Mr. Murder

order. His imagination did not lead him toward vigilante solutions, situational ethics, or anarchism.
        Blank.
        Worried about his ability to cope when so much was riding on him, Marty picked up the kitchen phone and called the Delorios.
        When Kathy answered on the first ring, he said, "It's Marty."
        "Marty, are you okay? We saw all the police leaving, and then the officer over here left, too, but nobody's made the situation clear to us.
        I mean, is everything all right? What in the world is going on?"
        Kathy was a good neighbor and genuinely concerned, but Marty had no intention of wasting time in a full recounting of what he'd been through with either the would-be killer or the police. "Where are Charlotte and Emily?"
        "Watching TV."
        "Where?"
        "Well, in the family room."
        "Are your doors locked?"
        "Yes, of course, I think so."
        "Be sure. Check them. Do you have a gun?"
        "A gun? Marty, what is this?"
        "Do you have a gun?" he insisted.
        "I don't believe in guns. But Vic has one."
        "Is he carrying it now?"
        "No. He's-"
        "Tell him to load it and carry it until Paige and I can get there to pick up the girls."
        "Marty, I don't like this. I don't-"
        "Ten minutes, Kathy. I'll pick up the girls in ten minutes or less fast as I can."
        He hung up before she was able to respond.
        He hurried upstairs to the guest room that doubled as Paige's home office. She did the family bookkeeping, balanced the check book, and looked after the rest of their financial affairs.
        In the right-hand bottom drawer of the pine desk were files o receipts, invoices, and canceled checks. The drawer also contained their checkbook and savings-account passbook, which Marty retrieved fixed together with a rubberband. He stuffed them into the pocket of his chinos.
        His mind wasn't blank any more. He'd thought of some precautions he ought to take, though they were too feeble to be considered a plan of action.
        In his office he went to the walk-in storage closet and hastily selected four cardboard cartons from stacks of thirty to forty boxes ol the same size and shape. Each held twenty hardcover books. He could only carry two at a time to the garage. He put them in the trunk of the BMW, wincing from the pain in his neck, which the effort exacerbated.
        Entering the master bedroom after his second hasty trip to the car, he was brought up short just past the threshold by the sight of Paige snatching up the shotgun and whipping around to confront him.
        "Sorry," she said, when she saw who it was.
        "You did it right," he said. "Have you gotten the girls' things together?"
        "No, I'm just finishing here."
        "I'll get started on theirs," he said.
        Following the blood trail to Charlotte and Emily's room, passin the broken-out section of gallery railing, Marty glanced at the foyer floor below. He still expected to see a dead man sprawled on the cracked tiles.
        Charlotte and Emily were slumped on the Delorios' family-room sofa, heads close together. They were pretending to be deeply involved in a stupid television comedy show about a stupid family with stupid kids and stupid parents doing stupid things to resolve a stupid problem.
        As long as they appeared to be caught up in the program, Mrs. Delorio stayed in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Mr. Delorio either paced through the house or stood at the front windows watching the cops outside. Ignored, the girls had a chance to whisper to each other and try to figure out what was happening at home.
        "Maybe Daddy's been shot," Charlotte worried.
        "I told you already a million times he wasn't."
        "What do you know? You're only seven."
        Emily sighed. "He told us he was okay, in the kitchen, when Mommy thought he was hurt."
        "He was covered with blood," Charlotte fretted.
        "He said it wasn't his."
        "I don't remember that."
        "I do," Emily said emphatically.
        "If Daddy wasn't shot, then who was?"
        "Maybe a burglar," Emily said.
        "We're not rich, Em. What would a burglar want in our place?
        Hey, maybe Daddy had to shoot Mrs. Sanchez."
        "Why shoot Mrs. Sanchez? She's just the cleaning lady."
        "Maybe she went berserk," Charlotte said, and the possibility appealed