too small. They were his natural teeth, everyone. He was a stickler for dental hygiene. Laser-whitened, they dazzled, but they looked small, like rows of white-corn kernels in a cob.
Blinking with surprise that was a degree too theatrical, he said, 'Mitch. Katherine never told me you called.'
Katherine was Mitch's mother.
'I didn't,' Mitch admitted. 'I hoped it would be all right if I just stopped by.'
'More often than not, I'd be occupied with one damn obligation or another, and you'd be out of luck. But tonight I'm free.'
'Good.'
'Though I did expect to do a few hours of reading.'
'I can't stay long,' Mitch assured him.
The children of Daniel and Katherine Rafferty, all now adults, understood that, in respect for their parents' privacy, they were to schedule their visits and avoid impromptu drop-ins.
Stepping back from the door, his father said, 'Come in, then.'
In the foyer, with its white-marble floor, Mitch looked left and right at an infinity of Mitches, echo reflections in two large facing mirrors with stainless-steel frames.
He asked, 'Is Kathy here?'
'Girls' night out,' his father said. 'She and Donna Watson and that Robinson woman are off to a show or something.'
'I'd hoped to see her.'
'They'll be late,' his father said, closing the door. 'They're always late. They chatter at each other all evening, and when they pull into the driveway, they're still chattering. Do you know the Robinson woman?'
'No. This is the first I've heard of her.'
'She's annoying,' his father said. 'I don't understand why Katherine enjoys her company. She's a mathematician.'
