Trimble sighed, dug out his cell, punched in some numbers. “It’s me,” he said. “Just checking in, everything’s fine, we just got to Mayhew’s place. I’ll talk to you at two.” He looked at me as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Satisfied?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Out,” he said, and we opened our doors at the same time. I was afraid the inside dome light would make the gun visible, but it remained hidden in shadow. We walked toward the front door, gravel crunching under our shoes. Trimble mounted the steps to the front door ahead of me, opened the aluminum screen door, then tried the knob on the main door.

It turned.

“What an idiot,” Trimble whispered. “These people move to the suburbs, they think they’re going to be safe.”

He opened the door quietly. I held on to the screen door behind him, keeping it from slamming shut. It was about then it occurred to me that I was breaking and entering. Under some sort of duress, sure, but I was breaking and entering. With a cop, no less.

Once inside, I eased the screen door shut, and we waited a moment for our eyes to adjust. Just inside the door, on the right, was a set of stairs. We both held our breath, and upstairs, we could hear snoring.

Trimble smiled devilishly at me and pointed up. He had his gun out now and was taking the carpeted steps one at a time. I let him get a couple of steps ahead of me before I began to follow.

The stairs turned at a landing, and as we reached it, the snoring grew louder. These were loud, rumbling snores. We could have stomped our way up these stairs and not wakened Mayhew.

Once we reached the upstairs hallway, Trimble paused again, making sure he could tell which room the snores were coming from. He crept ahead of me to the doorway of the bedroom on the left, where, from the soft beam of moonlight that was coming through the window, we could make out a shape under the covers, which were pulled up so far you couldn’t see any more of the person than what appeared to be a few tufts of hair. I didn’t remember Mayhew having that much hair.

Trimble pointed to the lamp on the bedside table and whispered, “Get ready to turn that on.”

I slipped my hand under the shade, found the small grooved knob, and held it between my thumb and forefinger as the snores continued to echo through the room. Trimble gripped his weapon with both hands and held the muzzle to within a couple of inches of Mayhew’s head. He nodded to me.

I turned on the light.

Trimble shouted, “Wakey wakey, Eddie!”

And Mayhew stirred suddenly, reached up an arm to pull the covers down, and, upon seeing the muzzle only inches away, screamed.