Twisted

the car when they really had talked.
    Pete looked at Doug’s pudgy face and couldn’t decide whether to believe him or not. He looked sort of innocent but Pete had learned that people who seemed innocent were sometimes the most guilty. Roy, the husband in Triangle, had been a church choir director. From the smiling picture in the book, you’d never guess he’d kill somebody.
    Thinking about the book, thinking about murder.
    Pete was scanning the field. Yes, there . . . about fifty feet away. A fence. Five feet high. It would work just fine.
    Fine . . .
    As fine as Mo.
    Who wanted Doug more than she wanted Pete.
    “What’re you looking for?” Doug asked.
    “Something to shoot.”
    And thought: Witnesses. That’s what I’m looking for.
    “Let’s go that way,” Pete said and walked toward the fence.
    Doug shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
    Pete studied it as they approached. Wood posts about eight feet apart, five strands of rusting wire.
    Not too easy to climb over but it wasn’t barbed wire like some of the fences they’d passed. Besides, Pete didn’t want it too easy to climb. He’d been thinking. He had a plan.
    Roy had thought about the murder for weeks. It had obsessed his every waking moment. He’d drawn charts and diagrams and planned every detail down to the nth degree. In his mind, at least, it was the perfect crime. . . .
    Pete now asked, “So what’s your girlfriend do?”
    “Uhm, my girlfriend? She works in Baltimore.”
    “Oh. Doing what?”
    “In an office. Big company.”
    “Oh.”
    They got closer to the fence. Pete asked, “You’re divorced? Mo was saying you’re divorced.”
    “Right. Betty and I split up two years ago.”
    “You still see her?”
    “Who? Betty? Naw. We went our separate ways.”
    “You have any kids?”
    “Nope.”
    Of course not. When you had kids you had tothink about somebody else. You couldn’t think about yourself all the time.
    Like Doug did.
    Like Mo.
    Pete was looking around again. For squirrels, for rabbits, for witnesses.
    Then Doug stopped and he looked around too. Pete wondered why but then Doug took a bottle of beer from his knapsack and drank the whole bottle down and tossed it on the ground. “You want something to drink?” Doug asked.
    “No,” Pete answered. It was good that Doug’d be slightly drunk when they found him. They’d check his blood. They did that. That’s how they knew Hank’d been drinking when they got what was left of the body (80 mph, after all) to the Colorado Springs hospital—they checked the alcohol in the blood.
    The fence was only twenty feet away.
    “Oh, hey,” Pete said. “Over there. Look.”
    He pointed to the grass on the other side of the fence.
    “What?” Doug asked.
    “I saw a couple of rabbits.”
    “You did? Where?”
    “I’ll show you. Come on.”
    “Okay. Let’s do it,” Doug said.
    They walked to the fence. Suddenly Doug reached out and took Pete’s rifle. “I’ll hold it while you climb over. Safer that way.”
    Jesus . . . Pete froze with terror. He realized now that Doug was going to do exactly what Pete had in mind. He’d been planning on holding Doug’s gun for him. And then when Doug was at the top of the fencehe was going to shoot him. Making it look like Doug had tried to carry his gun as he climbed the fence but he’d dropped it and it went off.
    Roy bet on the old law enforcement rule that what looks like an accident probably is an accident. . . .
    Pete didn’t move. He thought he saw something odd in Doug’s eyes, something mean and sarcastic. It reminded him of Mo’s expression. Pete took one look at those eyes and he could see how much Doug hated him and how much he loved Mo.
    “You want me to go first?” Pete asked. Not moving, wondering if he should just run.
    “Sure,” Doug said. “You go first. Then I’ll hand the guns over to you.” His eyes said, You’re not afraid of climbing over the fence, are you? You’re not afraid to turn your back on me, are you?
    Then Doug was looking around too.
    Looking for witnesses, just like Pete had been.
    “Go on,” Doug encouraged.
    Pete—his hands shaking now from fear—started to climb. Thinking: This is it. He’s going to shoot me. Last month I left the motel too early! Doug and Mo had kept talking and planned out how he was going to ask me down here and pretend to be all nice then he’d shoot me.
    Remembering it was Doug who’d suggested hunting.
    But if I run, Pete thought, he’ll