The murderer was already taunting me with visions, not only of my own death but of the deaths of others. I fantasized their bodies constantly: one of the Guys from the Brown House, anonymous, in the Long Orchard; my mother, who lived in a trailer off the grid with her abusive boyfriend; my father, a devout Christian.

In the woodshed off the garage, where, after abaloneing, he hung his wetsuit, itself the shape and size of his body. Splinters of kindling beneath his dangling feet.

He was left there for me to find.

They had coasted the pickup down the driveway, popping the clutch at the bottom of the hill, crossed the highway and climbed out. The pickup rolled empty to a stop against the embankment of the irrigation pond. To trick me into believing I was home alone, while his body rocked heavily against the windowless frame, facing out over the pasture. To trick me into finding him as I looked for the cat, who had heard, when I had not, the struggle. They’d wrestled him off the porch as he sat down to lace up his work boots, stiff with dried mud.

The corpse was nearly barefoot. It wore browned athletic socks.


I forced myself to look, knowing what I would find. Instead, on the ground, only the splinters, on the hook, only the wetsuit.

My breath eased out. My heart and my hands still shook. The immediate danger was over, but I felt disappointed.

Laura’s cat scrunched through a gap in the pasture fence, leaving a patch of black and white fur on the wire.

Here, Kitty.” I leaned to the ground, rubbing my fingers together.

The sooner it happened the better.

from The Book of Revelation

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