Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz

preparing a salad.
    Easing the door shut behind him, hoping to avoid startling her, he debated whether or not to announce himself. He wanted her to know that it was a concerned friend who had come to comfort her, not a stranger with sick motives.
    She turned off the running water and placed the lettuce in a plastic colander to drain. Wiping her hands on a dish towel, turning away from the sink, she finally discovered him as “Lovely Rita” drew to an end.
    Mrs. Bettonfield looked surprised but not, in the first instant, afraid—which was, he knew, a tribute to his appealing, soft-featured face. He was slightly pudgy, with dimples, and had skin so beardless that it was almost as smooth as a boy’s. With his twinkling blue eyes and warm smile, he would make a convincing Santa Claus in another thirty years. He believed that his kindheartedness and his genuine love of people were also apparent, because strangers usually warmed to him more quickly than a merry face alone could explain.
    While Roy still was able to believe that her wide-eyed surprise would fade into a smile of welcome rather than a grimace of fear, he raised the Beretta 93-R and shot her twice in the chest. A silencer was screwed to the barrel; both rounds made only soft popping sounds.
    Penelope Bettonfield dropped to the floor and lay motionless on her side, with her hands still entangled in the dish towel. Her eyes were open, staring across the floor at his wet, dirty galoshes.
    The Beatles began “Good Morning, Good Morning.” It must be the
Sgt. Pepper
album.
    He crossed the kitchen, put the pistol on the counter, and crouched beside Mrs. Bettonfield. He pulled off one of his supple leather gloves and placed his fingertips to her throat, searching for a pulse in her carotid artery. She was dead.
    One of the two rounds was so perfectly placed that it must have pierced her heart. Consequently, with circulation halted in an instant, she had not bled much.
    Her death had been a graceful escape: quick and clean, painless and without fear.
    He pulled on his right glove again, then rubbed gently at her neck where he had touched it. Gloved, he had no concern that his fingerprints might be lifted off the body by laser technology.
    Precautions must be taken. Not every judge and juror would be able to grasp the purity of his motives.
    He closed the lid over her left eye and held it in place for a minute or so, to be sure that it would stay shut.
    “Sleep, dear lady,” he said with a mixture of affection and regret, as he also closed the lid over her right eye. “No more worrying about finances, no more working late, no more stress and strife. You were too good for this world.”
    It was both a sad and a joyous moment. Sad, because her beauty and elegance no longer brightened the world; nevermore would her smile lift anyone’s spirits; her courtesy and consideration would no longer counter the tides of barbarity washing over this troubled society. Joyous, because she would never again be afraid, spill tears, know grief, feel pain.
    “Good Morning, Good Morning” gave way to the marvelously bouncy, syncopated reprise of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was better than the first rendition of the song at the start of the album and which seemed a suitably upbeat celebration of Mrs. Bettonfield’s passage to a better world.
    Roy pulled out one of the chairs from the kitchen table, sat, and removed his galoshes. He rolled up the damp and muddy legs of his trousers as well, determined to cause no more mess.
    The reprise of the album theme song was short, and by the time he got to his feet again, “A Day in the Life” had begun. That was a singularly melancholy piece, too somber to be in sync with the moment. He had to shut it off before it depressed him. He was a sensitive man, more vulnerable than most to the emotional effects of music, poetry, fine paintings, fiction, and the other arts.
    He found the central music system in a long wall of