“What exactly is it that you secure?” I ask.

He points with two fingers, like he’s still holding the cigarette between them, sweeping a row of gray corrugated buildings behind the tall hurricane fence.

“I got these warehouses here, and then some others a street over, which is where my security office is. About four in the morning, while I was doing a foot patrol, I heard what sounded like a gunshot off in the distance. I couldn’t tell where it come from, so I just noted the time – 4:14 a.m. – and went on with my route.”

“You didn’t call it in?”

“I wasn’t a hundred percent sure,” he says. “Plus, I know you boys got better ways to occupy your time than hunting down random gunshots in the night.” He alternates between crossing his arms and resting his hands on his hips, unable to find a comfortable posture. “In hindsight, I guess that’s what I should’ve done, but the rain started up and, honestly, I started second-guessing myself.”

An hour later, though, he’d hopped behind the wheel of his truck and done another circuit, finding Thomson’s Yukon.

“From the exhaust I could tell the engine was running, so I got out and walked up alongside. Soon as I flashed my light on the window, I knew something was wrong.” He gives an exaggerated gulp. “All that blood and brain on the glass.”

He’s apologetic about interfering, but says he’d heard a story before he left the police department of somebody taking a bullet at a crime scene because a cocked pistol hadn’t been rendered safe. He reached in without thinking and uncocked Thomson’s gun.

“Why’d you leave HPD, Mr. Cropper?”

The question prompts some thinking on his part, but after I remind him how easily these things can be checked, he admits the department cut him loose.

“I had a whole series of problems,” he says with a bashful smile completely at odds with his rough appearance. “The main thing was, I didn’t like all the reports, so I’d kinda forget to do them, you know? This work here, it’s much more suited to my temperament.” He pronounces the word as temper mint. “I don’t mind the hours or the solitude.”

When police officers daydream about bagging the job for some high-paying private sector security gig, this isn’t what they typically have in mind. Consulting on matters of security is where the money is. Actually securing things? Not so lucrative. Cropper’s a type I’ve encountered before, desperate to be part of the real action in spite of his reluctance to admit disappointment with the turn his career’s taken. In that light, his behavior makes sense. He didn’t think we’d be irritated at his tampering with the suicide weapon so much as grateful that he’d prevented the dead man’s punching an officer’s ticket from the grave.

As I’m conducting the preliminary interviews, detectives start trickling onto the scene. Mack Ordway rambles up with grim-faced determination, followed by Hedges and Bascombe, who apparently shared a car. Aguilar arrives with a few others, and a while later, bringing up the rear, Lorenz reports in. He walks toward Bascombe, but when he gets close, the lieutenant moves my way.

“You up to this, March?” he asks.

“A suicide? I think so. Don’t forget, I’ve had a lot of experience.”

He nods. “Then maybe it’s time to get the canvass going. Put some of these detectives to work.”

Across the street from the warehouses, a scrawny hedge of pines screens a residential neighborhood lit by amber streetlights, the mist forming haloes around their bulbs. I gather up the detectives, give them a rundown on the situation, and make the canvass assignments. As I speak, eyes cut frequently to Bascombe as if saying, Is this for real? We’re taking orders from this guy? The lieutenant ignores them. Before we break up, Hedges offers a few words.

“I don’t have to tell you men, but this was one of our own. Let’s get the job done, all right? Quick and thorough.”

The sky rumbles and we all gaze upward, as if it might have something to say. It doesn’t, so the team breaks up, heading into the gray morning on a perfunctory hunt.

Edgar Castro comes up to me, a plastic evidence bag dangling from his hand. Inside, a mobile phone buzzes silently, the screen illuminated. The name on the display reads stef. Bascombe reaches for the bag, quizzing me with a raised brow.

“The wife,” I say.

He draws his hand back. “Ah. We better get the notification taken care of.”

“You want to come along?”

From the way he recoiled from the ringing phone, I already know the answer. But Bascombe surprises me by saying yes. He notifies the captain, then motions to my car. “You drive.”

Stephanie Thomson comes to the door with dried mascara on her cheeks, wearing an oversized men’s button-up shirt and a pair of loose-fitting cotton shorts. She’s younger than I expected, more Cavallo’s generation than mine and Thomson’s, pretty but with the lined, hollow-cheeked look that comes from hard drinking. Her nose and the rim of her eyes shine pink. In her tight-packed fist, a puff of damp Kleenex juts from between the knuckles. Bascombe shows his badge and makes the introductions, setting off more tears.

“It’s all right,” I say, putting an arm over her shoulders, guiding her to a brown recliner in the apartment’s open living room. Of course it’s not all right. It’s terrible and will only get worse. But I speak the words out of reflex, prompted by emotional muscle memory. When people cry, you tell them not to. The first impulse is to take the pain away, because if you don’t, how can you give any comfort?

Bascombe crouches wide-legged at the edge of the sofa, leaning toward her with his hands intensely clasped. He looks like he’s about to break the news, but no words come out of his mouth. I kneel beside the recliner, taking her hand.

“I have something to tell you, Stephanie – ”

“Is it Joe?” she asks, nodding her head over and over. “It’s Joe, isn’t it? I’ve been trying to call him all night, and he never answers. I knew something was wrong, I just knew. Is he…?”

“He’s dead,” I say. No use in dragging it out. “His body was discovered earlier this morning. He was sitting behind the wheel of his vehicle, pulled over on the side of the road. He had his pistol in his hand, and a gunshot wound to the head.”

Her tear ducts open up, expelling a river of glistening salt, an impossible current pulsing out in silence. Shaking from the shoulders down through to the knees, an involuntary tremor, reminding me of a marble column under earthquake pressure, the dusty cracking that presages impending collapse.

“He shot himself,” she says, nodding violently, so certain. “He did that to himself.”

“We’re still conducting our investigation, but – ”

“How could he…?” Her mouth widens, like she’s trying to swallow something too large. “He did that to himself?”

Suddenly she’s slamming her fists against the armrests, kicking her legs, screaming in unintelligible, angry spasms. Bascombe springs forward, pinning her arms like he thinks she’s having a seizure. I stand back and let him do it. After a few moments she goes limp in his arms and starts crying again. I go into the kitchen and look for a glass, pouring water I found in the refrigerator door. When I return, putting the glass on the table beside her, she’s clotting her tears with a fistful of tissue. Bascombe is back on the couch, looking ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

“I know this is hard, but I do need to ask some questions. And we’d like to take a look around, too, if that’s all right. It’s standard in a case like this.”

“Did he leave a note?” she asks, her voice weak.

“Not that we know of. I was thinking he might have left you a voicemail message?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve been checking my cell and the home number, thinking maybe… but there’s nothing.”

I hand her the water glass, which she examines with a bleak stare. Instead of hammering her with questions right away, I ask permission to take a look around. She consents with a flick of the hand. The lieutenant sticks to the couch, motioning me to go ahead. As I walk down the hallway toward the bedroom, I can hear him speaking softly to her.