“She was.”

“Where’s she at now?”

Devra Stokes was living in Northwest, working in a salon, going to Strayer and taking secretarial classes around her hours in the shop. She and Juwan were renting an apartment, found by Ives, in a fringe but not deadly neighborhood. She and the boy were doing fine. But there was no reason for Strange to give Oliver, or anyone else connected with the trial, her whereabouts.

“I don’t know,” said Strange.

“Anyway, I guess it’s all over now. Relieved to have it behind me, you want the truth.”

After the defense had rested its case and closing arguments had been presented, jury deliberation lasted less than two weeks, an unusually short time for a case with this kind of life-and-death ramification. Once the verdict was read, a kind of minihearing had commenced in which Raymond Ives and his team argued mitigating circumstances in hopes of avoiding the death penalty. That phase, too, had concluded, leaving only Judge Potterfield’s sentencing to complete the trial.

“Too bad it didn’t work out for you,” said Strange.

“Aw, shit, I knew how it was gonna end from day one. That jury they handpicked, they decided what they were gonna do the first time they got a look at me. I mean, you get down to it, they didn’t even need to go through the trouble of havin’ that trial.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Ain’t no maybe about it. It wasn’t no kind of shock to me when they found me guilty. Question now is, will I live or die?”

Strange sat impassively, looking into Granville Oliver’s golden eyes.

“You know, it’s funny,” said Granville. “There was that day, when the Stokes girl was testifyin’, that I actually thought that there was a chance I might walk. She had planted that, what do you call it, seed of doubt up in that whole courtroom. And I remember thinkin’, Wouldn’t that be some shit, if it was what she was sayin’ that was gonna get me off?”

“Why would that be funny?” said Strange.

“Phil Wood told that girl he was gonna kill my uncle Bennett? Shoot, Phil was just talkin’, pumpin’ his own self up for the benefit of that pretty young ass. Phil had killed before to get his stripes, but he wouldn’t never pull the trigger on my own kin, not unless I ordered him to do it. And I never did.”

“What are you telling me?”

“I killed my uncle, Strange. Walked right up to the open window of his new Jag and shot that snitch motherfucker to death. Man was about to flip on me, and it was down to that. Him or me, and I wasn’t gonna do no long time, not for blood or anyone else.” Oliver looked Strange over. “You surprised?”

“Not really. In my heart, I guess I knew all along.”

“Didn’t make no difference to you, huh?”

“No. I suppose it didn’t.”

“You knew I was who they said I was and still you kept on it. Why?”

Because I took your father out, thirty-some years ago. Because it was me who put you behind the eight ball, like all these other kids out here, got no fathers to teach them, by example, right from wrong. How to be tough without being violent, how to walk with your head up andyour shoulders square, how to love one woman and be there for your children and make it work. Because it was me who put you on the road that took you where you are today.

“I was just doing my job,” said Strange.

“Well, you stood tall,” said Oliver.

“I did my best.”

“And I appreciate it. Wanted you to know.”

Their hands met in the middle of the table. Strange broke Oliver’s grip and stood.

“How’s the little man doin’?” said Oliver, looking up, managing a smile.

“Robert’s fine. He’s with that family affiliated with the church. I’m going to see him at practice this evening.”

“Boy can play, can’t he?”

“Yes, he can,” said Strange.

“Holler at you later, hear?”

“I’ll pray for you, Granville.”

And for myself, thought Strange, as he turned and walked from the D.C. Jail, leaving Granville Oliver in chains.

STRANGE had no live cases on the week’s schedule. He was restless and had time to kill before evening practice, so he went about filling up his day. He visited a technical school in Northwest that Lamar Williams had mentioned to him as a place that offered computer training on a noncollegiate level. Strange had promised Lamar that he would contribute half to the cost of classes if he thought the school was okay. He picked up a brochure and got their rates from one of the admission staff, and had a look at the facilities. Then he called Janine on his cell. He asked her if she’d like to meet him at the old Crisfield’s, up on Georgia, for a late lunch.

After raw oysters, soft-shell crab sandwiches, and a couple of beers at the U-shaped bar, Strange and Janine went back to the house on Quintana and made slow love in their bedroom as Greco slept at the foot of the bed. The house was quiet, with only the sounds of their coupling and the low hum of the window air conditioners running on the first and second floors. Lionel was in College Park, having started his freshman orientation.

Strange and Janine held each other for a while, kissing but saying little, after both of them had come. She looked up into his eyes and wiped some sweat off his brow.

“You’re troubled.”

“Even with all this,” said Strange. “I mean, with all I have, with you and Lionel. It’s crazy, I know.”

“You can’t hide it. Especially not in our bed.”

“I just feel like doin’ something. Making some kind of a difference. ’Cause damn if it don’t seem like I been chasing my tail these past months.” Strange put his weight on one elbow. “You know, the night Terry got shot -”

“Derek.”

“The night he got shot, Janine, he told me that all he wanted was to feel like he accomplished something.”

“Derek, don’t.”

“That’s what I want to feel now, too.”

“Maybe you haven’t felt that way lately. But you will.”

“I never should have let him go home alone like he did. I should have brought him back here that night to hang with all of us.”

“But that’s not what happened.”

“I know it.”

“Lie down,” said Janine. “Hold me and let’s go to sleep. Can’t remember the last time we had an afternoon to ourselves like this, just to do nothing but rest.”

“Okay,” said Strange. “I need to rest. That sounds good.”

But when he awoke, late in the afternoon, his feelings had not changed.

STRANGE drove down to 9th and Upshur. He had not yet read the paper, so he picked up that day’s Post at Hawk’s barbershop and told one of the cutters he would return it.

Going into his shop, he went through the reception area and into his office, where he had a seat behind his desk. The vinyl version of Round 2, the Stylistics’ follow-up to their debut, was leaning up against the wall, facing out, directly behind his chair. Lewis, from the used-book store in downtown Silver Spring, had mailed it to Strange, and Strange had not yet taken it home. Like the gum wrappers still in the top drawer of Quinn’s desk, it was something he had not wanted to deal with just yet.

Strange went right to the Metro section. Between the roundup columns, “In Brief” and “Crime,” there had been five gun-related murders reported over the past weekend. Many of the victims had gone unnamed and all were in their late teens or early twenties. One had occurred in east-of-the-park Northwest and the others had occurred in Far Southeast. At the city’s annual Georgia Avenue Day celebration, a teenager had been shot by random gunfire, sending some families fleeing in panic and causing others to dive on their children, shielding them from further harm.

Strange went to the A section. Deep inside, a congressman from the Carolinas dismissed the need for further handgun laws and vowed to continue his fight to hold Hollywood and the record industry accountable for the sexual content and violent nature of their product. This same congressman had threatened to cut off federal funds to the District of Columbia, earmarked for education, if D.C. did not agree to change its Metro signs from “National Airport” to “Reagan National Airport.”