I thought briefly of Rolf, thought of going to Pennsylvania. I thought of Boyd, I knew he would not be married with a child. I thought of the local police station, of a warm cup of chocolate and someone to confide in.

I turned away from the phone booth, already exhausted, shoulders aching from the psychological load, and looked into the winter sky, saw a few snowflakes falling by the streetlight. The town was deserted. Of course. It was Christmas Eve.

I needed a place in which to heal, to change. I needed someone to help me, to teach me, to show me how.

And all of a sudden I knew where to go. Sarah. Surely her invitation was still good. She probably even had a Christmas tree.

“The police opened her apartment as soon as I arrived, which was about three days loo late. I, like, saw it when she killed that poor guy, that newspaper vendor, and when I read about it, I knew where she was and drove up there right away. Seems everybody in town knew Angelina, and everybody had nice things to say about her. About the worst comment I got was that she was a little odd, but nobody would believe that she could’ve done the damage she had.

“Until we opened her apartment.

“God, it was awful. The whole place was black. Walls, table, curtains, all black. It smelled like a den, or a lair, or a bat cave. There were the remnants of apparently what the cats had been eating for the days since she’d been gone. The cats smelled bad enough, but . . . well, it was pretty hard to take. The place was absolutely filthy, with the window open and the cats in and out, and more cats, and cats in heat and fighting and litters under the table, and oh, Jesus.

“The window in the back bedroom had been left open and rats had come in and nested in there, but the police chased them out and closed the window behind them.

“In the other bedroom was a mattress on the floor, all torn up and clawed, and a table with a coffin on it, for Christ’s sake. The policeman in front of me backed out of that room so fast he almost knocked me over. He crossed himself and wouldn’t go near it. I was afraid too, but knew it had to be opened. The other policemen were happy to let me do it.

“A yellow tom cat had draped himself across the top. I shooed him away and he spit at me and jumped down. The box was covered with a piece of blue or black terrycloth. I pulled it off—one side was all stiff, hardened. The police put it into a plastic bag. Under­neath was the coffin.