I could go into a bar — there are several en route — and things would be okay again, at least for a little while.

WWJD?

What would James do? I figure Quentin James would have

pulled over. He’d have slipped inside and let five minutes turn into ten, ten into an hour, an hour into a night. Or maybe if I’d let him live things would be different now. Perhaps he’d have found redemption, or God, or something that would have kept him out

of those bars. I don’t know, and thinking about James kills any desire to go inside. I drive past them all and don’t look back.

chapter thirty-nine

On the way to the morgue I stop in at the store where I bought my last cellphone. It feels like a long time ago. Much longer than four weeks. I spend a hundred and fifty bucks on a cellphone

that has more features than even Gene Roddenberry could have

dreamt of. I ask to get my number transferred over and am told it’ll take an hour or two.

There’s a security officer sitting behind a desk at the entrance to the morgue. I give him my details and he checks my name on

the list. He gives me a visitor’s pass and I attach it to the front of my shirt. He seems friendly enough, which I suppose must mean

he hasn’t spent any time reading the papers or watching the news.

The guy probably gets a big enough dose of reality working the morgue.

As I head down the corridor the temperature drops with every

footstep. I go through the large plastic doors that separate the corridor and offices from the freezer, where all the work is done.

It’s been a month since I was last here too. Before that it was two years. It means my visits are becoming more frequent.

‘Hi, Tate,’ Tracey says, moving over towards me from the

large sets of drawers in which are stored the other people unlucky enough to be here at six o’clock on a Friday night. ‘You just caught me.’

She looks different. Her hair is a little frazzled. She looks paler and tired, more worn down, as though both life and death are

starting to get on top of her.

‘It’s been a rough week,’ she says, as if acknowledging my

thoughts.

‘Yeah. Tell me about it.’

There are empty metal tables with sheets and tools but no

bodies.

“I could really use a drink,’ she says, then pauses, recognising her mistake. ‘Sorry Tate, that was a bit insensitive.’

‘Yeah, so is drinking and driving. How is she?’

‘She’s doing okay. She’s pretty banged up, but she’s out of

the woods. The head trauma was the problem — there was some

internal swelling, but the pressure’s been relieved. She’s going to have some tough months ahead of her, but it could have been

worse, right? You know that more than anybody’

You know that more than anybody. How many people have

said that to me over the last twenty-four hours? ‘So … she’ll get back to a hundred percent?’

‘That’s what they’re saying.’

I move from foot to foot, trying to get some warmth back into

them. My finger with the missing nail is throbbing. The bandage is dark grey and grotty-looking, and hasn’t been changed.

‘Does it hurt?’ she asks.

‘It’s okay’

‘Let me re-dress it for you while we’re talking.’

I follow her through to the office and sit down. She drags

her chair around, pulls on some latex gloves and takes the old bandage off my finger. The gauze has caught a little, blood and pus having set on the outside of it.

‘Have you worked on the priest yet?’

‘Come on, Theo, you know I can’t share any of that with

you.’

‘It’s important.’

“I think you’re forgetting that I’m still pissed at you for stealing Rachel Tyler’s ring.’

“I’m sorry about that.’

‘Oh, well that covers everything then, doesn’t it? As long as

you’re sorry’ She pulls the gauze away, ripping off the scabbing.

‘Aw, Jesus, Tracey.’ I pull my hand back.

She drops the gauze into a bin. “I go to the mat for you by

never mentioning it, and suddenly Landry’s down here this

morning asking me about it. Now I’m the one who’s gonna get

crapped on.’

‘Let me make it up to you.’

‘Give me your hand.’

“No.’

‘Come on, Theo, grow up. Give me your damn hand.’

I reach back over and she starts to clean the wound.

‘Look,’ I say, “I think I’m entitled to some information here.

After all, I’m the one they accused of killing him.’

‘If anything, that entitles you to absolutely no information at all. When was the last time you let a suspect walk down here and ask whatever he wanted about the crime?’

‘This is different.’

“Not to me. Not to anybody. You shouldn’t even be here.’

She cuts off some fresh gauze and places it over my fingertip.

Then she adds some padding. ‘Goddamn it, Tate, if there was

somebody as qualified to take over, I’d probably already have

been suspended.’

‘They know I didn’t do it. Did Landry tell you that?’

‘Yeah. He did. But that still doesn’t change anything.’

I look over my shoulder at the drawers through the office

window. One of them contains Father Julian. Two nights ago

I came close to occupying another one. The throbbing in my

finger grows stronger, and Tracey starts to bandage it.

‘It changes it for me, right? Think of it from my perspective.

The cops know and I know that somebody killed Father Julian

and tried to pin that on me. I think that means I have a stake in this investigation. I think that it means I deserve to be told as !# . .!S

much as possible so I can try to defend myself.’

‘Defend yourself against what? They already know you’re

innocent.’

‘Come on, Tracey You know the score. You know three of

those girls would still be alive if I’d done my job properly two years ago. I want this guy off the street.’

She tapes off the bandage and leans back. ‘People who you

want off the street are never heard from again, Theo. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you anything.’

‘Was the hammer the cause of death?’

“It’s getting late. I’ve got a family to get home to.’

‘Come on, give me something here. Bruce Alderman, his father,

now the priest — they’re dead for a reason. And this person who planted the hammer in my house is probably the same person

who killed all those girls.’

‘Sidney Alderman is dead? How do you know that?’

“I’m guessing, but it makes sense, right? Everything is

related.’

“Not everything,’ Tracey says.

‘What do you mean?’

She sighs, and her shoulders slump as if she’s sick and tired of talking to a ten-year-old.

‘Please, just drop it.’

‘Would you? Come on, Tracey, name me one detective you

know who wouldn’t be trying to do the same thing.’

‘The problem is you’re not a detective. Not any more.’

“I know, but…’

‘Look, one thing, okay? I’m going to tell you one thing, then

I want you to leave.’

‘Okay’

‘And you can’t come back. You promise?’

I’ve heard that line before. ‘What is it?’

‘Sidney and Bruce Alderman. They’re not related. Sidney

Alderman is not Bruce Alderman’s father.’

chapter forty

I pin the photocopies of the newspaper articles up on the wall in my office and stare at the spot where my computer used to be until knocking at the front door breaks me out of the fugue. I think about ignoring it but it just keeps going. I head into the hallway and swing the door open. Carl Schroder is there holding two

pizza boxes in his arms. Suddenly he really is my best friend.

‘Thought you might do with some food,’ he says.

“I’m in the middle of cooking something.’

“I looked in that fridge of yours, Tate. What in the hell could you possibly be cooking?’ He braces the pizzas in one hand, a