The Scarecrow

not tell you to engage him in conversation. I told you to follow my instructions.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again. Please.”

“I could make sure it doesn’t happen again right now.”

“No, please. I’ll make up for it. I won’t-”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, but I-”

“I said shut up and listen!”

“Okay.”

“Are you listening?”

Stone nodded, his face just inches from the lifeless eyes of Declan McGinnis.

“Do you remember where you were when I found you?”

Stone dutifully nodded.

“You were going to that dark place to face endless days of torment. But I saved you. I gave you a new name, I gave you a new life. I gave you the opportunity to escape from that and to join me in embracing the desires we share. I taught you the way and I only asked one thing in return. Do you remember what that was?”

“You said it was a partnership but not an equal partnership. I was the student and you were the teacher. I must do as you say.”

Carver pushed the steel point deeper into Stone’s neck.

“And yet here we are. And you have failed me.”

“I won’t let it happen again. Please.”

Carver looked up from the grave and at the ridgeline. The jagged lines were cut more sharply now as the sky drew orange light. They had to finish up here quickly.

“Freddy, you have that wrong. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Let me do something. Let me make it up.”

“You’ll get that chance.”

He pulled the shovel back and stepped off the grave.

“Bury them now.”

Stone turned and looked up tentatively, fear still in his eyes. Carver held the shovel out to him. Stone got up and took it.

Carver reached behind his back and pulled out the gun. With great delight he watched Stone’s eyes go wide. But then he pulled the handkerchief from his front pocket and started wiping the weapon clean of all fingerprints. When he was finished he dropped it into the grave by McGinnis’s feet. He wasn’t worried about Stone making a grab for it. Freddy was totally under his command and control.

“I am sorry, Freddy, but whatever we do about McEvoy, we won’t be returning his gun to him. It’s too risky to keep it around.”

“Whatever you say.”

Exactly, Carver thought.

“Hurry now,” he said. “We’re losing the dark.”

Stone quickly started shoveling dirt and sand back into the hole.

TWELVE: Coast to Coast

As I should have expected, my segment on the morning show did not come up until the second hour. For forty-five minutes I sat in a small, dark studio and waited while watching the first half of the show on the camera monitor. It included a feature on Eric Clapton and Crossroads, the addiction recovery center he created in the Caribbean. The segment ended with concert footage of Clapton performing a bluesy, soulful version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” that was wonderfully moving and hopeful in relation to the piece but truncated by a cut to a commercial.

During the break I got the one-minute warning and soon I was on live coast-to-coast and beyond. The show host in Atlanta threw me softball questions that I answered with an enthusiasm that falsely suggested I had never heard them before and that the story had not been playing for three days already in the Times. When I was finished and the program moved on to the next story, Christian DuChateau told me over the earpiece that I was free to go and that he owed me a favor for saving the show from the near disaster that was Alonzo Winslow. He told me that the limo would take me wherever I needed to go.

“Christian, would you mind if I used him to make one stop along the way? It won’t take long.”

“Not at all. I have somebody else taking Alonzo home, so you can use the car the rest of the morning if you need it. Like I said, I owe you one.”

That worked for me. I made a quick stop in the greenroom to grab another cup of coffee and found Alonzo and Wanda still there. They seemed to still be waiting for someone to take them to the studio to be interviewed. No one had told them yet that they had been canceled and they seemed too naive to realize it.

I decided not to be the bearer of bad news. I told them good-bye and gave them each a card with my cell phone number on it.

“Hey, I see you on the TV,” Alonzo said, nodding to the flat-screen on the wall. “You cool, muthafucka. I get my turn now.”

“Thanks, Alonzo. You take care.”

“I’ll take care as soon as somebody give me a million dollahs.”

I nodded, grabbed another doughnut to go with my coffee and headed out of the room, leaving Alonzo waiting for a million dollars that wasn’t going to come.

Once in the car, I told the driver about the stop I needed to make and he said he had already been told to go where I directed. We pulled into my driveway at twenty minutes after seven. I sat in the car, looking at the house for almost a minute before getting the courage to get out and go in.

I unlocked the front door and entered, stepping on three days of mail that had been pushed through the slot. Neither rain nor snow nor yellow crime scene tape had stopped my mailman from his appointed rounds. I looked quickly through all the envelopes and found that two of my new credit cards had come in. I put these envelopes in my back pocket and left the rest on the floor.

Crime scene debris was littered throughout the house. Black fingerprint dust seemed to be on every surface. There were also empty tape dispensers and discarded rubber gloves all over the floor. It didn’t appear that the investigators and technicians gave one thought to who would be returning to the house after they were gone.

I hesitated only briefly and then walked down the hallway and entered my bedroom. There was a musty smell here that was puzzling because it seemed stronger than the day we had found Angela’s body. The box spring, mattress and bed frame were gone and I assumed they were being held for analysis and as evidence.

Pausing for a moment, I studied the spot where the bed had been. I wish I could say that at that moment my heart filled with sadness for Angela Cook. But somehow I was already past that point, or my mind was protecting itself and not allowing me to dwell on such things. If I thought about anything, I thought about how hard it was going to be to sell the place. If I felt anything, I felt the need to get out of there as soon as I could.

I walked quickly to the closet, remembering a story I had once written for the Times about a private company that offered a clean-up service at homes where murders and suicides had taken place. It was a thriving business. I decided I would have to dig that story out of archives and give them a call. Maybe they’d give me a discount.

I pulled my big suitcase off the shelf in the closet. I put it down on the floor and a breath of stale air released as I flipped it open. I hadn’t used it since I had moved into the house more than a decade earlier. I quickly started filling it with clothes that were on my usual rotation. When it was maxed out, I brought down my more-often-used duffel bag and filled it with shoes and belts and ties-even though I would soon have no use for ties. Lastly, I went into the bathroom and emptied everything on the sink and in the medicine cabinet into the plastic bag that lined the trash can.

“Need some help?”