There was a gap between the front bumper and the alley wall. He made it through, ran across Mulberry toward an empty lot, heard the engine roar, tires squeal behind him.

Another alley here, close walls and cracked blacktop. He ran, tripped, went down hard, the Beretta flying from his hand, skittering across the ground.

He lay on the blacktop, out of breath, the pain an iron band around his stomach and sides. The far end of the alley was about thirty feet ahead. He looked toward it but could not move. He looked behind him, back down the alley to the street beyond. The BMW was gone.

He sucked in air, felt the pain in his chest, rolled onto his side. His left palm was bloody where he’d tried to break his fall. Bits of gravel were embedded in the skin.

He got to his feet, looked around until he found the Beretta. He shuffled toward it, one hand on the wall for support. When he bent to pick it up, dizziness swept over him. He leaned against the wall until it ended. He could hear distant sirens.

When he reached the end of the alley, the street was empty. Still breathing hard, he waited in the shadows. A cab went past slow, stopped at a light. He slipped the Beretta into his right-hand coat pocket, stepped out into the street.

Morgan sat in the Monte Carlo, the Beretta on the seat beside him, the pain like a hot coal in his stomach.

He was parked a block down from his hotel, could see the BMW just around the corner up ahead, exhaust curling from its tailpipe, waiting.

He got his cell out, speed-dialed.

C-Love answered. “Yo.”

“I have a situation here. I can’t go back to my place.”

Silence for a moment.

“Where you at?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is I need a place to go.”

“I hear you. Hold on.”

When C-Love came back on he said, “Big Man says he can fix you up. You driving?”

“Yeah.”

“Know that motel by the airport, one we party at sometimes?”

“I know it.”

“He gonna call ahead, get a room for you. You go there, park around the back. Manager gonna give you the key, ain’t gonna say anything else. You hang there till one of us call you back. You need anything?”

Morgan thought about what he’d left in the room. Some clothes, his pills, the boom box, about half his tapes. The others were in the car. The cash he’d taken from Rohan and the thousand Mikey had given him were in a safe deposit box at his bank, with the rest of his money. He had nothing else.

He looked at the BMW.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m good.”

“See you there, then,” C-Love said and ended the call.

Morgan closed the cell, then started the engine, U-turned away from the curb. He watched the BMW in his rearview. It didn’t move.

He switched on the stereo, the cassette player clicking on. Walter Jackson singing that his ship was coming in. He turned it louder. Drove with one hand on the gun.

SEVEN

The sheriff was at the coffee station, with a mug that bore the eagle, globe, and anchor of the Marine Corps. Sara had just come on duty, hadn’t picked up her keys yet.

“Who was that?” she said.

He looked at her. “Who?”

“That woman yesterday.”

He sipped coffee.

“Need to talk to you about that,” he said. “Come on in.”

She followed him into the office.

“Close the door.”

He stood at the window, sipped from the steaming mug, looked out. The flag was popping in the wind, the metal lanyard clanging against the pole.

“I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised,” he said.

“About what?”

He gestured at the chair across from his desk. She sat.

“That woman’s name is Simone James,” he said, “and she claims to be Derek Willis’s wife, if not in a strictly legal manner. She says they have a child together. A three-year-old boy. She showed me pictures.”

“What’s she doing here?”

He put the mug down, sat. “Collect the body, when it’s ready to be released. Ostensibly at least. Raise hell, most likely, is what I think.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That we were conducting a full investigation. That it appeared to be a case of justifiable use of lethal force. She says Willis never carried a gun in his life. Wouldn’t know what to do with one.”

“He had one that night. More than one.”

“That’s what I told her. And his prints were on the.38. She didn’t seem to buy it. I gave her Boone’s number, the ME’s, too. She’ll call them, I expect. Get a lawyer, too, if she hasn’t already. Being as you were a witness, you should be prepared.”

“Everything I saw is in that report.”

“I know, but she might want to talk to you. That’s my read on her, at least, from my brief exposure. And you’re not going to do that, right?”

“Of course not.”

“If it comes down to a suit, lawyers and a deposition, we’ll talk to the FOP attorney, see what he says. Until then, we don’t do anything. I’ve promised her access to the basic reports, but that’s it. She’s a cool customer, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I expected her to come in here with guns blazing, call us all a bunch of racists at least. Instead she asked her questions, and when I gave her answers, she asked more. Wasn’t too forthcoming when it came to my own questions, though.”

“Like what?”

“The car that Willis was driving was registered to a Wendell Abernathy, remember? Turns out Mr. Abernathy is seventy-five years old and hasn’t renewed his driver’s license in six years.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said it doesn’t matter. She’s right.”

“Anything else turn up in the car?”

He shook his head, sipped coffee.

“What was in the overnight bag I saw?”

“Clothes. We put a drug dog on the car, too. No hits.”

“Doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re right.”

“So she asks around a little bit, maybe blows off some steam, then goes back to New Jersey.”

Or stays here and causes trouble for all of us.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “We’ll see. I’ve been going over those reports again, though.”

“And?”

“There are a couple things that bother me. Boone and Elwood didn’t think they were an issue, but I’m not so sure.”

“What?”

“Billy says Willis was speeding, driving erratically, that he pulled him over because of that.”

“So?”

“So he’s already maybe a little nervous, doesn’t know what he’s getting into. New Jersey plates, that road, that time of night, no one else around. He knew something was up when he pulled that car over.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Unusual situation. Remote location. SOP would have been to call it in, sit there and wait for backup before approaching the car. Instead, he calls it in and then gets out, engages the driver. And things get crazy.”

“The way it happens sometimes.”

“I know. But most deputies in a shooting situation-especially if they’ve never been in one before-will end up emptying their magazines, out of panic, instinct. They fire at the threat until it’s eliminated. Billy only fired three times-just enough to do the job-and all of them in center body mass. Pretty good shooting for a man in fear of his life.”

“You’re blaming him because he didn’t panic?”

“Not at all. Just another wrinkle in this thing. Something else to keep it from being as simple as it should.”

“What else?”

He put the cup down.

“Why’d Willis run?” he said.

“Because he didn’t want to go to jail.”

“He’d be facing a gun charge, sure, but he’d be out on bail in a day or so. With a decent lawyer he might even beat the case, being as it wasn’t his car in the first place. But he had no warrants, wasn’t a fugitive. Why get into a gun battle with a deputy?”

“Maybe he was the one that panicked.”

“Maybe. I just wish the whole thing made more sense.”

She thought about what she’d told Billy at his house, how the sheriff was convinced it was a clean shoot. The relief in his face.