A bare bulb over the center of the garage cast a cold and eerie glow across the room. It was cool. There wasn’t much in there. No cars, not even any oil stains on the floor, a few moving boxes stacked along the back wall. There was a weed trimmer, and a lawn mower to deal with that small backyard. Hanging on hooks screwed into the wall were a garden rake, a hoe, and one of those claw things you see advertised on TV that stir up topsoil while you’re still standing. Paul had made me buy him one. One hook was empty, but it was probably where Stefanie normally hung the shovel that had been used to smash in the side of her head.

She was stretched out pointing toward the driveway, the side of her face laying in the blood that was slowly finding its way under the garage door. There were gashes on the sides of her hands, perhaps where she’d deflected earlier blows from the blood-splattered shovel left on the floor next to her.

“Stefanie?” I said.

Then my cell phone started ringing from inside my jacket.

Chapter 13

13

“i believe,” said sarah, “that the barbecue is now ready for the steaks. I believe it’s possible that the barbecue has been ready for the steaks for the better part of an hour. I would hazard a guess that we have used enough propane since you left to keep a family of four in Iceland warm for the better part of a December. The salad leaves are washed and dried and sitting in a bowl. Your children have decided that they’ve waited long enough to eat, and left five minutes ago with Paul’s friends for McDonald’s. I, however, thought it would be rude to leave and find dinner elsewhere, or cook up a steak on my own, and leave you to eat all by yourself when you came home, if you were ever to decide to do such a thing.” She paused. “Are you there?”

“Yeah,” I said. The splotches of blood on Stefanie Knight’s off-white suit looked black as night.

“So are you coming home or what? Or should I go ahead and eat without you?”

“I think you should probably go ahead and eat without me.”

I could hear Sarah breathe in, startled. “What’s wrong? Oh God, have you had an accident or something?”

“No, I’m okay. I just kind of got into a thing, and I’m going to be a little bit delayed, that’s all.”

“What sort of a thing?” Sarah was over being sarcastic. Now she was worried.

“Uh, it’s Kenny,” I said.

“What about Kenny?”

“His wife. She’s been sick, and we got talking, and I couldn’t just walk out on the guy, you know. He needed someone to talk to.”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Sarah said. “What’s wrong with her?”