Dark of the Moon

HHU.

THE MARIJUANA wasn't helping the thought process, though it was a wonderful thing in its own right: mellowed out the experience, gave life to the stars.

Had to focus. Tactics. Strategy.

Blew a little smoke into the sky and watched the Big Dipper rolling by, watched the lightning bugs blinking out their passions, and Moonie thought, and thought, and finally plucked a flower out of the overgrown jumble of the backyard, and in the shaft of light that came out the bedroom window onto the lawn, plucked the petals one by one, letting God decide.

Johnstone, Flowers, Roman; Johnstone, Flowers, Roman…

The flower had quite a few petals, but offered only one conclusion.

ROMAN SCHMIDT was sound asleep when the car pulled into the driveway, and that popped his eyes open. He was far enough out of town that, late at night, several times a year, somebody would use his driveway to turn around, and go back toward town.

The car headlights would sweep through the house, cutting across the bedroom shades, and that would pop him awake. When he was sheriff, lights like that usually meant somebody bringing bad news, and he'd never gotten over that instantly awake reaction.

But now he was an old man, and sleep didn't come that easy anymore. He treasured what he could get, and it pissed him off when he was unnecessarily poked out of a decent sleep.

Unlike most of the cars that did it, this one didn't turn around. It kept coming, and quickly, and he could tell by the crunch of tires on gravel that it had pulled into the parking place back by the kitchen door. He reached out, touched his clock: 1:30 in the morning.

Who in the hell?

His wife groaned and he said, "I'll go see," but she didn't say anything and he suspected she'd never really awakened. He reached into the bottom drawer of his bedside table, groped around, found the.357, held it next to his leg, and walked through the dark out to the back door in his shorts and T-shirt.

Knock at the door. Bad news. Bad news always knocks quietly. He thought of his son in Minneapolis, his daughters in Albert Lea and Santa Fe. God help him, he'd die of a heart attack if he looked out the window and saw a deputy standing there, looking grim. He'd die of a fuckin' heart attack…

Another knock. He snapped on the porch light, took in the familiar face, felt the fluttering of his heart, opened the door and asked, the anxiety riding right to the surface, "What happened?"

"This," said Moonie. The gun came up. Schmidt said, "No," and Moonie shot him in the heart.

GLORIA SCHMIDT screamed, "Rome! Rome!" and groped for the bedside light, and found it just in time to see the muzzle of the gun and the face behind it.

"Not you," she said.

Moonie shot her once in the forehead, and she flopped back on the bed, stone dead.

SCHMIDT WAS FLAT on his back, dead, but he'd still have eyes in the spirit world. Moonie closed the kitchen door to muffle the sound as much as possible, leaned sideways and fired two more shots, through Schmidt's half-open eyes, then opened the kitchen door again, and listened.

Crickets and frogs.

Nothing more. There was time to do this right.