Virgil walked up to him. The guy was holding the gun in one hand, and Virgil snatched it away from him, then turned and kicked the guy in the ass—hard. “You fuckhead, you could have killed me. Jesus Christ, I oughta beat the crap out of you. I mean . . . Jesus, going around pointing a shotgun.”

“I thought . . .” the guy moaned, squeezing his ass with one hand.

“You think you see the sniper, call the cops,” Virgil shouted. He was still furious. He broke open the gun’s action and ejected two shells that looked as old as the gun itself.

A woman came out from behind the garage and asked the heavyset man, “Now what have you done, Bram?”

Virgil, shaking his head, shouted at him again, “You fuckin’ moron . . .”

Bram said, “There aren’t any cops. You know how long it takes a cop to get here? A half hour, if you’re lucky. If you live in this town, you take care of yourself.”

Virgil looked at him for another few seconds, then tossed the gun back to him. He kept the shells. “You point this fuckin’ gun at anyone else, I swear to God I’ll stick it so far up your ass you’ll blow your head off if you sneeze.”

“I thought you was the sniper . . .”

Virgil shook his head again. “Man!”

—

Virgil turned to the woman. “Thank you for helping out. I apologize for the language, but he scared me to death.”

“He didn’t mean no harm,” she said, anxiously twisting her hands together. She was also heavyset and also windburned; they had to be husband and wife, Virgil realized.

“Doesn’t make any difference if he meant no harm,” Virgil said, his voice softening. “If he’d jiggled that trigger, he’d have cut me in half.”

Bram and Laura Smit—“Not Smith, Smit, ending with the ‘t’”—disagreed about the sniper’s gunshots. They’d been home when the two shootings took place, and Laura Smit hadn’t heard anything that might have been a gunshot. Bram thought he might have, but was uncertain.

Laura said, “That was your tinnitus, honey.”

Bram shook his head. “I’ll tell you why I know I heard it. Because with the second one, I called it before we knew anybody was shot.”

“That’s true,” Laura admitted.

Now Virgil was interested. “What did it sound like, exactly? Was it close by?”