He turned and stepped more quickly to catch up with Stillman, who was walking along the edge of the lawn, staring out at the dim, ghostly trees in the swamp.
As he came up behind Stillman, he heard him mutter, “Shit.” Stillman bent over and looked down. “Another one.”
Beside the exposed, gnarled roots of a mangrove tree was the half-submerged body of a man. The face was under the murky water, but Walker could see an ear, the rim just breaking the surface, and the glint of a watchband on the left wrist.
Stillman straightened. “I would guess that’s probably Mr. Kopcinsky, wouldn’t you?”
“Or Fred Teller.”
Stillman had his cell phone in his hand. He punched on the power button, studied the display, held the phone to his ear, looked again, then turned it off. “The relay stations still aren’t up and running. We’ll have to go bust a window to call the cops.”
Walker stared back at the house. “I know this is stupid, but I thought I saw something behind a window up there before. Then I figured it was nothing. But now . . . ”
Stillman looked at the house too as he considered. “If there is somebody in there, this wouldn’t be a good place to get cornered. It seems to me we ought to walk back the way we came, as though we didn’t notice anything. As soon as we get near the patio, make a turn and put the garage between us and the house.”
They began to walk toward the garden. Walker kept scanning the tall, narrow windows.
“Slow down,” Stillman whispered. “The only reason to hurry would be if we found the body.”
Walker brought his pace down to match Stillman’s. He said quietly, “It was probably my imagination.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Stillman whispered. “Run!”
Walker took two quick steps, trying to push off hard. He flicked his eyes at the dark house to make out what Stillman had seen, but before he could, everything changed.
A shot clapped Walker’s ears as he saw the muzzle flash in the corner of his eye, but the shot seemed not to end, because instantly the flash expanded into a brightness like daylight. The noise had triggered the security lights along the eaves of the house and the garage.
In place of the muzzle flash was a man crouching along the wall of the house holding a pistol in his right hand, caught in the unexpected glare, shocked and half-blinded. He raised his left hand to shade his eyes just as Stillman’s body hit him at chest level and hurled him backward into one of the tall windows. There was a crack, then a crash and tinkle of glass.
The man’s pistol had left his hand. It was still in the air, spinning to the right side, when Walker’s left foot pushed off, changing the course of his sprint to intersect with its trajectory. It hit in the center of a big sandstone slab, bounced once, and slid as Walker bent to reach for it.
A second shot came from somewhere to Walker’s left, and pieces of stucco exploded off the house into the air above his head. He lunged at the gun, got his right hand around it, and dipped his shoulder to let the lunge’s momentum turn it into a roll. As his roll brought him to his belly, he saw the second man in silhouette beyond the lights.
He dimly understood that this man had been waiting for him beside the garage when the first man had seen Walker break into a run and fired. Walker’s right arm was in front of him, holding the pistol on the man. He saw the man’s right shoulder rise slightly as he lowered his arm to bring his aim down toward Walker. Walker’s fingers jerked tight, and the noise of the gun in his hand startled him. The recoil kicked his forearm upward, but he forced it down, found the man’s shape crouching lower, and pulled the trigger again, then again. The man fell and lay still.
Walker rolled onto his back and did a quick sit-up to find the man with Stillman, but the man was in the narrow alcove, the upper part of his body crammed through the broken window into the house and his legs sprawled on the terrace. Stillman was just stepping away from the window. He had his jacket sleeve pulled down over his right hand, and clutched there was a long, jagged shard of glass.
He slowly lifted the piece of glass above the height of his shoulder. Walker could see blood running along it in two long streaks. Stillman brought the hand down and the long shard flew against the remaining sheet of glass in the upper part of the window, breaking it and bringing it down on the body in dozens of indistinguishable fragments.
Walker gaped as Stillman stood there, examining his sleeves carefully in a way that could only be to see whether he had gotten the man’s blood on him. After a moment he met Walker’s gaze evenly. “If there were others, they’d already be here.”
Walker’s heart was beating hard. There was a roaring in his ears that had something to do with the noise of the guns, but now in the silence, he could still hear it. His eyes were drawn to the man Stillman had pushed into the window. His legs seemed to be limp like a doll’s legs, feet pointed unnaturally to the sides, knee joints bent inward in a way that must only be possible when all of the muscles had gone limp. He felt his stomach tighten in a retch, but fought it down.
Stillman was on the lawn squatting beside the other man now. “They’re both dead?” said Walker.
“Yep.”
Walker sat perfectly still, not thinking, just enduring the thoughts that swept through his mind. Walker knew that his life had been irrevocably altered, not just because this would change the future, but because it had already changed the past, going all the way back. He had not wanted ever to be the kind of person who did this. Everything he had thought and done while he was growing up in Ohio had been predicated on the empty faith that if he did what he had been taught—controlled his temper and appetites, struggled against the subtle diminishing effects of resentment and spite, spent his time working and learning things—he could expect something better than this.
The enormity of what he had done frightened him. He searched through his impressions, grasping for excuses: he had not intended to kill anyone; not made a decision; not been given a chance. But his mind could not hold on to the arguments. In the second when he had thrust his arm forward with the gun clutched in his hand, he had not felt anything but the urgent need to hold it steady on the man’s chest and fire first.
Stillman’s legs crossed Walker’s line of vision, and he let his eyes follow them. Stillman stepped close to the man in the window, reached in, and turned the man’s face. “Have you ever seen this guy before?”
Walker grimaced and shook his head. “No.” He involuntarily turned to look at the man he had shot. “The other one either.”
Stillman looked down at the man in the window. “We saw two guys in that alley in Pasadena, and three more out by Gochay’s house. Now these two. It’s starting to feel like a lot of people.” He bent over to search the dead man’s pockets. He found a wallet and looked inside. “Nothing but a license and one credit card, which means they’re both fake,” he muttered, and put it back.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” asked Walker.
After a beat, Stillman seemed to notice him. “What?”
“They’re . . . dead. We just killed two men.”
Stillman took a deep breath, then let it out, and said in a voice that was tired but patient, “I’m not much troubled by ethical considerations, no. I made all my decisions on the subject a long, long time ago. If somebody tries to kill me, he’d better do it on the first try, because only one of us is going home.” Walker was silent. After a moment, Stillman said, “I know what you’re feeling. It’s not going to do anybody any good. You don’t get to go through life with clean hands. I’m sorry.”
Walker involuntarily looked at his hand, and noticed the gun still in it.
“Leave the gun where you’re sitting,” Stillman said. “Don’t wipe it off or anything.” He watched while Walker gently placed the gun on the ground and stood up. “Go take a look in that guy’s pockets.” Walker hesitated, but Stillman said, “Go ahead.”
Walker knelt by the body and felt inside the coat. There was a wallet, but it too had only one credit card, a driver’s license, and some cash. He found a heavy metal rectangle he guessed was an ammunition clip for the pistol, took it out, verified the impression, and put it back. There was something else in the breast pocket that was long and hard, so he pulled that out too. It was a case for a pair of eyeglasses.
He opened it, and found a pair of sunglasses. He closed it again and was about to return it to the pocket.
“What’s that?” asked Stillman.
“Sunglasses.”
