Becker did not anticipate that anyone was watching for him. He did not even expect to encounter anyone. Nor was it caution or training. He moved silent and all but invisible because he liked it, liked the feeling of cutting through the night like a blade, needed the deeply furtive and threatening sensation of being in the dark while others slept, of living with danger. Of being dangerous. Of being deadly.
There was something lupine in his nature, a heavy, uncivilizable part of himself that could be wrapped in the disguises demanded by his culture, trained to sing and dance and wear lace if the occasion required, but never truly tamed. A part of him that needed to be alone in the dark to mirror the black, unexamined corner of his soul. Becker did not know if all men shared this part of themselves, but he knew that some did. The ones who worked at night, the ones he hunted, the ones he understood far too well for his own peace of mind.
He entered the woods at the base of the hill, close to where the other car had been parked on the night of Kiwasee's death. Pulling the bike out of sight and laying it on the ground, Becker began the climb toward the grave, moving quietly, pausing every few yards to listen without the distraction of his own movement.
He had not gone far before he realized that he was not alone. He crouched instinctively, lowering his silhouette, his eyes scanning the darkness in front of him.
The gibbous moon was partially obscured by scudding clouds, and shapes within the forest leapt suddenly into high relief when the moon was clear, vanished into the general gloom when it was hidden. Becker crouched, waiting. He had not seen anything, or if he had, it had not registered consciously. He was aware only of a sensation, as real and undirected as the rising of hair on the back of his neck. Something was there, and close. And whatever it was, it was watching him, standing as motionless as he, and as patient.
The clouds parted, the breeze shifted the leaves into a slightly different pattern, the moonlight shone through where it had been dark before, and suddenly Becker saw it. A pair of points, gleaming green, directed straight at him. Already still, Becker froze, his muscles locked with a primal fear that took several seconds to drain away. The coyote was less than ten yards away, its head again cocked in three-quarter profile. Its mouth was open, the lips curled back to show long teeth glowing dimly. An owl lay motionless between the coyote's paws, the reason the coyote had not fled on Becker's approach, and, still gripped in the owl's talons, a rabbit, its body twitching. Becker imagined the lightning-fast chain of events that must have taken place in silence as he walked up the hill, the swooping lunge of the owl intent on its prey, the almost simultaneous leap of the coyote upon the owl. A double murder in the night, he thought ironically, in silence, close by, and he was unaware of either. If he had happened along half a minute later there would be only a feather or two, some drops of blood, a torn tuft of rabbit hair, and later, elsewhere, fieshiess bones working slowly into the soil. Men or beasts, it's all around us, Becker thought, but only a few of us know it, only a few of us acknowledge the need for blood and the quivering body of the prey within our grasp. Only a few of us pursue it while the rest of the world slumbers in false security, as helpless as the rabbit. Only a few of us like Johnny. Like me. The coyote was only following its nature. Like Johnny. Like me.
Becker stared squarely at the small wolf and the animal returned his gaze unflinchingly. These were not the eyes of a dog, there was no mistaking them for anything belonging to man. There was a wild quality to them-not anger, not ferocity, but a cool, unapologetic, matter-of-fact murderousness. The coyote killed for a living and the toll of so much death showed in his eyes as an indifference to anything of less than mortal consequence. Becker felt as if he were looking back into time and deep into the history of his race when men competed with the wolf for the kill and the carrion, a time before the day when man had turned his need for death upon himself and converted hunting to murder. The coyote was honest in his blood lust, and unashamed. Only men tried to disguise their need for it. Some of us anyway, Becker thought. Some of us hide it. Some of us get paid for it-and still try to hide it.
The coyote finally turned and loped off in its unhurried way, the wings of the owl dragging on the ground, the rabbit, now still, trailing in the death grip of the owl's talons.
He made his way to the site of Kiwasee's death battle and stood there a long time in the dark before wading through the water to the grave. Once more he stood for a long time, feeling as much as thinking, letting his senses work, trying to put himself into Johnny's mind. Entering his soul was not that difficult, feeling the way he felt was not the problem. Becker tried to make himself think the way Johnny thought.
After a time Becker left the crime scene and walked toward McNeil's house, which was one hill and a valley away. He came to the edge of the woods and halted, surveying McNeil's house and yard. It took him a moment to recognize a four-legged shape as a sawhorse, even Ion er to define the formless side of the house that appeared 9 to undulate in the breeze. He realized finally that it was a builder's tarpaulin, sucking and flapping leisurely in the wind.
The house was dark but a light shone feebly in the garage. The light moved, a shadow blocked it, projecting a distorted shape onto the lawn; then the light came through again.
Becker eased out of the woods, traveling in a running crouch until he gained the side of the garage. As he moved toward the window, the light inside continued its gyrations. It was a muted, furtive light, pointed downward, Becker thought, as someone sought to hide it from view.
Becker stepped well back from the window so that he would not be easily visible in the outer darkness, and peered into the garage. Tee stood by a workbench, a pen light in his mouth, wearing gardening gloves. As Becker watched, his friend opened a small chest and took out an X-Acto knife. Tee's eyes flicked guiltily around the interior of the garage before he carefully wiped the knife with a cloth andreplaced it in the chest. Tee glanced around nervously again, the penlight in his mouth moving with his eyes, then stopping abruptly at the window. Becker saw Tee's startled reaction flash past his eyes, then subside, and realized that he had not seen Becker but his own reflection in the glass.
I was going to do that for you, Becker thought. It would have been better if I had, you don't need it on your conscience or affecting your investigation of McNeil. That's what friends are for.
Tee started out of the garage and then stopped, his attention caught by something in the corner by the overhead door. Becker watched as the chief of police approached a roll of carpet standing upright against the wall. Partially tucked within the roll, as if hastily hidden there, was an object that shone dully in the beam from the penlight. Tee studied the part that protruded from the roll for a moment, then gently pulled it out in his gloved hands, as if it were fragile. His head was briefly out of synchronization with his hands, and the penlight beam danced across the side wall of the garage, revealing a motley of bicycles without wheels, garden tools, a straight-backed chair with the caning used for its seat dangling beneath it like the roots of an aerial plant.
When Tee squared his head with his hands again, Becker saw him holding a figurine of elegantly blown glass. Tee puzzled over it, leaned his head in close to scrutinize the figurine, as if reading something, and then, shaking his head in bewilderment, held it away from himself again.