Next door, one house up the hill on his right, Johnny Marinville was doing the same thing. He had hold of his guitar by the neck. On the other side, Brad Josephson was also walking down his lawn to the street, his hose spouting into the grass behind him. He was still holding his copy of the Shopper in one hand.

Was that a backfire?” Johnny asked. He didn’t think it had been. Back in his pre-Kitty-Cat days, when he had still considered himself “a serious writer” (a phrase with all the pungency of “a really good whore”, to his way of thinking), Johnny had done a hellish research tour in Vietnam, and he thought the sound he had just heard was more like the kind of backfires he had heard during the Tet offensive. Jungle backfires. The kind that killed people.

David shook his head, then turned his hands up to indicate he didn’t really know. Behind him, the screen door of the cream and green ranch-house banged shut and there were running bare feet on the walk. It was Pie, wearing jeans and a blouse that had been buttoned wrong. Her hair clung to her head in a damp helmet. She still smelled of the shower.

Was that a backfire? God, Dave, it sounded like a-”

“Like a gunshot,” Johnny said, then added reluctantly: “I’m pretty sure it was.”

Kirsten Carver-Kirstie to her friends and Pie to her husband, for reasons probably only a husband could know-looked down the hill. An expression of horror was slipping into her face, seeming somehow to widen not just her eyes but all of her features. David followed her gaze. He saw the idling van, and he saw the shotgun barrel sticking out of the right rear window.

“Ellie! Ralph!” Pie screamed. It was a piercing cry, penetrating, and behind the Soderson house, Gary paused, listening, his martini glass halfway to his lips. “Oh God, Ellie and Ralph!”