Kane Asche is killed by Burke Devore in the parking lot of a garden center, where Burke has followed Asche’s black Honda Accord and waited for him to return with his purchases. The murder is a decisive turn in Burke’s campaign against people he regards as obstacles: a planned execution becomes a visibly chaotic encounter, and his escape leaves the violence behind rather than resolving the danger and moral disorder that produced it.

Background and Decision

Earlier that morning, Burke drives toward Asche’s property on Footbridge Road, having decided that he cannot tolerate the closeness between Asche and his wife indefinitely. He recoils at the thought of killing her, comparing that horror to his earlier reluctance to kill a boyfriend, but fears even more that remaining in this situation will change him permanently. His decision is conditional but stark: if the couple insist on continuing to live together, he will kill them both. This resolve helps explain why the wife’s presence in the garden does not become the focus of the scene that follows; Burke finds Asche absent and changes course to pursue him.

At the property, the black Honda Accord is gone. Burke sees Asche’s wife in the garden, wearing a pale yellow T-shirt and white headband, holding a clipboard and apparently drawing a chart of the garden. He realizes that Asche has left in the car and regrets not arriving earlier. The missed opportunity sends him after the vehicle rather than into an immediate confrontation at the house, where the wife remains. The domestic scene and the missing car establish both the couple’s shared life and the practical uncertainty that governs Burke’s hunt.

Tracking Asche

Burke finds the Accord at a mall near the nursery. He recognizes it by its black color and knows Asche’s license number, details that turn the car into a reliable point of identification. Unable to park beside it, he watches from another row while a shopper returns her cart. His attention narrows to the vehicle: Asche is not yet there, but Burke waits for him rather than abandoning the pursuit.

Burke parks his Voyager and prepares a Luger pistol inside a raincoat with unusually accessible pockets. He keeps the gun in his lap and watches the Accord. After ten minutes, Asche appears with a shopping cart loaded with small boxes and white plastic bags, with a large sack of peat moss on top. Because the Honda is parked facing inward, Asche opens its trunk and begins loading the purchases. The ordinary errand supplies Burke with the moment he has been waiting for: Asche is bent over the trunk, occupied with the bags and boxes, while Burke approaches along the row between the cars.

The Killing

Burke stops behind Asche and asks whether he is Kane Asche. Asche turns with a questioning smile and answers yes. Burke confirms that he already knows who he is, then brings the Luger out from beneath the raincoat’s right flap and fires. The coat bunches around his wrist and pulls his arm down slightly; the bullet strikes Asche’s right cheek instead of his eye. Asche falls backward, partly into the trunk and partly across the rear bumper, but is still alive.

The imperfect first shot makes the killing feel neither controlled nor clean. Burke recognizes that the scene is messy and bloody, and that the injured man remains alive. He leans in and fires again, placing the barrel almost against Asche’s staring right eye. This shot snaps Asche’s head back; he lies sprawled mostly on his back, mouth open and one eye open. The sequence is brutally compressed: identification, first shot, failed instant death, and a second shot to finish the attack.

Escape and Significance

After the second shot, Burke walks back to the Voyager without hurrying. He gets in with the Luger still in his lap, covered by the raincoat flap, starts the vehicle, reverses out of the parking space, and drives away. The account notes very little traffic on the route home, but offers no confrontation or interruption before he reaches it. His departure is practical rather than triumphant: the scene ends with him carrying the weapon away from the body and returning to the ordinary road.

The killing’s tension comes from the contrast between Burke’s firm decision and the physical disorder of carrying it out. He has framed violence as a way to escape a situation he fears will corrupt him, yet the shooting itself is awkward, bloody, and requires a second close-range shot. The garden-center setting sharpens that contrast: peat moss, shopping bags, a cart, and an open trunk surround an act Burke has prepared for but cannot make orderly. Asche’s murder is therefore both a step in Burke’s campaign and a demonstration of its cost: his reasoning may be settled, but the act remains immediate, exposed, and irreversible.