He hurried through the gate, saw no one in the glare of the motion-sensor lights.

Scanning the back porch, he noticed that the small wooden door that covered Festus’s private exit when it wasn’t in use had been closed and bolted.

That was his last conscious thought before something hard struck him in the back of the head.

The pain followed him into oblivion, throbbed there, his only link to the world outside his brain and the rest of his body.

Presently, he surfaced, only to find himself lying facedown in hard-crusted Montana snow. Crimson blood poured down the sides of his face and his neck and pooled around his head like a gruesome halo.

Festus was still barking, still slamming himself against the barriers keeping him inside.

“Easy boy,” he whispered. It was a reflex.

Someone was crouching beside him now; he saw small booted feet, worn jeans, a man’s heavy coat.

“You love your dog,” said Gretchen Lansing, in a strange singsong voice. “Freddie loved his dogs, too. It’s a good thing he died before you had them taken away, Sheriff Know-it-all, because losing them would have killed him as sure as that noose when it tightened around his neck.” She paused. “Once I’m sure you’re done for, I’ll dispose of the dog.”

Eli scoured the depths of his brain and brought up a question. “Did you kill your son, Gretchen?”

She gave an ugly laugh. “Freddie hasn’t done nothin’ I told him to do since he was a babe in arms. He hung himself because...well, things just got too hard for him, after that internet slut called him a lying creep and turned her back on him.”

Eli remembered his Dick Tracy watch and moved his hands, which were alongside his broken head, to press the SOS button.

He managed that, but not before Gretchen stood up and kicked him hard in the side.

The blow cracked a few ribs, and he suppressed a groan. “You won’t get away with this, Gretchen,” he said reasonably. Thickly. “The place is wired. There are cameras, and even if you find them, you’ll be arrested, because everything is being logged, back at my office.”

For God’s sake, Connie, notice the blip and tune in.

“I don’t care if I go to jail,” Gretchen informed him. “I’ve got nothing left, now that Freddie’s gone. Nothing.”

“What about Fred, Sr.?”

“He’s a bastard. I hope he rots in hell.”

“Did you kill Tiffany Ulbridge?” Eli spoke very slowly, very deliberately, hoping he’d asked the question aloud, instead of just thinking it. He was fading again, being sucked down into some yawning abyss.