Dark Rivers of the Heart

behind a white picket fence. The front lawn featured two enormous bare-limbed sycamores.
        Lights were on inside, but only at the back of the house and only on the first floor.
        Standing at the front door, sheltered from the rain by a deep portico supported on tall white columns, Roy could hear music inside: a Beatles number, "When I'm Sixty-four." He was thirty-three; the Beatles were before his time, but he liked their music because much of it embodied an endearing compassion.
        Softly humming along with the lads from Liverpool, Roy slipped a credit card between the door and the jamb. He worked it upward until it forced open the first-and least formidable-of the two locks. He wedged the card in place to hold the simple spring latch out of the niche in the striker plate.
        To open the heavy-duty deadbolt, he needed a more sophisticated tool than a credit card: a Lockaid lock-release gun, sold only to law-enforcement agencies. He slipped the thin pick of the gun into the key channel, under the pin tumblers, and pulled the trigger. The flat steel spring in the Lockaid caused the pick to jump upward and to lodge some of the pins at the shear line. He had to pull the trigger half a dozen times to fully disengage the lock.
        The snapping of hammer against spring and the clicking of pick against pin tumblers were not thunderous sounds, by any measure, but he was grateful for the cover provided by the music. "When I'm Sixty-four" ended as he opened the door. Before his credit card could fall, he caught it, froze, and waited for the next song. To the opening bars of "Lovely Rita " he stepped across the threshold.
        He put the lock-release gun on the floor, to the right of the entrance.
        Quietly, he closed the door behind him.
        The foyer welcomed him with gloom. He stood with his back against the door, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows.
        When he was confident that he would not blindly knock over any furniture, he proceeded from room to room, toward the light at the back of the house.
        He regretted that his clothes were so saturated and his galoshes so dirty. He was probably making a mess of the carpet.
        She was in the kitchen, at the sink, washing a head of lettuce, her back to the swinging door through which he entered. Judging by the vegetables on the cutting board, she was preparing a salad.
        Easing the door shut behind him, hoping to avoid startling her, he debated whether or not to announce himself He wanted her to know that it was a concerned friend who had come to comfort her, not a stranger with sick motives.
        She turned off the running water and placed the lettuce in a plastic colander to drain. Wiping her hands on a dish towel, turning away from the sink, she finally discovered him as "Lovely Rita" drew to an end.
        Mrs. Bettonfield looked surprised but not, in the first instant, afraidwhich was, he knew, a tribute to his appealing, soft-featured face. He was slightly pudgy, with dimples, and had skin so beardless that it was almost as smooth as a boy's. With his twinkling blue eyes and warm smile, he would make a convincing Santa Claus in another thirty years. He believed that his kindheartedness and his genuine love of people were also apparent, because strangers usually warmed to him more quickly than a merry face alone could explain.
        While Roy still was able to believe that her wide-eyed surprise would fade into a smile of welcome rather than a grimace of fear, he raised the Beretta 93-R and shot her twice in the chest. A silencer was screwed to the barrel; both rounds made only soft popping sounds.
        Penelope Bettonfield dropped to the floor and lay motionless on her side, with her hands still entangled in the dish towel. Her eyes were open, staring across the floor at his wet, dirty galoshes.
        The Beatles began "Good Morning, Good Morning." It must be the Sgt.
        Pepper album.
        He crossed the kitchen, put the pistol on the counter, and crouched beside Mrs. Bettonfield. He pulled off one of his supple leather gloves and placed his fingertips to her throat, searching for a pulse in her carotid artery. She was dead.
        One of the two rounds was so perfectly placed that it must have pierced her heart. Conse uentl with circulation halted in an instant she had not bled much.
        Her death had been a graceful escape: quick and clean, painless and without