I made a last dash downhill past a swing set and out the far side of the park, onto a street lined with houses. I went to a house near the end of the block, pulling out a key as I ran up the front steps. Deeds was right on my heels now—I’d barely got the door shut behind me when the pounding started. The lock splintered on the third blow, and gave way on the fourth; the door chain snapped and then Deeds was inside.
This time I was the one sitting in a dark corner of the living room. Instead of a baseball bat I was holding a double-barreled shotgun. I had it up and ready with both hammers cocked, the barrels balanced on my right wrist, my left hand on the triggers.
“You’re a dead woman,” Deeds announced. Then he blinked, noticing the gun, and added: “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No,” I said, “I’m not kidding. Now here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to drop that piece of wood you’re holding, and we’re going to go downstairs to the basement…”
“No,” Deeds snarled. “What’s going to happen is, you’re going to give me that fucking gun. You can either hand it over easy, or I can take it from you—but if you make me take it, I’m really going to be angry.”
I pulled the left-side trigger. The shot struck Deeds in the arm, knocking him back and tearing a big chunk out of his bicep. He grunted and dropped the two-by-four.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You want to start worrying about my feelings.”
Deeds cupped a hand to his ruined bicep. “You shot me!” he complained. “You’re crazy…” He glanced over his shoulder at the broken front door.
“You won’t make it,” I said. I stood up, and gestured towards the back of the house. “Basement door’s that way. Start walking.”
He moved slowly, hoping I’d come up too close behind and give him a chance to grab at the gun. When we reached the basement stairs, he slowed down even more and tried goading me: “I don’t know how you think you’re going to come out on top here, Jane. I mean, I know you’re not going to kill me.”
“Keep moving.”
“I know you’re not going to kill me. Maybe you’ve got the guts to pull the trigger, I’ll grant you that much, but you don’t want to go to prison, do you?”
“Keep moving.”
“Or are you stupid enough to think you can claim self-defense on this? Is that the plan? Tell the cops you had to do it, because of that beating I gave you? You think they’ll care about that?”
I wasn’t going to argue with him, but I couldn’t help myself: “I think they’ll care about those three kids you burned to death.”
“Those kids…So that’s what this is about?” He laughed. “Let me tell you something about those kids, Jane. I didn’t even know they were in the house that night. But their mother—my so-called girlfriend?—she knew. And I’ll bet the selfish bitch didn’t look back once when she was running to save herself…You want to pass judgment on someone, Jane? What about a mom who leaves her own kids to fry?”
“Shut up and keep moving. I’m not going to say it again.”
“All right, all right…But I’m telling you, Jane, I really don’t see this ending well for you. I don’t…”
He trailed off in mid-threat. We’d finally reached the bottom of the stairs.
The basement was lit by strings of hanging bulbs. Its floor had originally been wood, but the planks had been pried up and set aside, exposing bare dirt beneath. Here and there—four places in all—long, narrow holes had been dug in the dirt, filled in again, and sprinkled with lime. In between the water heater and the furnace a fifth hole had been started, but it was only half-finished. The handle of a shovel jutted out of it at an angle; lying facedown in front of it, one hand still reaching for the shovel, was the figure of a man.
“What the hell is this?” Deeds said.
“The greater of two evils,” I told him. “His name was Benjamin Loomis. He was a serial killer. Earlier tonight he had a heart attack. Died in the act—at least, that’s what the cops will think.”
“Died in the act of what?”
“Burying his last victim.”
Deeds turned and lunged for the gun then, but my finger was already tightening on the trigger.
“Bad monkey,” I said.
After, I went back into the park, and found True sitting on a bench near the swings. He wasn’t happy.