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The cop looked at her. He had an expression like, "Now what do I do?" In the middle of her anger, she could see his side-it was such a crazy situation for a cop. Threatened by a lady. Then she closed the door, and he drove off, and Gary got up from bed. These hot days the bed had been moved up right by the living-room window.

Suddenly she realized what those last couple of minutes must have done to him. She had completely forgotten about the guns. The sight of that cop stopping at their house was going to add up to a lot more beer and Fiorinal.

Next morning, he was over at Kathryne's house. She thought he was real abrupt. "Come outside," he said. Kathryne felt scared. "Can't you tell me here?" "No," he said, "outside."

She didn't like the way he was acting, but it was daylight. So she went out and Gary said, "I've got something in my car I want to leave here for a little while," and he went over to the Mustang and took a diaper bag out of the trunk and moved it over to the back of her car. Kathryne said, "What have you got, Gary?" and he answered, "Guns."

"Guns?" she said. "Yes," he said, "guns." She asked where he got them. "Where do you think? I stole them." Kathryne just said, "Oh." Right there on the back deck of her car he started bringing them out for examination. "I'd like," said Gary, "to leave them here." "My God, Gary," said Kathryne, "I don't think you better. I can't keep them here."

"I'll be back," Gary said, "when I get off work. I just want to leave them in a safe place for a little while."

She couldn't believe the way he had set them out on the trunk of the car. If any of the neighbors looked through the window, they wouldn't believe what they were seeing.

Deliberately, he took each gun and described it to her like it was a rare beauty. One was a .357 Magnum this-or-that, another was a .22 Automatic Browning, then a Clan Weston .38 something-or-other.

Kathryne just said, "Gary, I don't know much about guns."

"How do you like this one?" he asked.

"Oh, they're nice, they're all nice, you know." She said, "What are you going to do with them, Gary?"

"A couple of dudes are going to buy them," he said.

By now, all the guns were unwrapped. He said, "I gave Nicole one to protect herself. Pretty little over-and-under Derringer. I want you to have this one."

"I don't need it, Gary. I really don't want it."

"I want you to," he said. "You're Nicole's mother."

"God, Gary," said Kathryne, "I've already got a gun."

"Well," he said, "I want you to have this Special. It's just not safe for two women living out here alone like you and your sister."

She tried to explain that she already had her husband's Magnum. But Gary said, "That's too big a gun. You shouldn't even attempt to shoot it."

Now he laid the guns in her car trunk. Kathryne let him know that she definitely didn't want to be driving around with them. So he said, "Let me leave them in the house." Told her he'd return at five o'clock. Well, she declared, she wouldn't be home then.

That was all right, he'd just come and get them. With that, he carried the diaper bag into the house, and put the guns behind their couch, all seven or eight of them. Then he wrapped the Special in an old cloth, and put it under her bedroom mattress.

That evening when she and Kathy got home, they ran to look behind the couch and yes, the guns were gone.

8

During the day, while Gary was at work, Barrett came by in his and Nicole drove up with him to the Canyon. Sunny and Peabody left the pickup and went out to play. Before they could even light a stick, his pants were off, hers were off-they were getting it on. She heard herself say, "Gary is crazy. We might end up dead." Then she Jim, "If anything happens, I want you to know that I love you." She really did as she said it.

Gary came home in a sloppy old windbreaker with the sleeves cut off. His pants were a mess, and he was half drunk. He told her go over with him to Val Conlin's to examine the truck.