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her left wrist for a pulse, but couldn’t find it. He went out to the car and radioed the barracks, to ask his supervisor to come. Then, as though he could not be sure of so dreadful a sight, he went back into the house. He looked at Barbara again, then he came outside and made a second radio call to the barracks.
    â€œI have a possible one twenty-five,” McCafferty said, giving the code number for a homicide.
    â€œAre you kidding?” the other voice said. “Then you better seal off the house.”
    Peter and Geoffrey were pushing furniture around in the living room, making a path for the stretcher. One of them had knocked over the little portable heater. When McCafferty came back in, he told them to stop. Peter looked at him, then went over near the kitchen, as far away from the bedroom door as he could get. He sat on a chair at the edge of the kitchen doorway, near the kitchen cabinet with the brown leather pouch hanging from its side. There were three or four knives in the pouch, including a knife that Wayne Collier, one of Peter’s friends, had given Barbara when she had complained that she didn’t have a really good carving knife. That knife was in the pouch now, with part of the handle sticking out. The knife had a six-inch blade, or a little less, because its tip had been broken off.
    Mickey came into the bedroom, knelt down, and felt for a pulse. Fran Kaplan felt for a pulse too. Then Mickey went out to the ambulance to get a blanket to put over Barbara.
    From the doorway to the bedroom, Marion looked at Barbara, but she didn’t go in. She could see blood spattered around the room, on some freshly ironed shirts hanging on the curtain rod. A green chair with brown wooden legs, in the corner of the bedroom, was spotted with blood. There was a gray steel tool chest near Barbara’s foot. The back door was standing partly open.
    Barbara lay flung across the floor, her feet pointing toward the doorway where Marion stood. Her head was turned toward her left. Her nose was pushed to one side; blood had oozed out of the nostrils and from her mouth. Marion noticed that the soles of her feet were filthy.
    She turned away then and saw Peter sitting on the chair, near the kitchen. He was shivering. She went over and put her arms around him.
    Peter looked up at Marion.
    â€œCan I come home with you?” he asked.
    â€œYes, Peter,” Marion said. “I’ll yell at you, just like I yell at my boys, but you can come home with me.”
    â€œDid I do the right thing?” Peter asked.
    â€œYes, you did,” Marion told him.
    Peter wasn’t wearing a jacket, only his long-sleeved brown knit shirt. He was still shivering and Marion asked Geoff to let Peter wear his coat. Geoff took off his beloved navy pea coat, the coat he wore nearly twelve months of the year, and Marion draped it around Peter’s shoulders.
    At nine minutes past ten, McCafferty’s supervisor, Sgt. Percy Salley, arrived. He went into the bedroom and looked at Barbara, then he came back out into the living room, where Peter and Marion stood.
    â€œAre you all right?” Sergeant Salley asked Peter.
    â€œYes, I’m all right,” Peter said.
    Sergeant Salley told Peter to open his shirt and hold out his hands. He examined Peter’s chest and turned his hands over, the palms up, then down. Peter looked blank and, watching him, Marion realized that no one had told him his mother was dead.
    Sergeant Salley went out to his cruiser, then, and called his own supervisor, Lt. James Shay, at his house on Silken Road in Granby. Shay directed Salley to get everybody out of the house. The sergeant walked back to the little crowd of people standing in the living room and told them to go outside. Peter got up from the chair and followed Marion across the room, to the front door. As he passed the bedroom door, he turned his head and looked. He saw the white sheet over Barbara, covering her head. He looked