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heard her say. “You call your doctor, and we’ll be right there.”
    Marion hung up quickly. “Peter says he needs the ambulance,” she said. “Something’s happened to his mother.” In the hallway between the den and the living room, Mickey was grabbing for his orange ambulance jacket with VFW in black letters on the back. Geoffrey dashed for the door. His car was out of gas, so he jumped into the little Toyota that belonged to their friend Fran Kaplan, a nurse. Marion, Mickey, and Fran took the Chevelle. By the time they got to the bottom of the hill, Geoffrey and the Toyota were out of sight.
    At the four-way stop by the Arco station, Mickey made a quick left and drove faster. The ambulance was parked at Geer, the nursing home across from the VFW. When they got there the three of them jumped out of the car and ran to the ambulance. Within seconds they were back on Route 7, heading south.
    Peter stood at the edge of the road, waiting. It was very dark. The floodlights that Barbara used to read by, at the corners of the house, were turned off. Peter hadn’t turned them on because the switch was in the closet, in the rear room. He didn’t want to go through the bedroom, so he waited in the dark. The gas station across the road was closed. The night was thick and black as Peter strained to see.
    Then he saw the headlights of the Toyota, pinpoints of light that grew rounder and brighter as the little car hurtled down the long straight stretch of road. Geoffrey braked sharply and leaped out. He ran over to Peter.
    â€œWhere is she?” Geoff asked.
    â€œShe’s in the bedroom,” Peter said.
    Geoff ran toward the house, with Peter just behind him. Geoff didn’t wait at the door. He raced right in, into the living room, to the bedroom door. Then he stopped.
    Barbara lay sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood around her neck. Her short black curly hair was soggy with blood. Her throat had been slashed and her vocal cords hung out. She was nearly beheaded.
    In the light from the clamp-on reading lamp, Barbara’s body shone whitely, the blood glaring around her. There were gaping cuts in her stomach. Three of her ribs were broken, and both her thighbones were broken too. Her legs were spread apart; she was nude. Her blue jeans and underpants lay beside her body, soaking wet. Barbara’s left arm was lying flat, but her right arm was bent at the elbow, in an upraised position. Her right fist was clenched. Her nose was broken. Her eyes were blackened and staring open.
    Geoff stared at Barbara. He turned and stared at Peter.
    Peter looked blankly at Geoff. “Well, come on then,” Peter said after a moment, his voice tight. “Let’s go outside.”
    In the ambulance, Mickey was trying to get Sharon Hospital, but he couldn’t get through, so he called Canaan barracks. They said they had sent the Falls Village ambulance as a backup and had dispatched a trooper.
    â€œI know,” Mickey said. “He’s passing me right now.”
    Mickey swerved a little to let the approaching cruiser whiz by him, then speeded up, and pulled up to Peter’s house just behind the trooper.
    Bruce McCafferty, curly haired, blue-eyed, and boyish, the prototypical rookie cop, just ten months on the force, was working the four to midnight shift. He’d been traveling Route 44 near Furnace Hill Road, doing routine highway patrol, when he got the radio call from Trooper John Calkins at the barracks, who’d just heard from Sharon Hospital. The police got the call from the hospital at 9:58 P.M .
    When the blue police car with its flashing lights came into view, Peter began jumping up and down, waving, motioning it into the yard. Trooper McCafferty got out and ran over to Peter and Geoffrey.
    â€œWhere is she?” McCafferty asked.
    â€œShe’s in the bedroom,” Peter said.
    McCafferty hurried into the house. He knelt on one knee beside Barbara and felt