“I was having a cup of coffee on the mayor’s porch, nodding and waving to the folks as they passed by with blankets and food and children, when that same boy came tearing down the street and ran right up to the porch, slamming the screen door behind him. He stood there, his face red, panting for breath, and he had to breathe hard for a minute or two before he could speak. He had the wild look of a scared rabbit in his eye.

“Mrs. Haskill, the mayor’s wife, came out, saw who it was, and said, ‘William!’ She looked at him with mild concern on her face. ‘Sit down here, Will, and I’ll get you a glass of juice.’

“ ‘No thanks, ma’am,’ Will said, then took some deep breaths. ‘I just need to talk to . . .’ He indicated me with a shake of his head.

“ ‘Boyd,’ I said.

“ ‘Mr. Boyd. Please, Mrs. Haskill?’ He was desperate for privacy.

“ ‘All right, of course,’ and she closed the door behind her.

“ ‘Sit down here, Will.’

“ ‘No thank you, sir. I caught her, sir. I caught her. I caught the killer. I put her in a box in my basement.’

“ ‘You did what?’

“ ‘She killed all those people. She killed our neighbors, and I could have stopped her, but I didn’t. I knew she was down there, she woke me up the other night, and I put Mom’s crucifix over her, but she got up that night and killed that family. I didn’t know about it until the meeting at the fairgrounds, but then I left there and went to Dad’s shop and built a big strong box; she’ll never get out of it, sir, and I put her in it and now I’m scared. I’m so scared. She’ll wake up at sundown, right? And she’ll know I did it. She woke me up one night, she was sitting on my bed . . .’ He began to cry. ‘Oh, God, it was awful.’

“I patted the boy’s shoulder and let him be alone for a moment while I went in for Kleenex and some of that juice Mrs. Haskill had. When I came back, he was hiccuping lightly, his face was still red and his eyes huge.

“ ‘Okay now, Will,’ I said, after he’d gulped some juice and blown his nose. ‘Tell me what she looked like.’

“ ‘Tiny,’ he said. ‘Little and blonde. Skinny. Real light, I had to pick her up to put her in the box. Real small, bony and cold. Cold like damp concrete. But light.’ He shivered. ‘She was sleeping in a little fortlike thing she’d made under the stairs in our house. I had to dismantle that and pull her out of it, then lift her into the box, and she never even twitched. I’d have thought she was dead, except that she was so . . .’ He moved his arms around.

“ ‘Limber?’