“Is no scope for carbine. Vould be too far. Ve do not have money to buy scope.”

“You’re ingenious, Ragen,” she whispered. “We have a telescope. You could adapt it and make cross hairs to do the job. ” Ragen shook her off.

But April kept at it, reminding Ragen of the things Chalmer had done—especially to the children. Knowing how much he cared for Christene, she made it a point to remind him of the abuse Christene had taken.

“I do it,” he said.

He took two hairs from his head and carefully wet them to the inside of the eyepiece. Then he went up to the roof and, sighting through the homemade scope, dropped BB’s, to a small black spot on the ground below. Once he felt it was accurate enough to do the job, he glued the cross hairs in place, mounted the eyepiece on the carbine and took it out in the woods to test it. He would be able to hit Chalmer from the rise across from his new house.

The next morning, an hour before the time Chalmer usually went to work at his foreman job in Columbus, Ragen drove to his neighborhood, parked the car and slipped into the wooded area across from the house. He positioned himself behind the tree, waiting for Chalmer to come out. He trained his scope on the door he knew Chalmer would have to walk through to get to his car.

“Don’t do it,” Arthur said aloud.

“He must die,” Ragen said.

“This does not come under the heading of being necessary for survival.”

“It comes under protect vomans and children. He has hurt children. He must die to pay for it.”

Arthur, knowing that argument was useless, brought Christene to the edge of the spot and showed her what Ragen was doing. She cried and stamped her feet and pleaded with Ragen not to do bad things.

Ragen clenched his teeth. Chalmer was coming through the door. Ragen reached over and removed the nine-shot clip. With the rifle chamber empty, he sighted through the eyepiece, centered Chalmer in the cross hairs and gently pulled the trigger. Then he put the rifle over his shoulder, went back to the car and drove home to the new apartment.

That day Arthur said, “April is insane, a menace to all of us.” And he banished her from the spot.

(3)

“Kevin” was alone in the apartment when the doorbell rang. He opened the door and saw a beautiful young woman smiling at him.

“I called Barry Hart,” Marlene said, “and he told me you had this place of your own. I enjoyed our talk at his party that time, and I thought I’d see how you were.”

Kevin had no idea what she was talking about, but he motioned for her to come in. “I was feeling pretty low,” he said, “until I opened this door.”

Marlene spent the evening with him, looking at his paintings and talking about people they knew. She was glad she’d made the first move and come to see him. It made her feel very close to him.