“Difficult to do, though.”

“Difficult. Not impossible. Still, it was odd.”

“Was he interviewed?”

“We had a witness who placed him at the scene: washroom attendant. Guy was Korean. Couldn’t speak more than about three words of English, but he picked out Parker’s image from the door cameras. Well, he picked out Parker’s image as one of five possibles from a series of images. Trouble was, we all looked alike to him. Of those five people, four were as different from one another as I am from you. Anyway, Parker was hauled in, and agreed to be questioned. He didn’t even lawyer up. He admitted to being at the bus station, but nothing more than that. Said it was in connection with some runaway he’d been asked to find. It checked out. He was working a teen case at the time.”

“And that’s as far as it went?”

“There wasn’t enough to charge him on, and no appetite for it anyway. Here was an ex-cop who had lost his wife and child only months before. He may not have been loved by his fellow officers, but cops support their own in times of trouble. It would have been a more unpopular case to prosecute than charging Goldilocks with burglary. And like I said, Johnny Friday was no Eagle Scout. A lot of people out there felt that someone had done humanity a service by taking him off the team permanently.”

“Why wasn’t Parker popular?”

“Dunno. He wasn’t meant to be a cop. He never fit in. There was always something odd about him.”

“So why did he join?”

“Some misplaced loyalty to his old man’s memory, I suppose. Maybe he thought he could make up for those kids’ deaths by being a better cop than his father was. You ask me, it’s about the only admirable thing he ever did.”

Mickey let that slide. Already, he was startled by the depths of Tyrrell’s bitterness toward Parker. He couldn’t figure out what Parker might have done to deserve it, short of burning Tyrrell’s house down and then screwing his wife in the ashes.

“You said that Johnny Friday was the first killing in which Parker was suspected of involvement. There were others?”

“I’d guess so.”

“You’d guess?”

Tyrrell signaled for a third whiskey. He was slowing down some, but he was also getting tetchy.

“Look, most are a matter of record: here, in Louisiana, in Maine, in Virginia, in South Carolina. He’s like the Grim Reaper, or cancer. If those are the ones that we know about, J A know abo don’t you think there are others that we don’t know about? You think he called the cops every time he or one of his buddies punched someone’s clock?”

“His buddies? You mean the men known as Angel and Louis?”

“Shadows,” said Tyrrell softly. “Shadows with teeth.”

“What can you tell me about them?”

“Rumors, mostly. Angel, he did time for theft. From what I can tell, Parker might have used him as a source, and in return he offered him protection.”

“So it started out as a professional relationship?”

“You could say that. The other one, Louis, he’s harder to pin down. No arrests, no history: he’s a wraith. There was some stuff last year. An auto shop he was reputed to have a silent interest in got targeted. A guy, one of the shooters, ended up in the hospital, then died a week later of his injuries. After that-”

Hector appeared at his elbow and replaced an empty glass with a full one. Tyrrell paused to take a mouthful.

“Well, this is where it gets strange. One of Louis’s friends, business partners, whatever, he died too. They said that he had a heart attack, but I heard different. One of the mortuary attendants said that they had to fill in a bullet hole in his throat.”

“Who did it? Louis?”

“Nah, he doesn’t hurt those close to him. He’s not that kind of killer. The whispers were that this was a revenge raid gone wrong.”

“That’s what he was doing up in Massena,” said Mickey, more to himself than to Tyrrell, who didn’t seem to notice anyway.

“They’re like him: they’re being looked after,” said Tyrrell.

“Looked after?”

“A man doesn’t get to do what Parker has done, to kill with impunity, unless someone is watching his back.”

“The ones on record were justifiable homicides, I heard.”

“Justifiable! You don’t find it strange that none of them ever even made it to the steps of a court, that every investigation into his actions exonerated him or just petered out?”

“You’re talking about a conspiracy.”

“I’m talking about protection. I’m talking about people with a vested interest in keeping Parker on the streets.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Could be because they approve of what he’s done.”

“But he’s lost his PI’s license. He can’t own a firearm.”

“He can’t legally carry a firearm in the state of Maine. You can be damned sure he has guns squirreled away somewhere.”

“What I’m saying is, if there was a conspiracy to protect him, then something has changed.”

“Not enough to land him behind bars, where he belongs.” Tyrrell rapped an index finger on the table to emphasize his point.

Mickey leaned back. He had filled pages and pages of notes. His hand ached. He watched Tyrrell. The older man was staring into his third glass. They’d been huge measures, as big as any Mickey had ever seen poured in a bar. Had he himself drunk that much alcohol he would be asleep by now. Tyrrell was still upright, but he was on the ropes. Mickey wasn’t going to get anything more of use from him.

“Why do you hate him so much?” he asked.

“Huh?” Tyrrell looked up. Even through a fug of progressive intoxication, he was still surprised by the directness of the question.

“Parker. Why do you hate him?”

“Because he’s a killer.”

“Just that?”

Tyrrell blinked slowly. “No. Because he’s wrong. He’s all wrong. It’s like-It’s like he doesn’t cast a shadow, or there’s no reflection when he looks in a mirror. He seems normal, but then you look closer and he isn’t. He’s an aberration, an abomination.”

Christ, thought Mickey.

“You go to church?” asked Tyrrell.

“No.”

“You should. A man ought to go to church. Helps him to keep himself in perspective.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Tyrrell looked up, his face transformed. Mickey had over-stepped the mark, and badly.

“Don’t get smart with me, boy. Look at you, scrabbling in the dirt, hoping to make a few bucks off another man’s life. You’re a parasite. You don’t believe in anything. I believe. I believe in God, and I believe in the law. I know right from wrong, good from evil. I’ve spent my life living by those beliefs. I cleaned out precinct after precinct in this city, rooting out the ones who thought that being lawmen made them above the law. Well, I showed them the error of their ways. Nobody should be above the law, especially not cops, doesn’t matter if they wear a badge now or wore one ten years ago, twenty years ago. I found the ones who stole, who ripped off dealers and whores, who dispensed their version of street justice in alleyways and empty apartments, and I brought them to book. I called them on it, and I found them wanting.

“Because there is a process in place. There is a system of justice. It’s imperfect, and it doesn’t always work the way it should, but it’s the best we have. And anyone-anyone-who steps outside that system to act as judge, jury, and executioner on others is an enemy of that system. Parker is an enemy of that system. His friends are enemies of that system. By their actions, they render it acceptable for others to act the same way. Their violence begets more violence. You cannot perform acts of evil in the name of a greater good, because the good suffers. It is corrupted and polluted by what has been done in its name. Do you understand, Mr. Wallace? These are gray men. They shift the boundaries of morality to suit themselves, and they use the ends to justify the me J Astify theans. That is unacceptable to me, and if you have a shred of decency, it should be unacceptable to you too.” He pushed the glass away. “We’re finished here.”