The shivering gooseflesh that trilled up his back was fading as Devil drove quickly to the Adams house on Clinker Avenue. It was the part of town that gathered the poorest homes. Homes with peeling paint, settled crookedly on deteriorating foundations, bearing boarded up windows as evidence of old injuries. Most of the yards had returned to the wilder age of the land, devoid of gardens, prickled with wild grasses, the only common marking on each being the path the families trod coming and going from their humble homes.
Devil had left Chance in his office but had brought both Constables Carl Rutledge and Will Smalls and parked two houses back from the Adam's home. Each lawman quietly exited the Buick patrol car and drew their sidearms.
"Carl." Devil said, pointing to the next house, "Get yourself into that yard and cover the back of the Adam's place. If Philip takes a mind to run, order him to stop and if he doesn't, shoot for his ankles. If he has a weapon, don't let him get close. Shoot him in the chest." then; "Will? You're with me."
Carl set off to post up on his position as Will followed Devil to the Adams' front yard. The picket fence was missing a few teeth and the gate had long ago fallen from its occupation and lay inside the yard amongst the tall grass like a beaten down diamond.
"Cover the front. Make sure no neighbour crosses on this side of the street. I'll head inside."
Devil made his way up the well-worn path to the low front porch. He cocked both hammers of his sawed-off and had a finger on both triggers. He'd left the pipes as they usually were; a solid slug in one for grizzly bears, bird shot in the other for rattle snakes. But if Phill Adams was armed and unruly enough to rush him, Devil would use the bird shot to blind him. If he kept coming, the solid slug would take him down.
Devil made the front porch and saw the front door was slightly ajar, the stoop and the porch boards bearing the witness marks of Amos' small bloody shoes as he fled the home. He waited and listened for a moment; the house was silent.
Pushing open the door with the business end of his sawed-off, Devil watched the front parlour slowly revealed; a small table with a flowerless vase, a threadbare red rug, a brick fireplace; the arm of an old green sofa.
Devil pushed the door open further, hearing the old hinges shudder. He saw the blood soaking the edge of the rug and spread wide under the sofa. Further open, he saw that Phil Adams was laying sprawled on the sofa, appearing to be asleep like the drunk he was.
With the door fully open, Devil stepped into the room, his sawed-off aimed at Phil, who hadn't moved. Phil, who wasn't even breathing though his eyes were wide and staring up at the ceiling. The front of Phil's plaid shirt was sopping with blood and the handle of a heavy carving knife stood proud where Devil imagined his heart was impaled by it.
"Gladys?" Devil called into the quiet house.
"In the kitchen." came Gladys' voice. It had the tone of a hopeless woman worn down to the nub by a wearisome world and a marriage to a horrible man. A vampire couldn't have drained the will to live out of her any more than her circumstanced had.
"Are you armed?" Devil asked and heard her give a short bitted laugh.
"No, Devil. Not anymore. I do believe you found my weapon."
"Will?" Devil called over his shoulder, "Get Carl and survey the crime scene in the parlour." Then he walked quietly into the kitchen, avoiding the pooled blood.
When he saw Gladys sitting alone at the kitchen table with her hands folded in front of her, Devil uncocked his sawed-off and slipped it back in his holster. Picking up a wooden chair so it didn't scrape, Devil set it down across from Gladys and sat facing her.
"Was he beating you again?"
"No. Not with his fists." Gladys said with that tired, creaky voice, "Just with his words. He hadn't got to the violent part yet."
"Explain."
"He was bragging about being with a woman named Greta. How young and beautiful she was. How she'd do the things I couldn't bring myself to do." Gladys shook her head, "I can't imagine any young woman being with a drunk who didn't have the sense of a rabbit and smelled like a hog."
"Greta is one of the Tumble Down girls." Devil told her, "Jessie would have made him take a bath first."
"That explains why the ring of dirt around his neck was gone." Gladys said, "I wondered about that."
Gladys sighed.
"I could take the beatings, Devil." Gladys looked up at him, "But I'd had enough of his tomcatting around and bragging about it. Made me doubt I was any good as a wife or a mother."
"What was he doing when you took the carving knife to him?"
"Sleeping."
Devil huffed out a breath; "I wish you were going to say he was coming at you. Then it could be self defence."
"It was self defence." Gladys said, "One more day of him and I'd have just given up and crawled inside my own misery and never come back out."
Devil could hear Will in the parlour snapping pictures of the crime scene with his Rolleiflex camera. and the skritching of Carl writing in his notebook.
"I looked it up in a medical book in the library."
"What did you look up?"
"Where the heart is." Gladys smiled and that smile sent the shivering gooseflesh trilling up his spine once more, "He was so deep in his drunkenness he didn't wake up as I counted down his ribs. The heart is just left of the sternum between the fourth and fifth rib."
Gladys looked up into Devil's eyes.
"I could feel it beating and I felt it lurch when I pushed that carving knife into him. Then it just stopped."
Devil took a slow deep breath and let it out.
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