Richard Linski.
"Michael didn't like him," Lora said.
"Michael was a good boy, Mother." Harry had tears in his eyes.
Seeing her husband's condition, Lora Karnes said, "Let's not blame the boy too much, Dad. I agree. He wasn't wicked."
"Can't blame a child for all its faults, Mother."
"You have to go back to the parents, Dad. If Michael wasn't so perfect, then it's because we weren't perfect ourselves."
As if speaking to the muted evangelist on the television, Harry Karnes said, "You can't raise a godly child when you've done wicked things yourself."
Afraid that the couple was about to descend into a series of teary confessions that would make no more sense than the words on the needlepoint samplers, Ben abruptly got to his feet and took Glenda's hand as she rose beside him. "Sorry to have brought this all back into your minds again."
"Not at all," Lora Karnes said. "Memory chastens."
One of the quotations on the wall caught Ben's eye:
SEVEN THUNDERS UTTERED THEIR VOICES
— Revelation, x, 3
"Mrs. Karnes," Ben said, "did you make the samplers yourself?"
"Yes. Needlepoint helps keep my hands to the Lord's work."
"They're lovely. But I was wondering… what does that one mean exactly?"
"Seven thunders all at once," she said quietly, without fervor — in fact, with an unnervingly calm authority that made it seem as if what she said must surely make sense. "That's how it will be. And then we'll know why we've always got to do our best. Then we'll wish we'd done better, much better, when the seven thunders roll all at once."
At the front door, as Ben and Glenda were leaving, Mrs. Karnes said, "Does God work through you, Mr. Chase?"
"Doesn't He work through all of us?" Ben asked.
"No. Some aren't strong enough. But you — are you His hand, Mr. Chase?"
He had no idea what answer she wanted. "I don't think so, Mrs. Karnes."
She followed them onto the front walk. "I think you are."
"Then God works in even more mysterious ways than anyone ever knew before."
"I think you are God's hand."
The scorching, late-afternoon sun was oppressive, but Lora Karnes still chilled Ben. He turned from her without another word.
The woman was still standing in the doorway, watching, as they drove away in the battered Mustang.
All day, from Glenda's apartment to the Allenby house to Hanover Park to the Karnes's house, Ben had driven evasively, and both he and Glenda had looked for a tail. No one had followed them at any point in their rambling journey.
No one followed them from the Karnes's house either. They drove until they found a service station with a pay phone.
On the floor of the booth, an army of ants was busy moving the carcass of a dead beetle.
Glenda stood at the open door while Ben searched for Richard Linski in the directory. He found a number. In Crescent Heights.
With change from Glenda's purse, Ben made the call.
It rang twice. Then: "Hello?"
Ben said nothing.
"Hello?" Richard Linski said. "Is anyone there?"
Quietly, Ben hung up.
"Well?" Glenda asked.
"It's him. Judge's real name is Richard Linski."
THE MOTEL ROOM WAS SMALL, FILLED WITH THE RUMBLE OF THE WINDOW-mounted air-conditioner.
Ben closed the door and checked the dead-bolt lock to be sure that it worked properly. He tested the security chain; it was well fitted.
"You're safe enough if you stay here," he said. "Linksi can't know where you are."
To avoid giving Judge a chance to find them, they hadn't gone back to her apartment to pack a bag for her. They had checked in without luggage. If everything went well, they wouldn't be staying the whole night anyway. This was just a way station between the loneliness of the past and whatever future fate might grant them.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, still childlike in her pink socks and twin ponytails, she said, "I should go with you."
"I have combat training. You don't. It's that simple."
She didn't ask him why he hadn't called the police. With what they had learned, even Detective Wallace would at least question Linski — and if Linski was the killer, then the evidence would fall into place. Anyone else would have asked him that tough question — but she was not like anyone else.
Night had fallen.
"I better go," he said.
She got off the edge of the bed and came into his arms. For a while he held her.
By unspoken mutual consent, they didn't kiss. A kiss would have been a promise. In spite of his combat training, however, he might not leave Linski's house alive. He didn't want to make a promise to her that he might be unable to fulfill.
He unlocked the door, took the chain off, and stepped outside onto the concrete promenade. He waited for her to close the door and engage the deadbolt.
The night was warm and humid. The sky was bottomless.
He left the motel in his Mustang.
At ten o'clock, Ben parked two blocks from Richard Linski's house and put on a pair of gardening gloves that he had purchased earlier. He made the rest of the journey on foot, staying on the opposite side of the street from the house.
The well-kept house was the second from the corner: white brick with emerald-green trim and dark-green slate roof. It was set on two well-landscaped lots, and the entire property was ringed with waist-high hedges that were so even they might have been trimmed with the aid of a quality micrometer.
Some windows glowed. Linski was apparently at home.
Ben walked the street that ran perpendicular to the one on which the bungalow faced. He entered a narrow, deserted alleyway that led behind the property.
A wrought-iron gate punctuated the wall of hedges. It wasn't locked. He opened it and went into Linski's backyard.
The rear porch was not so deep as the one at the front. It was bracketed by large lilac bushes. The boards didn't creak under his feet.
Lights were on in the kitchen, filtered through red-and-white-checkered curtains.
He waited a few minutes in the lilac-scented darkness, not thinking about anything, geared down and idling, preparing himself for confrontation as he had learned to do in Nam.
The back door was locked when he quietly tried it. But both kitchen windows were open to admit the night breeze.
Deeper in the house, a radio was playing big-band music. Benny Goodman. One O'clock Jump.
Stooping low, he brought his face to the window and peered between the half-drawn curtains, which stirred in the gentle breeze. He saw a pine table and chairs, a straw basket full of apples in the center of the table, a refrigerator, and double ovens. Cannisters for flour and sugar and coffee. A utensil rack holding scoops and ladles and big spoons and cooking forks. A blender plugged into a wall outlet.
No Judge. Linski was elsewhere in the house.
Glenn Miller. String of Pearls.
Ben examined the window screen and found that it was held in place by simple pressure clips. He removed the screen and set it aside.
The table was just beyond the window. He had to climb onto it as he went inside, careful not to knock over the basket of apples. From the table he eased himself silently to the vinyl-tile floor.
The music on the radio covered what small noises he made.
Acutely aware that he was without a weapon, he considered trying the drawers in the cupboard by the sink and securing a sharp knife, but he quickly dismissed that idea. A knife would bring events to an unnerving point, full circle, except that now he himself would be the slasher — and would be forced to confront directly the issue of not Linski's sanity but his own.