Missing Persons

71

I was.

“Doyle’s already dead, Bill.”

“That must have been somebody else they found in the mountains. That’s Doyle, right there.”

I used the toe of my shoe to move the pistol away, knelt, and placed my quivering fingers on the side of the man’s neck. I couldn’t find a pulse. I thought of Hannah a month before, the same fingers, the same result.

“Who was it that they found near Allenspark?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Doyle’s dead for sure, now. For me, that’s nothing but good news.”

Bill wasn’t upset.

“Why… did you shoot him?”

“He broke into my house. You saw that.”

“He’s been in your house a dozen times. Why did you shoot him?”

“You saw what happened. A broken window. An intruder in the dark. He was going to shoot me. Us.”

He stressed the words “intruder” and “dark.” I thought his explanation sounded rehearsed and I immediately questioned whether Bill knew that Doyle was going to be in his house, in his basement. “Did you know he was coming over?”

Bill didn’t answer me. “Did you? Did you know he was coming over?”

He still didn’t reply. I thought, Damn, make my day.

You set this up, you bastard.

Car thieves steal cars. Bank robbers rob banks. For Bill, this was the white van and the orthodontist all over again.

I started up the stairs to get my phone to call 911. When I was about halfway up I heard a woman’s voice. “Willy? You down there? What was that noise?”