Relentless

sure that our shoulder rigs were snugged, pistols ready. Each of us had a spare magazine.
    Nevertheless, I felt like a mouse. I think she did, too.
    Because I didn’t want to be seen approaching the former Landulf residence, we avoided the paved road. I led the way and Milo took middle position through the trees for about fifty yards, after which we came to the long meadow that gradually sloped toward the south, where we should find the house on the higher ground.
    A vehicle went by on the road: engine noise and headlights. The fog prevented me from identifying category, make, or model.
    In the drowned light, under the hundred-fathom weight of the threat that hung over us, trudging up the meadow, I felt like a deep-sea diver making his way toward a sunken ship, seeking something of value in the wreckage.
    The house loomed out of the murk, a handsome Victorian wrapped by a veranda. A garage stood separate from it.
    I intended to break a window, but Penny said, “Better knock.”
    “If there’s anybody here, it’s a ghost.”
    “Just to be safe—knock.”
    We climbed the front steps. Finding a doorbell, I rang it.
    Just as I was about to turn away, a light came on behind the curtained glass panels that flanked the door.
    “Uh-oh,” Penny said.
    The door was opened by a sixtyish man who looked as if he had hound dog in his heritage. His eyes were large and sad, and the bags under them would yield enough skin to make a pair of leather gloves. His jowls, dewlaps, and heavy slumped shoulders gave an impression of age and weariness. But he was a big guy with large hands. A second look suggested that he would be a formidable adversary in a fight.
    “Can I help you folks?” he asked.
    Having thought the house was deserted, I had prepared no story to use if someone answered the bell.
    Now I heard myself saying, “Good morning, sir. If you have the time, we’d like to sit awhile and talk to you about Jesus.”
    “Well, son,” he said, “I admire you spreading the word, but I’ve got a church I’ve gone to thirty years, no need to change.”
    I knew a good door-to-door evangelist would not give up easily, but I had no idea what one would say next, so I smiled and nodded and rolled my tongue around in my mouth, hoping it would find some words.
    Penny said, “Excuse me, sir, but aren’t you Sheriff Walbert?”
    “I used to be, ma’am. Now I’m just Walbert, first name Truman.”
    “It was wrong what they did to you,” said Penny.
    “Well, ma’am, much of what people do to one another is wrong, and most of it’s worse than what was done to me.”
    Disoriented more than I had been in the fog, I smiled at Penny as I imagined a door-to-door evangelist might smile at his evangelist wife when he wanted to know what the hell she was talking about.
    Penny said to me, “That reading I was doing. Mr. Walbert was sheriff when Tom … when all that happened here. He hardly got into the investigation before the county evoked a 62-and-out rule.”
    “Sheriff before me,” said Walbert, “didn’t retire till he was 72. The rule was never enforced before. Fact is, if you’ll pardon my cynicism, I’m not sure it existed before.”
    In the loop now, and reading in Penny’s demeanor that Walbert might be an ally, I gave him a chance to declare himself by saying, “Terrible thing Thomas Landulf did.”
    “Well, I’d say it’s a terrible thing whoever did it.”
    “But killing his own wife and daughter,” I said with dismay.
    “The true commandment is ‘Thou shalt not murder.’ It doesn’t say ‘kill’ in the original language, because killing’s a whole different thing from murder. Furthermore, Moses didn’t provide us categories of murder, some worse than others. If you’re going to go door-to-door for Jesus, Mr. Greenwich, you better learn-up a bit.”
    I winced at his use of my name, and said to Penny, “It’s this hair. I should have put on a hat.”
    “Sheriff,” she said, “I think we all know Tom Landulf didn’t kill anyone, and didn’t commit suicide. Your being here makes me think we all might benefit by swapping information.”
    “Better come in,” Walbert said.
    Penny and I took Milo into the house of murder, where the murdering was not yet finished.

   For Penny and me, Truman Walbert poured mugs of black coffee richer than most espressos I’ve tasted.
    “I read your books, Mr. Greenwich, because Tom recommended them, and he was right.” To Milo, he said, “Mr. Big, about