Sweet Dreams, Irene by Jan Burke

he said, running across the lawn to Mrs. Fremont’s house. I thought of following him anyway, but just then Cody gave a pitiful yowl from his cat carrier, and I realized Frank had set it down near the driveway.
    I heard Frank calling Mrs. Fremont’s name, and I turned back to see him pulling out his gun before going into the house.
    I quickly put Cody inside Frank’s house, then went next door. “Frank?!” I shouted at the bottom of the steps, not wanting him to mistake me for an intruder. Something told me that whoever had been here was already long gone, and that Frank wasn’t likely to find anyone in the house. I was half-right.
    From the doorstep, I could see Frank at the end of the hallway, bent over something in an odd way; he hadn’t responded when I called. As I walked toward him he looked up suddenly, an expression of anguish on his face. Before him, on the floor, Mrs. Fremont lay face down in a pool of blood. On the floor next to her, someone had drawn a circled pentagram in blood.
    “Don’t touch anything,” he said, his voice strained. He stood up, and I saw that she had taken some kind of crushing blow to her head. As I stared down at the body, Frank reached over and turned me away. “Let’s go home—I’ve got to call this in.” I held on to him and somehow we stumbled back to the house.
    I sat numbly while he went to the telephone. He was visibly upset, but he took a minute to regain his self-control and was able to put the call in without betraying emotion of any kind. He stood there, staring at the phone for a moment, then walked over to me and took my face in his hands. “Please stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.
    I felt unable to do anything but nod. He seemed so calm, but something in his eyes hurt to look at. For a moment, he looked as if he were ready to say more, but he dropped his hands and turned and left quickly.
    Cody found me sitting on the couch, and jumped up into my lap. I thought of Mrs. Fremont and the conversations I had with her not twenty-four hours ago, of how alive and vibrant she was then. Endless questions crossed my mind, questions without any possibility of being answered at that time.
    The goat’s head and the pentangle made me think of Sammy and her coven of witches. Was Satanism on the rampage in Las Piernas? Could Sammy’s routine about paganism versus Satanism have been a cover-up of some kind? She had been afraid of the man in the goat’s mask. Wasn’t that connected to Satanism? What did Sammy really know?
    I saw the reflection of the blue-and-red lights of police cars on the walls, soon followed by the crackle of radios. I looked out and saw Lieutenant Carlson pull up. I sat back down, sad and suddenly weary, but not feeling as if I could sleep.
    To my surprise, about half an hour later, Frank came back home. I got up to greet him, but something in his walk warned me to keep my distance. When he was close enough for me to see his face, the coldness there came at me like a blow.
    “What’s wrong?”
    He walked past me and over to his liquor cabinet. He poured himself a large scotch and downed it quickly.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked again.
    “Carlson won’t let me work on it. He basically ordered me to leave.”
    “Why?”
    He shrugged his shoulders, poured himself another scotch, and downed it as easily as the first. I was wondering if he was going to stay up all night drinking, but he put the bottle away and said, “I’m going to bed.”
    I followed him into the bedroom and we got undressed in silence, Frank keeping his eyes averted from me. We got into bed, and he turned away from me. I reached to rub his shoulders, but he pulled away, moving his large frame to the edge of the bed. You don’t have to call Western Union for me. I got the message.
    I rolled over so that we were lying back-to-back, and turned out the light. The room was bathed in pulsing lights from the police cars next door. Doors opened and closed, voices