“Sure,” Kevin said. “But Mitch isn’t going to leave town.”

“Are you going to leave town, Mitch?”

Mitch said nothing.

“MR. WRIGHT? MR. Wright?” Detective Scott hammered on the decaying screen door again. The noise echoed back into the trees, shattering the peace of the gently hissing snowfall. Scott could hear a television inside and figured the guy was old or just nearly deaf. Judging by the look of the yard, which contained only things that had been bought before 1980, he guessed old.

Detective Scott knew from twenty-seven years on the police force that old people were hard to deal with. Civilians always thought it was young people who were rude to the police. It was certainly young people who committed most of the crimes, but old people were less likely to show respect, more likely to scream curses at you. Maybe they figured that, as death was relatively near, they had less to lose. Scott hoped this was one of the other kind of old people, the deferential, friendly kind, but something about the appearance of the house made him suspect otherwise.

The door flew open and an old man glared at them. “Whaddya want?”

“Evening, Mr. Wright. Are you Reginald Wright?”

“Whaddya want? Goddamn hammering on my door at this time of night.”

It was only eight thirty, but Scott let it go. “Mr. Wright, I’m Detective Robert Scott of the Wilton Police Department, and this is Officer Peskey.”

“Whaddya want?”

“Mr. Wright, do you own a 1980 Chevy Impala?”

“What? That’s was this is about? I took the ad out of the paper. Sold it… last week.”

“Did you transfer the title and get the paperwork-”

“I sold it, I tell you. What would the goddamned cops want a car like that for? It was a piece a’ shit.”

“Mr. Wright, we don’t want to buy it. We want to know who you sold it to. When you sell a car, you have to do a title transfer and-”

“I’m eighty-four years old,” said Mr. Wright.

“Well, that’s actually not an excuse to not transfer the title.”

“That’s bullshit. All a bunch a’ bullshit.” Mr. Wright started to slam the door shut, but Detective Scott gently inserted his foot in the doorway to stop him.

“Mr. Wright, that car was used in a robbery. And if you don’t talk to us, I’m going to assume you had something to do with it and have Officer Pesky here arrest you.”

Mr. Wright, who was used to having his demeanor interpreted as lovable elderly dottiness, became lucid and agreeable in a hurry. “What do you want to know?”

“What did the guy who bought the car look like?”

“There were three of them. One of them looked like a hippie.”

“A hippie?”

“Long-haired. You know. A damned hippie.”

Scott wondered whether it was feasible to get this guy to a sketch artist with a snow storm developing and decided to leave it until tomorrow. This wasn’t exactly the crime of the century. The guys had been unarmed and he didn’t want to force either the sketch artist or this old guy to be out and about on icy roads at all hours of the night. He was about to suggest a visit in the morning, when Mr. Wright offered one last piece of information.

“They buried something. In my yard.”

AFTER BURYING THE money, Kevin came home around midnight and noticed Linda’s car was not in the driveway. He sat in his truck for a full five minutes before he resolved to go inside. It didn’t necessarily mean she had left him. She could have just spent the night at her mother’s.

In the dining room, there was no note, which was a good sign, but all of Ellie’s toys and books were gone, which wasn’t. He flipped on the bedroom light and went through Linda’s dresser. All the drawers were empty.

It was over.

Sitting on the bed, he looked at himself in the dresser mirror. It was over. He had snow in his hair and he had just robbed a bank and his wife and daughter were gone. How long had he been playing the role of father and husband without actually being one? Almost from the beginning, his family had been an afterthought. He had married too young, for all the wrong reasons, he decided. He had been envying Mitch and Doug, as they sat around baked and bunny-eyed in front of their TV, for the last few years. Maybe that was what adult males needed-a few years of baked, bunny-eyed behavior before they took on the roles of father and husband. He had rushed into things without ever taking the time to decompress from his teens.

Fuck it. He felt relief rather than regret, or at least, he told himself he did. It was too much for one day. First an armored car robbery and then your wife leaves you on the same damned day. He’d have to figure out what he felt later.

Was it fixable? Could he have everything back the way it used to be, after they had first been married? Possibly, he decided. It would take a lot of work. But with $62,214 and eleven cents, he might actually have the time and resources to work things out. The thought gave him a lift.

In the meantime, he would just enjoy having the house to himself. Then a thought occurred to him. The reason Linda had left was because he was always living in the meantime. He had secretly wanted the house to himself for eight years. Obviously, it had shown.

He was thinking too much. He would deal with everything tomorrow. He went down to the basement, got his bong and little stash, took it up to the bedroom, and smoked. Couldn’t do that with Linda and Ellie there.

He exhaled a long, slow stream. Nobody to criticize him.

Freedom.

THE NEXT MORNING, as so often was the case after a big storm, it was sunny. The snow was melting fast, the icicles hanging from the gutter of the back porch dripping furiously over the disused plumbing equipment, splattering Mitch’s socks as he tried to smoke a cigarette. The bad feeling from after the robbery had returned full force. Mitch kept having to stifle the urge to grab his prepared bag of money and sundries and tear off without even saying goodbye to Doug. Couldn’t these guys see anything coming?

There was a knock on the door and Mitch froze. Jesus Christ, this was it. He began to tremble and watched the cigarette shake in his hand as he wondered where he had left his bag. Could he get to the bag and over the neighbor’s fence before the cops kicked the front door in? He tiptoed to the edge of the porch and peered around the side of the house and saw Kevin’s truck.

Shit. He was going nuts. He exhaled, surprised at his panicked reaction. He answered the front door, hoping that his little fear episode wasn’t still evident on his face.

“Dude, hope I didn’t wake you up,” Kevin said cheerfully. “I gotta walk some dogs today and I was hoping you could spot me a bud or two.”

“Sure.” Mitch went to get his bag of weed and a baggie. “Why are you walking dogs on a Saturday?”

“A couple of clients are out of town for the weekend.” As an afterthought, he added, “Linda left me last night.”

Mitch didn’t know what to say. He felt he should offer something supportive, but the only comment that came to him was that a blind man could have seen that one coming.

“That sucks, dude,” Mitch said finally, not sure if Kevin even agreed. From his cheerful demeanor, he looked like he had shed a burden rather than lost a family. Some marriages were better ended, Mitch thought, aware that he knew nothing of the subject and didn’t really intend to find out.

Doug came downstairs, sleepy-eyed and bed-headed, and nodded to them. Mitch handed Kevin the weed as Kevin’s cell phone rang.

“Dude, you want some coffee?” Doug called from the kitchen.