Michael Malone - Weebly

there, and I'm afraid I can't make myself…"
"Of course, of course."
"Thank you, Winslow." She let him out and locked
the door of the house that was all her father had left her
when, fallen on harder times, he had had nothing more
to leave and no one else to leave it to.
Abernathy could not touch the cat. He found a
shovel with which to lift it out of the garbage can. Even
so, death's cold seemed to chill the shaft and ice his
hands. The cat was heavy. Its skull, he now noticed,
was crushed, and clots of viscous gelatin clung to
broken pieces of bone. So much for the mystery of
intelligence, thought the lawyer. At the end of the yard,
by an oak tree, he dug a hole. It was not as easy as he
had assumed. There were rocks he had to pry loose
with his fingers in the dark. Still, he dug deeper than he
needed to, for fear of dogs. Then he shoveled the cat
down into the hole.
At least the animal had been dead when he found it,
and not dying. Not like the cat-mauled blue jay that had
once flown crazed around and around their living room
until it killed itself, slamming against the window's