“No.”
Beery was still standing in the kitchen doorway, staring bewilderedly at Fenner.
“I knocked but she hadn’t come up yet,” Fenner went on, “so I opened the door — it was unlocked — and came in.”
Kells said: “The door was unlocked?”
Fenner nodded. “In a few minutes I heard her coming up the hall and she was talking to a man. I went into the kitchen, of course, and she and Bellmann came in. They were arguing about something. Bellmann went into the bathroom I think, and then I heard the two shots during one of the peals of thunder. I didn’t know what to do — and then when I was about to come out and see what had happened, you knocked at the door.”
Fenner paused, took a long breath. “I didn’t know it was you, of course, so I hid in the cupboard.”
Kells said: “Oh.”
“I thought it would be better if I didn’t get mixed up in a thing of this kind, in any way.”
Kells said, “Oh,” again. Then he looked up at Beery, said: “Sit down, Shep — I want to tell you a story.”
Beery sat down near the door.