Paws before dying

her before the others knew she’d come back. Edna, my savior, descended very quietly. Her feet appeared first. She wore grubby green terry-cloth slippers. Her calves were scrawny. A couple of inches of black lace nightie—black lace, you never can tell—dangled below a mustard-colored rayon robe. A flesh-toned hairnet covered most of her head. She was carrying a shotgun. I was sure it was a Browning, and I thought it was an A-500 like my father’s. He bought it because he has a streak of vanity, I suppose—the A-500 is one of the Buck Specials.
    Edna’s sons didn’t hear her because they’d resumed their quarrel. Mitch was arguing with both of the others and yelling at me to stay put. Mitch claimed that if Dale took off and disappeared for a while, everything could be handled, or so he told his brothers. None of them noticed Edna until she’d almost reached the bottom step. I’m not sure whether Willie or Mitch saw her first, but it was Dale, the closest to her and the one on his feet, who acted.
    “Jesus Christ,” he said gently. “Mom, gimme that. Hey, I was only kidding. There’s no burglar. Mom, gimme that.”
    He put his beer can and the transmitter on one of the tables, reached out, and took the Buck Special from her. She didn’t resist. Then she stood there with her arms hanging helplessly at her sides. She looked bewildered, but no more than the last time I’d seen her.
    Either the feel of the Browning or his mother’s presence, maybe both, renewed Dale’s energy. He started telling his brothers that he wasn’t going anywhere. Then he launched into a jumble of inarticulate, pained accusations. Most were about Buddy. None were directed to Edna, who was gazing around with mean, empty eyes. Dale was well into his tirade when a man I’d never seen before wove his way down the stairs. I didn’t know him, but the close atmosphere of the damp cellar reeked of his invisible companion, a guy named Jim Beam.
    Although the father and his sons all resembled one another, Mitchell Dale Johnson, Sr., looked most like an aged, wasted version of Dale. He had the same big-boned, wide build, but without the flesh and youth. His vague, bloodshot eyes said he was as drunk as Dale, too. His face and neck were a sickly, wrinkled yellow-gray. Gray-blond hair stood out from his head in strange waves, like the gelled and crimped coiffure of a very old woman. In freakish contrast to Edna and to his own disheveled drunkenness, though, he was fastidiously and expensively dressed in a red plaid Pendleton robe over white linen pajamas. His black leather bedroom slippers gleamed. He even wore socks.
    He was evidently just sober enough to have caught the gist of Dale’s rambling. “Shut your drunken trap about Buddy,” he ordered Dale. He slurred his words less than I’d expected. “Buddy was a useless piece of shit, like that goddamned thing you’ve got now. I shouldn’t’ve bothered to get him gassed. I should’ve wrung his neck myself.”
    Dale turned slowly toward his father. His face had lost the pleasure I’d seen when he’d been waving the transmitter around. In fact, the expression on his thick, lifeless features was completely flat; he didn’t have one. He calmly raised the shotgun, squeezed the trigger, and shot his father dead. With a Buck Special at a range of about three yards, the second shot was a little superfluous, but Dale evidently didn’t want to take any chances.
    Both blasts filled my ears with what felt like burning paraffin. The odor of blood and gun blended sickeningly with the reek of beer and Jim Beam. Most of what had been Mitchell Dale Johnson, Sr., was distributed in red, gray, and white spatters over the cellar stairs. I’m not squeamish, but I wish I hadn’t seen his feet. They still wore socks and those black leather slippers.
    Still carrying the gun, Dale finally took Mitch’s advice. He stalked out through the door to the garage. Seconds later, an engine started, and Mitch, who’d been trying to make Edna stop screaming, tore for the door in a rage. “That’s my Corvette!” he yelled. “He’s stealing my Corvette!”
    I took advantage of the chaos. With Rowdy’s lead in one sore hand and that deadly collar in the other, I stood up and nodded to Leah to follow me. As the four of us stumbled out to the garage, no one tried to stop us. Willie had taken over Edna, and he must have heard the sirens, anyway, and known it was over.
    When we got outside, two police