Velocity

explanation for the call that had been placed from this house to Billy’s place soon after the murder; and he still had not decided what to tell them.
    Other issues, things he didn’t know about, might point the finger of suspicion at him. Circumstantial evidence.
    Perhaps the ultimate intention of the killer was to frame Billy for these murders and for others.
    Undeniably, the freak saw this as a game. The rules, if any, were known only to him.
    Likewise, the definition of victory was known only to him. Ginning the pot, capturing the king, scoring the final touchdown might mean, in this case, sending Billy to prison for life not for any rational reason, not so the freak himself could escape justice, but for the sheer fun of it.
    Considering that he could not even discern the shape of the playing field, Billy didn’t relish being interrogated by Sheriff John palmer.
    He needed time to think. A few hours at least. Until dawn. “I’m sorry,” he told Lanny.
    He switched off one of the bedside lamps and then the other. If the house glowed like a centenarian’s birthday cake through the night, someone might notice. And wonder. Everyone knew Lanny Olsen was an early-to-bed guy.
    The house stood at the highest and loneliest point of the deadend lane. Virtually no one drove up here unless they were coming to see Lanny, and no one was likely to visit during the next eight or ten hours.
    Midnight had turned Tuesday to Wednesday. Wednesday and Thursday were Lanny’s days off. No one would miss him at work until Friday.
    Nevertheless, one by one, Billy returned to the other upstairs rooms and switched off those lights as well.
    He doused the hall lights and went down the stairs, uneasy about all the darkness at his back.
    In the kitchen, he closed the door to the porch and locked it.
    He intended to take Lanny’s spare key with him.
    As he went forward once more through the first floor, he turned off all the lights, including the ceramic gas-fueled logs in the den fireplace, using the barrel of the handgun to flip the switches.
    Standing on the front porch, he locked that door as well, and wiped the knob.
    He felt watched as he descended the steps. He surveyed the lawn, the trees, glanced back at the house.
    All the windows were black, and the night was black, and Billy walked away from that closed darkness into an open darkness under an India-ink sky in which stars seemed to float, seemed to tremble.
     
     
     

Chapter 14
     
    He walked briskly downhill along the shoulder of the lane, ready to take cover in the roadside brush if headlights appeared.
    Frequently, he glanced back. As far as he could tell, no one followed him.
    Moonless, the night favored a stalker. It should have favored Billy, too, but he felt exposed by the stars.
    At the house with the chest-high fence, the half-seen dog once more raced back and forth along the pickets, beseeching Billy with a whimper. It sounded desperate.
    He sympathized with the animal and understood its condition. His plight, however, and his need to plan left him no time to stop and console the beast.
    Besides, every expression of desired friendship has potential bite. Every smile reveals the teeth.
    So he continued down the lane, and glanced behind, and held tight to the revolver, and then turned left into the meadow where he waded through the grass in a fear of snakes.
    One question pressed upon him more urgently than others: Was the killer someone he knew or a stranger?
    If the freak had been in Billy’s life well prior to the first note, a secret sociopath who could no longer keep his homicidal urges bottled up, identifying him might be difficult but possible. Analysis of relationships and a search of memory with an eye for anomaly might unearth clues. Deductive reasoning and imagination would likely paint a face, spell out a twisted motive.
    In the event that the freak was a stranger who selected Billy at random for torment and eventual destruction, detective work would be more difficult. Imagining a face never seen and sounding for a motive in a vacuum would not prove easy.
    Not long ago in the history of the world, routine daily violence—excluding the ravages of nations at war—had been largely personal in nature. Grudges, slights to honor, adultery, disputes over money triggered the murderous impulse.
    In the modern world, more in the postmodern, most of all in the post-postmodern, much violence had become impersonal. Terrorists, street gangs, lone sociopaths,