"It's no trouble, Mr. Crowley," I said.
"Who's that at the door?" called Mrs. Crowley, bustling into view from elsewhere in the house. "Oh, good morning, John. Bill, get away from the door, you'll catch your death!"
Mr. Crowley laughed. "I'm fine, Kay, I promise—not even a sniffle."
"He was up all night," said Mrs. Crowley, wrapping a coat around his shoulders, "goodness knows where doing goodness knows what, and then he tells me he crashed the car. We'd better have a look at the damage, now that it's lighter out."
I shot a glance at Mr. Crowley, who winked and chuckled.
"I slid a bit on the ice last night, and she thinks it was a communist plot."
"Don't make fun, Bill, this is—oh my word, it's worse than I thought."
"I was out driving last night," said Mr. Crowley, stepping out to join us on the porch, "and slid on the ice out by the hospital—went right off the road and into a cement wall. Best place to do it, though—a handful of nurses and doctors were right there in seconds to make sure I was okay. I keep telling her I'm fine, but she gets worried." He put his arm around her shoulders, and she turned to hug him.
"I'm just glad you're all right," she said.
Assuming he'd disposed of the body properly, the bullet in his car was the last bit of evidence that might have linked him to the killings, but he'd taken care of it admirably. I had to give him credit, he was very good at covering his tracks. All he'd really had to do was pull out the bullet and slam that corner of the car into a wall hard enough to hide the previous damage. Doing it at the hospital had been especially smart—he now had a whole group of witnesses who thought they knew exactly what happened to his car, and if push came to shove, they could also testify that he'd been on the opposite side of town from the murders. He'd buried the evidence and given himself an alibi at the same time.
I turned to look at him with new respect. He was clever, all right—but why now, and not before? If he was so smart, why did he leave the first three bodies out where anyone could find them? It occurred to me that maybe he was new at this, and only just now learning how to do it well. Maybe he hadn't killed that man in Arizona after all—or maybe there had been something different about that killing that hadn't prepared him for these.
"John," said Mrs. Crowley, "I want you to know that we appreciate everything you do for us—we can't turn around these past few weeks without finding you there to help."
"It's nothing," I said.
"Nonsense," she said. "This is one of the worst winters in years, and we're too old to get through it alone—you've seen how Bill's health comes and goes. And now something like this, well, it's good to know our neighbors are watching out for us."
"We don't have any children of our own," said Mr. Crowley, "but you're practically like a grandson to us. Thanks."
I stared at them both, studying the signs of gratitude I'd come to recognize in them—smiles, clasped hands, a few tears in the corners of Mrs. Crowley's eyes. I expected sincerity from her, but even Mr. Crowley seemed touched. I hefted the shovel and started clearing off the stairs.
"It's nothing," I said again.
You’re a sweet boy," said Mrs. Crowley, and they both went inside.
Somehow it felt appropriate that the only person who thought I was sweet was a woman who lived with a demon.
I spent the rest of the morning shoveling their walks and their driveway, and thinking about how to kill Mr. Crowley. My rules kept popping into my mind, unbidden—they were too ingrained to leave without a fight. I thought about different ways of killing him, and immediately found myself saying nice things about him. I ran over his daily schedule in my head, and immediately felt myself straying to other topics. Twice, I actually stopped shoveling and turned to go home, subconsciously trying to distract myself from becoming fixated. My old rules would have told me to ignore Mr. Crowley for a full week, as I had forced myself to ignore Brooke, but things were different now, and the rules had to go. I'd been training myself for years to stay away from people, to root out any attachments that tried to form, but all of those barriers needed to come down; all of those mechanisms needed to be turned off, or stowed away, or destroyed.
It was creepy at first—like sitting very still while a cockroach climbs onto your shoe, up your leg, and under your shirt, and not brushing it away. I imagined myself covered with roaches, spiders, leeches, and more, all wriggling, probing, and tasting, and I had to stay motionless, and let myself become completely accustomed to them. I needed to kill Mr. Crowley (a maggot crawling onto my face), I wanted to kill Mr. Crowley (a maggot crawling into my mouth), I wanted to cut him open (a swarm of maggots crawling all over me, burrowing into me)—