Huh.

HE FINISHED his circuit of the house, took the key out of his pocket, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside. The inside smelled like a crime scene: like whatever was used to clean up blood, some kind of enzyme. He stepped into the stillness, to the sense of dustiness, and walked through the entry, past the entrance to the kitchen, into the living room.

The couch where Anna was shot was in a semicircular niche off the living room, designed as a small theater, and aimed at a wide-screen television. The bullet hole was in the far left back-cushion, next to an end table with a TV remote and several magazines, a crossword-puzzle book, a wood cup with a selection of pens and pencils, and a couple of books. That was, he thought, Anna's regular spot, because Russell's regular spot was in a leather recliner at the other end of the couch, under a reading light. The bloodstain on the seat and back of the couch had been doused with the blood-eating enzyme.

The other scrubbed-out stain was in the entrance to the dining room. There were three dug-out bullet holes in the carpet. Standing there, in the quiet, Virgil saw how it must have happened. They knew the killer-Anna was comfortable in her regular spot, and hadn't bothered to get up. Russell and the killer had both been standing, and fairly close to each other. The killer pulled the gun, if it wasn't already out, and leaned into Anna and fired once. She hadn't made a move to get off the couch. Russell turned, got three steps, and was shot in the back.

But they knew the killer, Virgil thought: they must have. Anna was facing the TV, as though she might not even have been part of the conversation. If she'd been ordered to sit down, or forced to sit, she would have been facing into the room, where the killer was; she wouldn't have been facing the TV.

He quickly checked the end table for any possible effort by Anna to leave something behind-a scribbled name, anything. Felt foolish doing it, but would have felt more foolish if he hadn't, and something was found later. Nothing. The books were a novel by Martha Grimes and a slender volume titled Revelation, which turned out to be, indeed, the book of Revelation.