Velocity

bandage on both the entrance and exit wounds. This would help prevent filth from working into the puncture.
    More important, the liquid bandage—which dried into a flexible rubbery seal—should inhibit further bleeding.
    The plethora of pharmacy bottles each contained a few tablets or capsules. Evidently Lanny had been a bad patient who never quite finished a course of medication, but always reserved a portion with which to treat himself in the future.
    Billy found two prescriptions for an antibiotic—Cipro, 500 mg. One bottle contained three tablets, the other five.
    He combined all eight into one bottle. He peeled the label off and threw it in the waste can.
    More than infection, he worried about inflammation. If his hand swelled and stiffened, he would be at a disadvantage in whatever confrontation might be coming.
    Among the medications, he discovered Vicodin. It would not prevent inflammation but would relieve pain if that grew worse. Four tablets remained, and he added those to the Cipro.
    Keeping time with his pulse, an ache throbbed in his wounded hand. And when he looked again at the photograph of the redhead, pain of a different character, emotional rather than physical, swelled too.
    Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others gives rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.
    In the redhead’s eyes, pure terror. In her face, the wretched recognition of her fate.
    He had not been able to save her. But if the freak had played the game according to his rules, she had not been tortured.
    As Billy’s attention shifted from her face to the room behind her, he recognized his bedroom. She had been held captive in Billy’s house. She had been killed there.
     
     
     

Chapter 55
     
    Sitting on the edge of the tub in Lanny’s bathroom, holding the photo of the redhead, Billy worked out the chronology of the murder.
    The psychopath had called—when?—perhaps around twelve-thirty in the afternoon, earlier this same day, after the sergeants had left and after Cottle had been wrapped for disposal. For Billy, he had played the recording that offered two choices: the redhead tortured to death; the redhead murdered with a single shot or thrust.
    Even at that time, the killer already held her captive. Almost surely he let her listen to the tape as he played it over the phone.
    At one o’clock, Billy had left for Napa. Thereafter, the killer brought the woman into the house, took this snapshot, and killed her cleanly.
    When the freak found Ralph Cottle wrapped in the tarp and stowed behind the sofa, his spirit of fun had been engaged. He swapped them, the young woman for the stewbum.
    Billy had unknowingly dropped the redhead down the lava pipe, thereby denying her family the little solace that might come from having a body to bury.
    This switch of cadavers felt like Zillis: this adolescent humor, the casualness with which he could sometimes deliver a mean joke.
    Steve had not gone to work until six o’clock. He would have been free to play.
    But now the creep was at the tavern. He could not have propped Cottle on the sofa and fired the nail gun.
    Billy glanced at his wristwatch. Eleven-forty-one.
    He made himself look at the redhead again because he thought he was going to bundle the photo with other evidence and drop it down the volcanic vent. He wanted to remember her, felt obliged to fix her face in memory forever.
    When the freak had played the recorded message over the phone, if this woman had been there, bound and gagged and listening, perhaps she had also heard Billy’s reply: Waste the bitch.
    Those words had spared her torture, but now they tortured Billy.
    He could not throw away her photo. Keeping the snapshot was not a prudent act; it was dangerous. Yet he folded it, being careful not to crease her face, and tucked it in his wallet.
    Warily, he went out to the Explorer. He thought he would know if the freak was still nearby, watching. The night felt safe, and clean.
    He put the punctured latex glove in the trash bag, and pulled on a fresh one. He unplugged his cell phone and took it with him.
    In the house again, he went through all the rooms from top to bottom, gathering all evidence into a plastic garbage bag, including the photo of Giselle Winslow (which he would not keep), the cartoon hands, the nail…
    Finished, he put