He took money out, enough to cover what Theresa had spent on the store and then some, and tucked it into his pants. He closed the bag and took it to the front door and dropped it and went into Theresa’s room and stuck the money from his pants in her top drawer. He saw the money now as a problem to be solved, but his life was getting crowded with people who needed help, and he’d think of some way to get rid of the rest of it.

Then he sat and had coffee and listened to Theresa talk about her latest trip to AC and her friend Evelyn who won six hundred dollars on a Wheel of Fortune machine. He made his eyes go wide. A lot of money.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RAY AND MICHELLE drove up Holicong Road while he tried to get his bearings against the low hump of Buckingham Mountain starting to go green again. There were a few crocuses showing livid purple in the lawns they passed. The clouds moved fast in a wind that Ray could feel pulling at the car. The sky would show, blue- white between the clouds, then disappear again. He made two more turns, glancing down at a piece of paper Michelle had printed out for him.

She had been tense, watching the sheets print out, her shoulders drawn in, her eyes flicking over his. She shook her head. “If I said I didn’t want you to do this, would it matter?”

“Nothing will happen.” He smiled at her, or tried to, showed his teeth, but thought, how do I know that? “Anyway,” he said. “Anyway, I have to go.”

“Okay.” She looked down. “Okay, but I’m driving you.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Fuck that. You’re pretending you’re handling shit. I get that. But I’m not sitting here and you go off and I never see you again.”

He saw she was close to crying and thought about it for a minute and finally nodded. “Sure. Nothing is going to happen, but it’s cool you come with me.” He kissed the top of her head, and she held his arms.

NOW THEY WENT slowly by neat houses, looking at numbers painted on mailboxes. They came to a brick house with a lot of windows, nicer than he thought it would be, the lawn trimmed. Flower beds, hard rectangles of turned soil expecting something that was coming.

He didn’t know exactly what he had expected. Dust and cracked windows, he guessed. Things rusting on a lawn. While they sat at the curb, the garage door lifted and there he was. Moving purposefully out across the driveway with a rake. Attacking a small pile of winter- dead leaves and pushing it into a black plastic bag.

He was still erect, and he matched the squared- away house. His hair was white etched with a few solid black lines, and his shoulders were broad. He looked like what he was, a state trooper. A cop. Retired, older, but still a cop.

Michelle opened her mouth, but Ray opened the door and pushed himself out, straightening slowly and then reaching back for the cane. She watched his face, showed him the cell phone. He winked.

He covered most of the distance to where Stan Hicks stood over the shrinking pile of leaves before the older man turned and faced him holding the rake loosely at his side. The eyes were pale gray and clear, focused. Ray wondered how old he was, comparing him mentally to the shriveled old man his father had been when they had finally let him out.

“I wondered if you’d ever come here.”

Ray nodded, thought about putting his hand out. He felt Stan Hicks look him over, taking in the cane, the thin frame. When Hicks looked back at the car, Ray followed his eyes to see Michelle sitting in the open door, watching tensely, working the cell phone in her hands like a rosary.

“That’s a pretty girl.”

“Yessir.”

“She looks a little like my girl.”

Ray nodded; there was no denying it. Ray allowed himself to see it, and he did have to look at Michelle again. He smiled at her.

“Why did you come here, son?”

“I don’t know.”

“You bring a gun? Going to make me pay for something?” He didn’t seem particularly worried about that possibility, and of the two of them seemed more able to defend himself.

“No, I thought maybe you already paid what ever you had to pay for.”

“And what would that be?” He looked Ray in the eye. “You think I ruined your life?”

“No.”

“You did that on your own.”

“No, my life wasn’t ruined.” Ray stuck his hands in his pockets. “Took me a long time to see that. I’d have said it was, you asked me not long ago. But it wasn’t.” They both looked down at the wet pile of jagged leaf fragments at their feet.

“Why didn’t you say what I did to you?”

“I wanted the same thing you wanted.”

“I kept expecting they’d come. I was ready for it. When you told somebody what I did.” He held the rake in his hands as if he were going to snap it. The way he’d snapped Ray’s arms.

Ray could almost feel it again. Stan Hicks pushing him down on the cold asphalt, the rage spilling out of the older man in a torrent of screamed curses and spit. The metal bar falling once, twice on each arm.

Ray cocked his head. “What was that? That bar you used on me?”

“The tire iron from my patrol car. I was ready to account for it. I think I wanted to. I broke your arms. I lied, I made that dope addict Perry March say you stole his car. I was ready to tell it. I was proud of what I did. But no one ever came.”

“No.”

“You killed my girl.”

“I loved her. A drunk driver killed her.”

“You don’t say that.” His eyes were full of tears and his mouth worked. “You don’t get to say that.”

“No, Stan. I think that’s why I went to prison. So I could say it. I think that’s why I let everything come. The beating and the lies you told.”

Stan Hicks sat on the ground and put his head in his hands. Ray got down slowly on one knee, the cold water from the grass soaking through his pants. He turned, to see Michelle standing now, watching intently, her eyes wet.

Stan Hicks spoke, his eyes hidden. “She’d have hated it. What I did.”

“Yes. But she’d have wanted me to help you.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“No.” Ray reached over and put his hand on the older man’s arm. “That’s why I had to do it. Come here and say it was okay. That it worked out okay. It’s the same thing she did for me. Loved me. Wanted good things for me that I didn’t deserve. She would have hated what you did. But she would have kept on loving you.”

Ray got awkwardly to his feet, Michelle running across the lawn to help him. Together they helped Stan Hicks get up, and they went with him inside. The house was bright and empty, and there were pictures of Marletta and her mother. Michelle stood in the entryway and looked at them, and then at Stan Hicks and Ray standing in the kitchen. Ray got a glass from a cabinet and ran the water, filled it, and handed it to the older man.

Ray leaned back against the counter. “My mother always did that.”

“Mine, too.” Stan Hicks wiped at his eyes with his sleeve.

“It always helped.”

They both looked at Michelle. For the first time, the older man smiled. “Just like my girl.”

HE WAS IN the store late on a Wednesday night, unpacking boxes and thinking about locking the door, when one of the detectives from the hospital came in. The tall one, good cop, the one named Nelson. The detective looked around and rocked on his heels. Ray waved from where he was kneeling in the space between the register and a display table, motioning him further in.

“Nice place, Raymond.”

“Ray. Everyone calls me Ray, Detective.” He stuck out his hand.

“Right. Ray.”

Ray pointed down the stacks. “Take a look around. Help yourself to anything catches your eye.”

Nelson scratched his ear, smiled.

Ray said, “If that’s not a problem. Graft or something.”

Nelson pulled out his note pad and gestured at a table and two chairs up against the far wall. “You got a second?”