Right as Rain

Qui

Earl picked up the Colt and slid it down the bar to his son. Ray's boot heel caught momentarily on the brass rail as he swiveled his hips. He lost a second of time, reached out for the Colt's grip, got his hand around it, and swung the muzzle toward Qui

'Hey, Terry,' said Franklin in a quiet, even way.

Qui

A gunshot exploded into the room. Earl's pistol jumped, and Qui

Franklin kicked the card table over as he stood. He squeezed the trigger on his Glock four times, the gun jumping in his hand. Earl was thrown back into the bar mirror. The bottles on the call rack exploded around him in a shower of glass and blood. Earl spun, dropped, and disappeared.

A bell tone rang steadily in Qui

Qui

'The girl,' said Franklin.

'Strange got her,' said Qui

'Delgado?'

'If Strange got the girl, he got Delgado, too. Let's go.'

Qui

An hour later, Qui

Franklin said, 'What now, Terry?'

'You've got a little bit of time,' said Qui

'What about my confession?'

'Strange made a copy of that.' Qui

Franklin took the yellow piece of paper from Qui

'Thank you, Terry.'

Qui

'You're not off the hook. The evidence Strange mailed in is enough to convict you. However you want to plead your defense, that's up to you. As far as what happened tonight, and the girl-'

'Ain't no one ever go

'Go on.'

Franklin offered his hand. Qui

'All right, then,' said Franklin. He stepped out of the car and crossed the parking lot, his head lowered against the rain.

Later, and for the rest of his life, Qui

Near dawn, Derek Strange exited the house of Leona Wilson, closing the front door softly behind him. The rain had ended. He stood on the concrete stoop and breathed the cold morning air, turning his collar up against the chill.

Down on the street, parked behind his Caprice, was a pretty blue Chevelle. A long-haired young white man sat behind the wheel.

'Thank you, Lord,' said Strange.

He locked eyes with Qui

33

That evening, the suicide of Eugene Franklin made the six o'clock news.

A resident in the apartment next door had heard a gunshot around noon and phoned the police. They found Franklin upright on the couch. His eyes were bugged from the gas jolt, and his nose was blackened and scorched. Blood and bone and brain matter had been sprayed on the walls and the fabric of the couch. His service weapon lay in his lap. A letter written in longhand had been neatly placed on the coffee table before him.

On the eleven o'clock news, Franklin's suicide was eclipsed by the discovery of a mass homicide on a wooded property at the east-central edge of Montgomery County. Six bodies had been found in various stages of decomposition. The police had been alerted by a friend of one of the victims, a woman named Edna Loomis. The friend, Joha

The Out-County Massacre, as it was immediately dubbed by the press, dominated the news for the next three days. A rumor surfaced that one of the victims was a D.C. cop, and then the rumor was publicly confirmed. Drugs and large amounts of money were said to have been found at the scene. Another rumor surfaced, alleging that the suicide of Officer Eugene Franklin was somehow related to the Out-County Massacre, but this rumor remained unconfirmed. Police spokesmen promised a speedy resolution to the case, claiming that an a

Strange went to work daily and kept to his general routine. He followed the news reports closely but did not discuss them, except with Ron and Janine, and only then in passing. He phoned Qui

It was a tentative time for Strange, and though he picked up a couple of easy jobs, mostly he waited. By the end of the next week, he welcomed the phone call that he knew with certainty would come. The call came on Saturday morning, when he was returning from a long walk with Greco, as he stepped into the foyer of his Buchanan Street row house.

'Hello,' said Strange, picking up the phone.

'Lydell here. You ready to talk, Derek?'

'Name the place,' said Strange.

Oregon Avenue, south of Military Road, led into a section of Rock Creek Park that contained a nature center, horse stables, and miles of hilly trails. A huge parking lot sat to the right of the entrance, where people met to train and run their dogs on the adjacent field. The parking lot was a popular rendezvous spot for adulterous couples as well.

Strange and Lydell Blue sat in Strange's Caprice, parked beside Blue's Park Avenue in the lot and facing the field. Blue's hair had thi

Over a dozen large-breed dogs ran and played in the field, all of their owners white, well-off, and dressed in casual, expensive clothes. At the far end of the lot, near the tree line, a middle-aged man and a younger woman necked in the front seat of a late-model Pontiac.

'You shoulda brought Greco,' said Blue, looking through the windshield at an Irish wolfhound and a white Samoyed sitting side by side on a rise, a woman in a Banana Republic jacket telling them to hold from fifteen feet away.