4th of July

Chapter 111

I HEARD SIRENS AND saw flashing lights approaching Sea View. As the first cruiser arrived, I opened the front door, and Martha bolted past me. She ran over to a snakelike object that was lying in the moonlight.

She gave it a sniff.

“Martha, what have you found? What is it, girl?”

I was hunkered down beside Martha when Chief Peter Stark got out of his squad car. He walked over with his flashlight and knelt down next to me.

“You okay?”

“Yep. I’m good.”

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

Together, we looked at a man’s belt. It was about thirty-six inches long and a half-inch wide, narrow brown leather with a squared dull silver buckle. It was such an ordinary belt; probably half the people in the state had one like it in their closet somewhere.

But this particular belt seemed to have some brownish-red stains on the metalwork.

“Wouldn’t it be grand,” I said, refusing to dwell on the terror of the last few minutes—how those shots had surely been meant for me—“wouldn’t it be something,” I said to Chief Stark, “if this belt was evidence?”