Delivering the note was just as difficult as making it. It had to be somewhere Kay wouldn't find it, because she'd probably go right to the police, or, at the very least, tell a neighbor. Any normal person would. Mr. Crowley, on the other hand, would certainly keep it to himself; he wouldn't want to reveal anything that might cast suspicion on him. If he took the note to the police, they'd want to know more about him—enemies he might have, things he might have done, anything that might make someone want revenge. Those were questions he didn't want the police to even ask, let alone learn the answers to. He would keep it quiet, yes—but only if he was the only one who knew about it.
The other problem was finding a way to deliver the note without making it obvious that I had done it. It would be easy to hide it in the shed, for example, because Kay would never find it there, but I was in the shed all the time. I'd be the first person who came to mind when he tried to guess who'd left it.
I also didn't want to hide it somewhere that would cast future suspicion on my various watching spots around the house. If I slipped it through, say, the kitchen window, I'd never be able to hide outside and watch him eat breakfast again. I had to choose my delivery method very carefully.
Eventually I settled on his car. Crowley and his wife each drove it about half the time, but there were specific instances when one would drive without the other—Kay buying groceries, for example, which she did every Wednesday morning, and always alone. For Mr. Crowley, it was football games, which he watched about half the time at the bar downtown. I began studying his evening schedule and comparing it to the TV Guide, and discovered that he went to the bar every time there was a Seattle Seahawks game on ESPN; I guess he didn't get that channel at home. The next time there was a Seahawks game, I sneaked to the car before he left and placed the folded note under the windshield wiper.
I watched his driveway from my window, peering on I through a crack in the shades so small that he could never have known I was there. He left his house, smiling cheerfully about something, and noticed the note while he was unlocking the car door. He picked it up, unfolded it, and surveyed the street' with dark eyes. His cheer was gone. I pulled back, vanishing into the darkness of my room. I could barely see Mr. Crowley as he got into his car and drove away.
A few nights later we had a neighborhood-watch party, which is where everyone on the street gets together in the Crowleys'
yard and talks and laughs and pretends that nothing is wrong, and meanwhile all our empty houses are ripe for burglary. This particular party was not about burglary, however, but serial killing—we were all gathered in a large, "safe" group, watching out for each other. There was even a little speech about safety, and locking your doors, and that kind of thing. I wanted to tell them that the safest thing they could do was to not bring everyone into Mr. Crowley's back yard, but he seemed tame enough that night. If he was capable of flipping out and murdering fifty people at once, he was at least not inclined to do it right then. I wasn't ready to attack him yet, either—I was still trying to learn more about him. How could I kill something that had already regenerated from a hail of bullets? This kind of thing takes planning, and planning takes time.
More than to talk about safety, the real purpose of the party was to convince ourselves that we hadn't been beaten—that even with a killer in town, we weren't afraid, and we weren't going to collapse into a mob. Whatever. More important than any hollow declaration of bravery was the fact that we were roasting hot dogs, which meant I got to stoke a fire in the Crowleys' fire pit.
I started with a massive blaze, burning huge blocks of wood from a dead tree the Watsons had cut out of their backyard over the summer. The fire was bright and warm, perfect for starting the party, and then as the safety talk dragged on, I went to work with the poker and a long pair of tongs, shaping and cultivating the fire to produce thick beds of bright-red coals. Cooking fires are different from normal fires, because you're looking for steady, even heat instead of simple light and warmth. Flames give way to low flares, and the brilliant red glow of wood burning from the inside out. I arranged the fire carefully, routing oxygen through miniature chimneys to create wide roasting ovens. Just in time, the meeting ended and the crowd turned to begin cooking.