The Husband

dressing.
    The door stood open to the dark bathroom.
    Like a dowser's divining rod, the pistol guided him to that darkness. Crossing the threshold, he flipped the light switch and with bated breath stepped into the bathroom brightness.
    He expected to find something grotesque in the shower or a severed something in the sink. But all was normal.
    His face in the mirror was clenched with dread, as tight as a fist, but his eyes were as wide as they had ever been and were no longer blind to anything.
    Returning to the bedroom, he noticed something out of place on the nightstand with the extinguished lamp. He clicked the switch.
    Two colorful polished spheres of dinosaur dung stood there on small bronze stands.
    Although they were opaque, they made him think of crystal balls and sinister fortunetellers in old movies, predicting dire fates.
    "Anson," Mitch whispered, and then a word uncommon to him, "My God. Oh, God."

Chapter 37

     
    The hard winds that came out of the eastern mountains were usually born with the rising or setting of the sun. Now, many hours after sunset, and hours before sunrise, a strong spring wind suddenly blew down upon the lowlands as if it had burst through a great door.
    Along the alleyway where wind whistled, to the Chrysler, Mitch hurried but with the hesitant heart of a man making the short journey from his cell on death row to the execution chamber.
    He didn't take time to roll down the windows. As he drove, he opened only the one in the driver's door.
    A gruff wind huffed at him, pawed his hair, its breath warm and insistent.
    Insane men lack self-control. They see conspiracies all around them and reveal their lunacy in irrational anger, in ludicrous fears. Genuinely insane men don't know they are deranged, and therefore they see no need to wear a mask.
    Mitch wanted to believe that his brother was insane. If Anson was instead acting with cold-blooded calculation, he was a monster. If you had admired and loved a monster, your gullibility should shame you. Worse, it seemed that by your willingness to be deceived, you empowered the monster. You shared at least some small portion of the responsibility for his crimes.
    Anson did not lack self-control. He never spoke of conspiracies. He feared nothing. As for masks, he had an aptitude for misdirection, a talent for disguise, a genius for deception. He was not insane.
    Along the night streets, queen palms thrashed, like madwomen in frenzies tossing their hair, and bottle-brush trees shed millions of scarlet needles that were the petals of their exotic flowers.
    The land rose, and low hills rolled into higher hills, and in the wind were scraps of paper, leaves, kiting pages from newspapers, a large transparent plastic bag billowing along like a jellyfish.
    His parents' house was the only one on the block with lights in the windows.
    Perhaps he should have been discreet, but he parked in the driveway. He put up the window, left the pistol in the car, brought the flashlight.
    Filled with voices of chaos, rich with the smell of eucalyptus, the wind lashed the walkway with tree shadows.
    He did not ring the doorbell. He had no false hope, only an awful need to know.
    As he had thought it might be, the house was unlocked. He stepped into the foyer and closed the door behind him.
    To his left, to his right, an uncountable number of Mitches receded from him in a mirror world, all of them with a ghastly expression, all of them lost.
    The house was not silent, for the wind gibbered at windows, groaned in the eaves, and eucalyptus trailers scourged the walls.
    In Daniel's study, a spectacle of shattered glass display shelves glittered on the floor, and scattered everywhere were the colorful polished spheres, as if a poltergeist had played billiards with them.
    Room by room, Mitch searched the first floor, turning on lights where they were off. In truth, he expected to find nothing more on this level of the big house, and he did not. He told himself that he was just being thorough. But he knew that he was delaying his ascent to the second floor.
    At the stairs, he gazed up, and heard himself say, "Daniel," but not loud, and "Kathy," no louder.
    For what awaited Mitch, he should have had to descend. Climbing to it seemed all wrong. Sepulchers are not constructed at the tops of towers.
    As he climbed, nature's long exhale grew more fierce. Windows thrummed. Roof beams creaked.
    In the upstairs hall, a black object lay on the polished wood floor: the shape of an