He squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hand, and he missed the beer can by several feet. The report of the gunshot echoed for a long time.

He took aim at other things-at a tree, at a flower, at a white rock the size of a clenched fist. But he couldn’t bring himself to fire the gun again, to break the stillness with another gunshot. What was the point, anyway? If he used the gun, he’d be too close to miss. You got in close, you pointed, you fired. It wasn’t rocket science, for God’s sake. It wasn’t neuro-surgery. Anyone could do it.

He replaced the spent cartridge and put the loaded gun in the car’s glove compartment. He spilled the rest of the shells into his hand and walked a few yards from the road’s edge, then hurled them with a sweeping sidearm motion. He gave the empty box a toss and got back into the car.

Traveling light, he thought.

Back in town, he drove past Quik Print to make sure it was still open. Then, following the route he’d traced on the map, he found his way to 1411 Cowslip Lane, a Dutch Colonial house on the north edge of town. The lawn was neatly trimmed and fiercely green, and there was a bed of rosebushes on either side of the path leading from the sidewalk to the front door.

One of the leaflets at the motel had told how roses were a local specialty. But the town had been named not for the flower but for Aaron Rose, an early settler.

He wondered if Engleman knew that.

He circled the block, parked two doors away on the other side of the street from the Engleman residence. “Vandermeer, Edward,” the white pages listing had read. It struck Keller as an unusual alias.