“He was dead,” she whispered.

“He’s dead, baby, it’s okay. You killed the bastard—”

“No!” she had snapped, pounding on his chest with her fist. “He was dead. I shot him over and over again. I didn’t miss once. Not once. He was dead.”

Crow looked at her and saw the truth of it in her eyes. Not shock, not delusion. He stood up and walked over to where Boyd lay, ignoring Dixie McVey, who was writing in his notebook. Crow squatted down and counted the bullet holes. Fifteen of them from Henry’s old .45. But it was worse than that, worse than even Val knew, and sometime soon he’d have to tell her. As Crow knelt there, using a Bic pen to lift the folds of Boyd’s clothing, he saw other bullet holes. Old ones. Nine of them. In belly and groin and chest. Nearly healed over. Nine shots. The number of bullets that had been fired from Jimmy Castle’s pistol. Nine. Nine and then Val’s fifteen, the last of which had been head shots. Twenty-four shots all told. It was, of course, impossible.

He looked at Boyd’s mouth, the jaw hung loose, twisted askew, the lips slack over the teeth. With hands that were starting to shake with a palsy of rising terror, Crow reached out and pushed back Boyd’s upper lip, looking at evidence of what he did not want to find; but the bullet had done too much damage and what was left of the teeth revealed no dark secrets. Crow got to his feet feeling no relief.

He turned and walked slowly back to Val and waved away the paramedic who was trying to usher her into the back of an ambulance. The paramedic must have seen something in his face; he held up his hands, palms out, and retreated to his vehicle.

Crow took Val in his arms, careful with her.

She leaned into him. “He was dead,” she said again.

He nodded. “I know.”

(2)

When they heard the shooting and saw Crow’s car pull into the driveway, Vic started his truck and he and Ruger drove without headlights down the farm access road all the way to the river, then Vic turned his lights on and headed first north then west until they had circled above the town proper. Most of the way they didn’t say anything.

Vic’s cell phone rang when they were just north of town. It was Jim Polk. Vic put it on speakerphone. “All hell’s breaking loose at the Guthrie place. Is that your stuff?” he asked.

Vic had to take a breath before he answered. All he said was, “Boyd.”

“Yeah, well that reporter from Black Marsh called in that Boyd was dead.”

Vic and Ruger exchanged a look. “What do you mean ‘dead’?” Vic said.

“I mean dead, what do you think I mean? I was the one that took the call,” said Polk. “Mark Guthrie’s dead, too, and someone else, some guy works at the farm.”

“What about Val Guthrie?” Vic asked hopefully. “She dead, too?”

“Not as far as I know.” He told Vic everything Newton had said. “What the hell happened out there?”

“None of your business.”

“There’s one more thing, Vic. We got a report that Terry Wolfe tried to kill himself.”

“What?” Vic yelled.

“Yeah. Threw himself out of a window…he’s in critical condition. They’re not sure if he’ll make it. Vic…what the hell’s happening?”

“I’ll get back to you. Keep me posted.” He hung up, slammed the cell phone down hard on the seat, and then punched the dashboard. “Shit!”

“Let me get this straight,” Ruger said in his whispery voice, “that bitch killed Boyd? How the hell did she manage that? I thought you said no one would know how to kill us. I mean…it’s not like that stake-through-the-heart shit actually works. So what happened?”

They stopped at a light and Vic pushed in the dashboard lighter and fished in his pocket for a cigarette. “I don’t know!”

“Oh, that’s just peachy. You got this great big master plan, you got wheels spinning within wheels, you own dozens of key people, and you can’t kill one woman?”

Vic stabbed the air in front of Ruger’s nose with his forefinger. “You can shove that up your ass, sport, because this was your plan, not mine. I should have just dragged her ass down to the swamp and fed her to the Man. But no, you gotta be some criminal mastermind and screw with their heads. This is your fault.”

Ruger turned away and looked out at the darkness. “This should have worked. With anyone else…it would have worked.” He turned back to Vic. “There’s something else going on here.”

The lighter popped and Vic pulled it, held it to his cigarette and the glow of it painted his face a hellish red. “Listen to me, sport,” he said. “These two are standing in the way of the Red Wave, and now they know that something hinky is going on around here.” He leaned close. “We can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t.”

“If Boyd’s really dead, then we have to get his body before they can do an autopsy. Let’s call that Priority One. I mean, if we have to burn down the shitting hospital, then that’s what we do. Accidents happen.”

“We can work something out,” Ruger said. “There are a lot of us now.”

“The thing is…Crow and that reporter were at the house. They were in the Hollow. How or why the Man couldn’t stop them I don’t know, but they were there, they got away, and they have a story to tell. Plus, that Guthrie bitch saw Boyd—she had to see what he was. All of them now know more than they should. Shutting them up or shutting them down is Priority Two. Problem is…with Wolfe out of action we can’t actually kill the son of a bitch anymore. Damn it.”

“Then we’re screwed.”

Vic sat in silence while the light turned yellow and then red again. A smile grew on Vic’s face like the slow spread of a disease. “Maybe not,” he said softly.

The light turned green again and Vic drove them both back home.

(3)

Crow’s cell rang while the paramedics were examining Val. He saw that it was Saul Weinstock and flipped it open. “Saul—thank God it’s you. I guess you heard…”

“I know, it’s horrible,” Weinstock said, sounding ragged. “I just can’t believe I didn’t see this coming.”

Crow hesitated. “What do you mean? How could you have foreseen something like this?”

“Well, come on, Crow,” Weinstock said, “we’ve all been watching him come apart for weeks now and—”

“Saul—what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Terry. What are you talking about?”

Crow told him.

“Holy shit!” Weinstock yelled. “My God. I didn’t know—I’ve been in the ER for the last hour working on Terry.”

“Terry? What the hell happened to him?”

“Crow…about ninety minutes ago Terry Wolfe threw himself out of his bedroom window. I’ve got a team of residents picking glass out of him, and he has forty broken bones, including a skull fracture.”

Crow took a wandering sideways step and sat down hard on the fender of his car. He looked wildly across the driveway to where Val was being tended to, and over at the bodies that crime scene investigators were examining. And at the thing that Val had shot fifteen times. Then he looked up at Newton, and all of that hit him, too.

“Crow? Crow—are you there?”

“Y-yeah, Saul…it’s just all…it’s too much.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Believe me—I think I do.”

“Believe me,” Weinstock insisted, “I think you don’t. We have to talk.”

“Not now, Saul…Val…I—”

“No, not now—but soon, Crow, as soon as we can. I need to talk to someone about what’s happening around here. I was going to tell you tomorrow morning. Crow, I’ve never been this scared before in my life!”

“I have,” Crow said hoarsely. “But not recently.”

“Crow—Pine Deep’s in real trouble,” Weinstock said softly.

“Yeah,” Crow agreed. “I think so, too.” Crow cleared his throat. “Look, they’re getting ready to bring Val in. I’m going with her. I’ll…see you at the ER.”

“Okay,” Weinstock said, and hung up.

Crow tried to walk calmly, normally, over to Val, but every third or fourth step he staggered, just a little. The paramedic was reaching down to help her up, but Crow gently pushed him to one side. “I got it,” he said and drew Val to her feet and then pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. “Let’s go.”

There was a look of hurt and panic in her eyes. “Mark—”

But Crow shook his head. “Sweetie, they’ll take care of him. We can’t do anything here, and Connie’s going to need us at the hospital when she wakes up.”

She searched his face with her one good eye; the other was once again wrapped in gauze. “What’s happening, Crow? Everything’s gone crazy.” Tears ran down her face and he bent and kissed her forehead, her cheek, and then her mouth, and as he did so a sob broke in his chest. They clung together, both of them crying as the paramedic fidgeted nearby looking greatly embarrassed.

Epilogue

(1)

Midnight. Little Halloween was over. The night around the hospital was immense, painting the windows a featureless black. Crow sat in the guest chair of what would become Val’s hospital room once she was finished in the ER. Crow had seen Weinstock for only a few seconds. Not enough time to talk as Weinstock ran alongside the gurney team that was wheeling José into surgery. Crow knew that he wouldn’t see him at all, probably not until tomorrow.

Newton came in and sat in the other chair, and they sat there in silence for five minutes, watching the black night beyond the glass. Finally, Crow said, “You file your story?”