I don’t know quite how to explain what happened next. I think it was a primal thing. A father’s instinct kicking in, I don’t know. I just knew at that moment that I had to do whatever I could to protect my daughter. When Angie screamed, it caught Rick by surprise as it had me, and he turned away from me, looking to the study door, and at that moment—don’t ask me the brain processes that went into this—I grabbed my Lost in Space Robot statue off the shelf and swung. Hard.

I’d picked it up two years ago, in that store in New York, in the Village. A comic shop that had every SF model and souvenir you could think of. I hadn’t much liked the sixties series, but as with a lot of crappy fantasy shows, I still loved the hardware. This was a solid resin model of Robot, the one who was always shouting “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” and it stood a good foot high on its stand. It had a bit of weight to it, and it felt formidable in my hand as I grabbed it.

It crumbled into several pieces as it connected with the back of Rick’s head, and I guess I was expecting him to whirl around and kill me right there, but darned if he didn’t drop right to the floor. I stood over him, ready to club him a second time with the remnant of Robot that was still attached to the base, but he wasn’t moving. “Jesus,” I said, under my breath, “I’ve killed him.”

“Daaad!”

I put the busted model back on my desk, threw the two envelopes and everything else Rick had dumped onto the floor back into the purse, came out of the study door and rounded the corner into the laundry room, where I stuffed the purse into the empty washing machine.

I arrived in the front hall sweat-soaked, my heart pounding, wondering who I’d have to hit in the head next.

Evidently, it was going to be Officer Greslow.

She was decked out once again in her deep blue uniform, hat, and broad black holster from which hung, among other things, what appeared to be a very large gun. A radio clipped to a strap across her chest crackled. How did they get here so fast? I wondered. How did they know I had a suspected killer in the house? Who cared? It was time to talk. Time to tell everything.

“God, Dad, thanks a lot,” Angie said upon seeing me. Her eyes were red; she’d been crying.

“Why, Mr. Walker,” Officer Greslow said. “Imagine running into you again.”

“Yes, hello,” I said, feeling a mixture of relief and anxiety. “Well, I can’t believe you’re here. Were you watching the house, was that it?”