They were in Doug’s house, which was pretty nice. It was in the woods and it was a big house, all full of stone walls and glass. The furniture wasn’t like the cheap things Mo and Pete had. It was mostly antiques.
Which depressed Pete even more, made him angrier, because he knew that Mo liked money and she liked people who had money even if they were idiots, like Doug. When Pete looked at Doug’s beautiful house he knew that if Mo ever saw it then she’d want Doug even more. Then he wondered if she had seen it. Pete had gone to Wisconsin a few months ago. Maybe Mo had come down here to spend the night with Doug.
“So,” Doug said. “Ready?”
“Where’re we going?” Pete asked.
“There’s a good field about a mile from here. It’s not posted. Anything we can hit we can take.”
“Sounds good to me,” Pete said.
They got into the car and Doug pulled onto the road.
“Better put that seat belt on,” Doug warned. “I drive like a crazy man.”
The field looked familiar to Pete.
As Doug laced up his boots, Pete realized why it was familiar. It was almost identical to a field in White Plains — the one across the highway from the elementary school. The only difference was that this one was completely quiet; the New York field was noisy. You heard a continual stream of traffic.
Pete was looking around.
Not a soul.
“What?” Doug asked, and Pete realized that the man was staring at him.
“Pretty quiet.”
And deserted. No witnesses.
“Nobody knows about this place. I found it by my little old lonesome.” Doug said this real proud, as if he’d discovered a cure for cancer. “Lessee.” He lifted his rifle and squeezed off a round.
Crack...
He missed a can sitting about thirty feet away.
“Little rusty,” he said. “But, hey, aren’t we having fun?”
“Sure are,” Pete answered.
Doug fired again, three times, and hit the can on the last shot. It leapt into the air. “There we go!”
Doug reloaded and they started through the tall grass and brush.
They walked for five minutes.
“There,” Doug said. “Can you hit that rock over there?”
He was pointing at a white rock about twenty feet from them. Pete thought he could have hit it but he missed on purpose. He emptied the clip.
“Not bad,” Doug said. “Came close the last few shots.” Pete knew he was being sarcastic.
“So, what? We go to a ball game together?”
“No, it’s got to be more than that. Ask him to come visit you.”
“Oh, that’d be fun.”
Pete reloaded and they continued through the grass.
“So,” Doug said. “How’s she doing?”
“Fine. She’s fine.”
Whenever Mo was upset and Pete’d ask her how she was she’d say, “Fine. I’m fine.”
Which didn’t mean fine at all. It meant, I don’t feel like telling you anything. I’m keeping secrets from you.
They stepped over a few fallen logs and started down a hill.
The grass was mixed with blue flowers and daisies. Mo liked to garden and was always driving up to the nursery to buy plants. Sometimes she’d come back without any and Pete began to wonder if on those trips she was really seeing Doug instead. He got angry again. Hands sweaty, teeth grinding together.
“She get her car fixed?” Doug asked. “She was saying that there was something wrong with the transmission.”
How’d he know that? The car broke down only four days ago. Had Doug been there and Pete didn’t know it?
Doug glanced at Pete and repeated the question.
Pete blinked. “Oh, her car? Yeah, it’s okay. She took it in and they fixed it.”
But then he felt better because that meant they hadn’t talked yesterday or she would have told him about getting the car fixed.
On the other hand, maybe Doug was lying to him now. Making it look as if she hadn’t told him about the car when they really had talked.
Pete looked at Doug’s pudgy face and couldn’t decide whether to believe him or not. He looked sort of innocent but Pete had learned that people who seemed innocent were sometimes the most guilty. Roy, the husband in the Triangle book, had been a church choir director. From the smiling picture in the book, you’d never guess he’d kill a soul.
Thinking about the book, thinking about murder.
Pete was scanning the field. Yes, there... about fifty feet away. A fence. Five feet high. It would work just fine.
Fine.
As fine as Mo.
Who wanted Doug more than she wanted Pete.
“What’re you looking for?” Doug asked.
“Something to shoot.”
And he thought: Just witnesses. That’s all I’m looking for.
“Let’s go that way,” Pete said and walked toward the fence.
Doug shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
Pete studied it as they approached. Wood posts about eight feet apart, five strands of rusting wire.
Not too easy to climb over, but it wasn’t barbed wire like some of the fences they’d passed. Besides, Pete didn’t want it too easy to climb. He’d been thinking. He had a plan.
Roy had thought about the murder for weeks. It had obsessed his every waking moment. He’d drawn charts and diagrams and planned every detail down to the n’th degree. In his mind, at least, it was the perfect crime.
Pete now asked, “So what’s your girlfriend do?”
“Uhm, my girlfriend? She works in Baltimore.”
“Oh. Doing what?”
“In an office.”
“Oh.”
They got closer to the fence. Pete asked, “You’re divorced? Mo was saying you’re divorced.”
“Right. Betty and I split up two years ago.”
“You still see her?”
“Who? Betty? Naw. We went our separate ways.”
“You have any kids?”
“Nope.”
Of course not. When you had kids you had to think about somebody else. You couldn’t think about yourself all the time. Like Doug did. Like Mo. Pete was looking around again. For squirrels, for rabbits, for witnesses. Then Doug stopped and he looked around too. Pete wondered why, but then Doug took a bottle of beer from his knapsack and drank the whole bottle down and tossed it on the ground. “You want something to drink?” Doug asked.
“No,” Pete answered. It was good that Doug’d be slightly drunk when they found him. They’d check his blood. They did that. That’s how they knew Hank’d been drinking when they got the body to the Colorado Springs hospital — they checked the alcohol in the blood.
The fence was only twenty feet away.
“Oh, hey,” Pete said. “Over there. Look.”
He pointed to the grass on the other side of the fence.
“What?” Doug asked.
“I saw a couple of rabbits.”
“You did? Where?”
“I’ll show you. Come on.”
“Okay. Let’s do it,” Doug said.
They walked to the fence. Suddenly, Doug reached out and took Pete’s rifle. “I’ll hold it while you climb over. Safer that way.”
Jesus... Pete froze with terror. Doug was going to do exactly what Pete had thought of. He’d been planning on holding Doug’s gun for him. And then when Doug was at the top of the fence he was going to shoot him. Making it look like Doug had tried to carry his gun as he climbed the fence but he’d dropped it and it went off.
Roy bet on the old law enforcement rule that what looks like an accident probably is an accident.
Pete didn’t move. He thought he saw something funny in Doug’s eyes, something mean and sarcastic. It reminded him of Mo’s expression. Pete took one look at those eyes and he could see how much Doug hated him and how much he loved Mo.