the front door he found he had a slight bounce in his step. He had wanted to leave the life he had become a slave to for a long time now: the hospital, Summit County, Lynette. But he always felt he had too much invested to simply pack up and leave. Nevertheless, necessity was not only the mother of invention, but also of motivation. Getting ratted to the cops by his duplicitous wife was, ironically, the best thing that could have happened to him.
He had become untethered, unconditionally free.
In the living room, stepping over the sheriff’s body to retrieve the Polaroids from the coffee table, Spencer’s gaze fell on Lynette. Although slumped backward on the chesterfield, she had remained in an upright position. She could have been knitting, or watching television, except for the fact she was missing her head from her mandible up.
Had he ever loved her? he wondered. Yes, he thought he had. He had been lonely in those early years after being kicked out of the Church of Satan, he had needed companionship, and she had offered it to him. She was never a great conversationalist, and she didn’t have many original ideas of her own, but she was a good listener. And he supposed that’s what he’d wanted. Someone to listen to him, to agree with him, to admire him.
Spencer slipped the photographs into his blazer pocket and went to the front door. He paused on the front porch to watch a magnificent display of lightning, then he carried the suitcase and duffel bag to the Volvo, loading both onto the backseat. He was about to return to the house, to collect the contents of the ottoman from his study—the police might eventually piece together his role in all that happened this evening, but he saw no need to make it easy for them—when a voice said, “Not so fast, Spence.”
Spencer whirled around. Squinting against the onslaught of rain, he made out a shape emerging from the nearby trees. Thunder boomed and lightning flared almost simultaneously, and in the brief heavenly illumination he recognized Cleavon. His brother held a long, thick branch in his hand.
“Cleave…?” Spencer said in disbelief.
How the hell had he gotten free of the church?
“Who blew the whistle on you, Spence?”
“My, er—my wife, Lynette, if you can believe that.”
“So you killed her, did ya?”
Spencer cleared his throat. “There was no other choice.”
“And the sheriff too?”
“Again, there was—”
“No choice.” Cleavon nodded. “Just like there wasn’t no choice but to burn everyone alive in the church, that right?”
“This was your mess, Cleave. Weasel, Jesse—they were your friends. They screwed up, not me. Someone had to take the fall.”
“And Floyd and Earl? They were your brothers.”
“It’s…unfortunate, yes… I certainly didn’t want to—”
“And me, Spence? What about me?”
“Christ, Cleave! Don’t—” Thunder drowned out the rest of the sentence. “Don’t get all maudlin on me,” he repeated. “You left me no choice. You would never have agreed to—”
“That woman wasn’t your first, was she? That Mary? How many people you killed, Spence?”
“What does it matter?”
“It don’t. But I’m curious.”
“Forty one,” he said. “Plus Mary and the eight you know about.”
“What’s that? Fifty?” Cleavon whistled. “You’re slicker than greased goose shit, Spence. That’s gotta be a record or something. And I didn’t never suspect nothing. Not ’till that Mary anyhow.”
“Yes, well, now you know,” Spencer said impatiently. “Your older brother is a serial killer. And so are you. Now, I have a long drive ahead of me…” As he spoke he reached into the blazer pocket for the sheriff’s revolver.
Cleavon was unexpectedly fast. He covered the distance between them almost instantaneously, swinging the branch in his hand as he came. The business end struck Spencer in the face with bone shattering force, spinning him about. He landed on the macadam, on his chest, dazed. He rolled onto his back, blinking stars from his vision, wondering what happened to the revolver.
Cleavon loomed over him, backlit by a burst of lighting that electrified the black sky, turning it a deep-sea blue. He raised the branch with both hands.
Spencer opened his mouth but choked on the blood pooling inside his mouth. Nothing came out but a garbled, incomprehensible plea.
Cleavon felt no pity as he brought the tree branch down with all his strength across the top of his brother’s skull. He repeated this action again and again, payback for Earl, for Floyd, for Jesse, even for that dumb shit Weasel.
Then, panting hard with exertion, his eyes tearing from sweat and rain, he