Over the top of the breakfast bar, I could see that the sliding glass door was open. This was the source of the intruding cool air. A sharp-edged wind from the east was gusting into the kitchen.

My scalp began to prickle.

I stepped through the narrow passage between the end of the breakfast bar and the refrigerator and looked to my right. Poppy was lying on the floor just inside the open sliding glass door. One of her brown pumps had fallen off her narrow foot. Her sweater and skirt were covered in blotches.

A spray of blood had dried on the glass of the doors.

I could hear a radio playing from the house behind Poppy’s.

The tune wafted over the high privacy fence. I could hear someone splashing through the water of a pool: Cara Embler, doing her laps, as she did every day, unless her pool was actually frozen. Poppy, who had laughed about Cara’s adherence to such an uncomfortable regimen, would never laugh again. The processes of life and living, continuing in the houses all around us, had come to dead stop here in this house on Swan-son Lane.

Moosie sat by Poppy’s pathetic, horrible body. He said, “Reow.” He pressed against her side. His food bowl, on a mat by the breakfast bar, was empty.

Now I knew how Moosie’s fur had gotten stained. He’d been trying to rouse Poppy, maybe so she would feed him.

Suddenly, I had to escape from that suburban kitchen with its horrible secret. I flew out of the house, slamming the front door behind me. I had a fleeting impulse to scoop up Moosie, but taking charge of him was too much for me at that second. I dashed down the sidewalk to the curb, where Melinda was waiting. I was making the “phone” signal as I hurried, little finger and thumb pointing to mouth and ear, respectively. Melinda had turned on the cell phone by the time I got to her car.