Dad never came, and after an hour we walked home, my jacket around her waist. It was almost three miles.

At home, Jean locked herself in the bathroom until Mom got back. I sat on the front porch, looking for the courage to tell my father what a bastard he was-for not caring about Jean, for making a liar of me-but in the end I said nothing.

How I hated myself.

I woke in near darkness. There was a face in my window and I blinked at the thick glasses and heavy whiskers. I pulled back instinctively, not just because the man was so ugly.

“Good,” he grunted. “I thought maybe you were dead.”

His voice was guttural, with a heavy southern accent.

“What…” I said.

“Shouldn’t sleep in your car. It’s dangerous.” He looked me up and down, glanced in the backseat. “Smart boy like you should know better.”

The face withdrew and, like that, he was gone, leaving me half-asleep and still drunk. What the hell was that? I opened the door and clambered out, stiff and sore. I peered down the street and saw him pass from light to dark, long coat flapping around his ankles, earflaps loose on his ears. It was my park walker, and after years of silent passings, we’d finally spoken. This was my chance. I could put feet to pavement, catch him in the dark, and ask my question; yet I didn’t move.

I let him go, the opportunity lost to the paralysis of indecision. I got back into my car, mouth like glue, and I looked for gum or a mint but found neither. I lit a cigarette instead, but it tasted horrible, so I tossed it. My watch showed it was ten o’clock; I’d slept for two, maybe three hours. I peered down the street at my house. The cars were gone, but lights still burned, and I guessed Barbara was up. My head was pounding and I knew that she was more than I could bear right then. What I really wanted was another beer and an empty bed. But what I needed was something entirely different, and as I sat there, I realized that I’d been putting off the inevitable. I needed to go up to Ezra’s office, to make peace with his ghost and to look for his gun.

I turned the ignition, thought of all the stupid drunks I’d defended on DWI charges, then drove to the office. It was that kind of day.

I parked in back, where I always did, and let myself into the narrow hallway that ran past the tiny break room, the copy room, and the supply closet. When I got to the main office area, I flipped on a lamp and tossed my keys onto the table.

I heard something upstairs, a scrape followed by a low thump, and I froze.

Silence.

I stood and listened, but the sound didn’t come again. I thought of Ezra’s ghost, found the thought not funny, and wondered if I’d imagined it. Moving slowly, I walked to the front of the office and turned on every light. The stairwell to Ezra’s upstairs domain gaped at me, all darkness and slick, shiny walls. My heart was up and running and I felt that unhealthy bourbon sweat. I smelled myself in the stillness and wondered if I was a coward after all. I reached for some kind of calm and told myself that old buildings settle and drunken men imagine things all the time. I reminded myself that Ezra was dead.

I flashed a glance around the place, but everything looked as it always had: desks, chairs, and filing cabinets-all in order. I looked back up the narrow stairwell and started to climb. I moved slowly, one hand on the rail. Five steps up, I stopped, thinking that I saw movement. I took one more hesitant step, heard something, and stopped. Then something huge, dark, and very fast descended upon me. It crashed into my chest and I was falling. I felt a moment of blinding pain; then all was blackness.

CHAPTER 6

I saw light. It flickered and died, then flickered again. It hurt. I didn’t want it.

“He’s coming around,” a voice said.

“Well, that’s something at least.” I recognized the voice. Detective Mills.

I opened my eyes to bright, fuzzy light. I blinked, but the pain in my head didn’t go away.

“Where am I?”

“Hospital,” Mills said, and leaned over me. She didn’t smile, but I smelled her perfume; it was ripe, like a peach too long in the bag.

“What happened?”

Mills leaned closer. “You tell me,” she said.

“I don’t remember.”

“Your secretary found you this morning at the foot of the stairs. You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

I sat up against the pillows and looked around. Green curtains surrounded my bed. A large nurse stood at my feet, a bucolic smile on her face. I heard hospital voices and smelled hospital smells. I looked for Barbara. She wasn’t there.

“Somebody threw a chair at me,” I said.

“I beg your pardon,” Mills said.

“Ezra’s chair, I think. I was walking up the stairs and somebody pushed the chair down on top of me.”

Mills said nothing for a long moment. She tapped a pen against her teeth and looked at me.

“I talked to your wife,” she said. “According to her, you were drunk last night.”

“So?”

“Very drunk.”

I stared in dumb amazement at the detective. “Are you suggesting that I fell down the stairs?” Mills said nothing and I felt the first stir of anger. “My wife wouldn’t know very drunk if it bit her on the ass.”

“I corroborated her story with several people who were at your house last night,” Mills said.

“Who?”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“Relevant! Christ. You sound like a lawyer.” Now I was mad. Mainly because I was being treated as if I were stupid. “Have you been to my office, Detective Mills?”

“No,” she replied.

“Then go,” I said. “See if the chair is there or not.”

She studied me, and I could all but see the debate. Was this guy for real or just being an ass? If she’d ever considered me a friend, I saw right then that she did no longer. Her eyes were intolerant, and I guessed that the pressure was getting to her. There had been many stories in the paper-retrospectives on Ezra’s life, thinly worded speculation about the manner of his death, vague details about the investigation-and Mills had been mentioned many times. I understood that this case would make or break her, but for some reason I’d imagined that our personal relationship would remain apart.

“What’s your secretary’s name?” she asked. I told her and she turned to the nurse, who looked uncomfortable. “Where’s your phone?” The nurse told her to use the one in the triage nurse’s office. Down the hall. Second door. Mills looked back to me. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said, and I almost smiled before I realized she wasn’t making a funny.

She flapped her way through the curtains and disappeared. I heard her heels on the tile and then I was alone with the nurse. She fluffed my pillow.

“Is this the emergency room?” I asked.

“Yes, but Saturday morning is slow. Shootin’ and stabbin’ is done until tonight.” She smiled and suddenly became a real person.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Oh, nothing but some bruises and such. Your headache might last longer than it would have otherwise.” Another smile and I knew I wasn’t the first Saturday-morning hangover she’d seen. “You’ll be discharged shortly.”

I laid my fingers on the warm dough of her forearm. “Has my wife been to see me? Five five. Short black hair. Pretty.” She looked blank. “Hard eyes,” I added, only half-joking. “Attitude.”

“I’m sorry. No.”

I looked away from the pity in her face. “Are you married?” I asked.

“Twenty-two years,” she said.

“Would you leave your husband alone in the emergency room?” She didn’t answer, and I thought, No, of course not; differences end at the hospital door.

“That would depend,” she finally said. She smoothed my blankets, her hands moving sure and quick, and I thought she didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“On?” I asked.