In the kitchen, Stormy brandished her stainless-steel baton, looking for a skull to fracture, and I snatched up a rolling pin that lay on a disk of pie dough, on the pastry-friendly marble slab inlaid in the butcher’s-block island. We were ready for anything now, unless the anything had a gun.

“Pigurines,” Stormy whispered.

Someone collected cute ceramic and glass and carved-wood pigs, which were lined up atop the refrigerator, peeking between bottles on the spice shelves, displayed on the windowsills, clustered on the center of the work island and on the dinette table. There were pigs in frock coats and bib overalls and Santa Claus costumes, in tuxedos and party dresses. Here a pig stood in mid-pirouette, and there a pig played a banjo.

Where the walls weren’t hung with cabinets and appliances, they featured framed needlepoint samplers with decorative borders and clichés meant to comfort: Home Is Where the Heart Is, Sunshine Always Follows the Rain….

Abruptly the framed samplers rattled against the walls, and the pigs clinked against one another, as if a mild earthquake shook Pico Mundo.

Unnerved, I turned, and Stormy turned, and behind us stood the spirit, which manifested with his neck intact.

“You see something?” she asked.

“Dead guy.”

“What’s he doing?”

His blue eyes were gas-flame bright, his face tortured by conflicting emotions. As if demanding justice, he pointed at me. Baring his clenched teeth, he thrust the same finger toward the ceiling, and like Clark Kent in an emergency that allowed no time for changing into cape and tights, he shot out of the kitchen and through the plaster overhead, causing no damage in his sudden exit.

“What just happened?” Stormy whispered.

“Well, basically, pointing the way, he flew through the ceiling. The killer must be upstairs.”

“Let’s get him.”

“I can handle this myself.”

“Boyfriend, you’re not going up there alone.”

I raised the rolling pin. “This is all I need.”

Raising the steel baton, she said, “And this is all I need.”

“Sometimes you make me nuts.”

She smiled. “You wouldn’t love me if I didn’t.”

We went upstairs.

Four

The stairs creaked. They always creaked when creaking could lead to your death, and they never creaked when creaking didn’t matter. The universe is anthropic, meaning that its design makes possible and sustains intelligent life, especially human beings. Nevertheless, I perceive some power, some presence, some adversary behind the scenes that by countless devices subtle or blunt seeks to destroy us. On the second floor, the master bedroom, a second bedroom, a bathroom, and a hall closet were deserted, but all the door hinges squeaked or rasped, or did both.

Two women were in the third bedroom, at the back of the house. They looked up, frightened, when I pushed open the door.

The youngest of the two was an attractive blonde in her late twenties. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, fully clothed but chained to a steel ring that had been welded to the bed frame.