He used it to smack the door three times.

"Brattleboro police."

The immediate silence was like pulling the plug on an overly loud TV set-utter and complete. In its sudden embrace, he felt abruptly and paradoxically defenseless.

The door flew open without warning, revealing a large man with a beard, a T-shirt, and an oversize revolver in his hand pointed at the floor. "You get the hell away from here or she's dead. Got that?"

Kinney felt his stomach give way, along with his bravado. Transfixed by the gun, he imagined himself as the human-size target he so frequently perforated at the range, and could visualize the barrel rising to the level of his eye, an enormous flash of light, and then nothing.

Instead, the door was merely slammed in his face.

"'You get away from here or she's a dead person.' That's all he said. He had a gun."

Ron Klesczewski closed his car door and leaned back against the fender. He rubbed his face with both hands, still chasing the remnants of a deep sleep from his brain, before peering into the wary, almost belligerent expression of the patrolman before him.

"You got the call? I mean, you were the one this guy talked to?" Ron spoke deliberately, hoping to project a calming influence. In fact, being the senior officer here, he felt his own anxieties beginning to roil inside him, a nagging insecurity he'd wrestled with all his life.

"Yeah. It didn't sound like a big deal from dispatch-a routine domestic. I knocked on the door, he opened up, delivered the one-liner, and slammed the door. There was a woman behind him, crying."

Klesczewski took in the tight shooting gloves, custom gun grips, and strained nonchalance and identified a neophyte's attempt to camouflage insecurity with accessories. "She look all right otherwise?"

To his credit, the patrolman became clearly embarrassed. "I guess. I was sort of looking at the gun. That's when I figured I better call for backup."