When You Call My Name. Sharon Sala

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      The small frame house was nestled against a backdrop of Pine Mountain. A black-and-white pup lay on the front porch, gnawing on a stick. Carter watched until the puppy ambled off toward the barn, and then he waited a while longer, just to make sure that there was no one in sight. Off in the distance, the sound of a tractor could be heard as it plowed up and down a field. As he started toward the house, a light breeze lifted the tail of his suit coat.

      He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he told himself that something must be done, or all of his careful planning would be for nothing. If he was going to ignore the fact that Glory Dixon could reveal his secret, then he might as well have called the police the night of the crime, instead of going to all the trouble to conceal it.

      Planks creaked upon the porch as it gave beneath his weight. He knocked, then waited, wondering what on earth he would say if someone actually answered. Then he knocked again and again, but no one came. He looked around the yard, assuring himself that he was still unobserved, and then threw his weight against the door. It popped like a cork out of a bottle, and before Carter could think to brace himself, he fell through the doorway and onto the floor before scrambling to his feet.

      Now that he was inside, his thoughts scattered. Betty Jo’s death had been an accident. What he was thinking of doing was premeditated murder. Yet the problem remained, how to hide one without committing the other. He stood in place, letting himself absorb the thought of the deed. And as he gazed around the room, his attention caught and then focused on the small heating stove in the corner.

      It was fueled with gas.

      He began to smile.

      An idea was forming as he headed for the kitchen. His hands were shaking as he began to investigate the inner workings of the Dixons’ cookstove. It didn’t take long to find and then blow out the pilot light. As he turned on all the jets, he held his breath. The unmistakable hiss of escaping gas filled the quiet room.

      With a sharp turn of his wrist, he turned even harder until one of the controls broke off in his hands. Let them try to turn that baby off, he thought, and hurried out of the kitchen.

      Carter wasn’t stupid. He knew that almost anything could ignite this—from a ringing telephone to the simple flick of a light switch when someone entered a room. And while he had no control over who came in the house first, he could at least make sure the house didn’t blow with no one in it.

      With his thumb and forefinger, he carefully lifted the receiver from the cradle and set it to one side. The loud, intermittent buzz of a phone off the hook mingled with the deadly hiss behind him.

      Now that it was done, an anxiety to escape was overwhelming. Carter ran through the house and out onto the porch. Careful to pull the front door shut behind him, he jumped into his car and drove away while death filtered slowly throughout the rooms.