“Yes,” he said. “I think that if I’d acted differently, none of this would have happened.”

“If Officer Briggs and Officer Salcedo hadn’t been doing what they were doing.” Grail counted the ifs on his fingers. “If Mr. Tice hadn’t been doing what he was doing. If Russell James hadn’t been violent and abusive. If Miss Mullen had come to you sooner.”

“If she hadn’t come to me at all.”

Grail stopped pursuing that avenue. “How is Gwen?”

She’d almost died twice in the hospital. Once from the damage caused by her stabbing, once from the septic infection that started at the wound site and spread through her blood like fire.

At the moment, she was hooked up to a ventilator and a dialysis machine, still suspended in a drug-induced state of unconsciousness while the machines and the medicine did their work. But they said she was recovering.

Worth said, “The doctors seem happy.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“It’s lucky,” he said. “But yeah.”

Grail tapped his notepad with his pen. After a long minute of silence, he said: “Would you mind if we changed gears for a minute?”

“Sure,” Worth said.

Grail took a sheet of paper from the case folder. He handed the sheet across the desk and leaned back in his chair. “I received that several days ago.”

It was the letter from the department’s public information office, announcing that the Fallen Brothers memorial, previously scheduled for last week, would be postponed until an undetermined date in the future.

“Right.” He handed the letter back. “I got one, too.”

“I’d hoped to discuss it during our session last week,” Grail said. “But our conversation never quite seemed to turn in that direction.”

“Was there something to discuss?”

“I don’t know,” Grail said. “Your brother is among the officers to be honored. Do you have any feelings about the postponement?”

“I think the department has a national media story on its hands, funerals to figure out for two dirty badges, and a grand jury investigation in progress.” Worth shrugged. “I don’t know how else they could have handled it.”

“Forgive me,” Dr. Grail said. “How was Kelly killed, again?”

“Doc, come on.”

“I’m sorry. Just refresh my memory.”

The guy knew exactly how Kelly had been killed. They’d been over it before. Several times, in fact. A fifteen-year-old kid, playing dead in the street, earning his colors on the first cop who stopped to render aid. Worth could see one of the newspaper clippings in Grail’s case folder from where he was sitting.

“Doing his job,” he said.

“Right, yes.” Dr. Grail nodded. “You’ve phrased it that way before.”

“You know what else?”

Grail seemed genuinely interested.

“He wouldn’t have wanted a memorial anyway.”

Dr. Jerry Grail ran his finger around his watchband for the eleventh time. Worth had been counting.

They went on like that for the rest of the hour. At the end of the session, Worth snuck out the back of the building, hoping to slip past the television crew.

The bastards had posted rear sentries at the door.

Running the grinder, Vince hadn’t heard anybody behind him.

The thing made so much noise he couldn’t even hear himself think. Which was just how he liked it. He’d ground up enough goddamned limestone these past couple weeks to pave the road all the way out to the highway.

“I saw Matthew in the newspaper,” she said.

At the sound of her voice, he actually felt his heart jump in his chest. Vince turned.

Rita stood a few feet behind him, arms folded, hair blowing around her head in the breeze. She wore one of his coats from the back stairway at the house. It was about ten sizes too big for her. They stood there looking at each other until Vince finally cleared his throat.

“Hi.”

Rita looked off toward the burn shed. Then she pulled the coat a little closer around her.

“I saw pictures of that girl, too. On television. Gwen Mullen?” She shook her head slowly, like she’d heard a sad story somewhere. “They showed photos of what she looked like, after that boy hit her.”

On the word boy, her eyes flickered back toward the shed. Just for a second.

Vince let out a long whiskey sigh. He wanted to walk over there and scoop her up. He wanted to promise her anything. He stood there like a dumb animal.

“She was all bruised,” Rita said. “All up and down.”

“That’s what Matty said.”

Rita finally looked at him. “I want you to tell me something. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“I won’t lie to you.”

“Did you do it for the money?” She took a step closer. “Vince? Or did you do it for your brother?”

If there was a way he could say it that erased every doubt, he would say it exactly that way. But he couldn’t think of one. He raised his hand, shielding the sun. So she could see his eyes.

“Didn’t know about the money until it was done,” he said. “Can’t tell you I didn’t do it, babe. But I didn’t do it for the money.”

He couldn’t tell if she believed him. If she didn’t, he couldn’t tell that, either. She just stood there, looking into the distance.

“Two things,” she said. “Two things I will not have in my life.”

“Anything.”

“That,” she said. She pointed to the bottle poking from the hip pocket of his coveralls. “And this money. Not one dollar of it. Do you understand?”

Without hesitating, Vince took the bottle, threw it in the grinder, and flipped the switch. The machine made a deafening racket for about four seconds as it chewed up the glass. Rita covered her ears.

When it was over, he left the machine running, raised his voice, and said, “Be right back.”

While Rita stood there, holding his old coat closed with her hands, Vince took the four-wheeler into the scrap yard. Way in, almost to the middle. Where he’d stashed two hundred and sixty-four grand in the trunk of a ’65 Ford.

Even at full throttle, he couldn’t get to it fast enough. It seemed to take a goddamned year to get back, the bag in his lap, grinder still running patiently.

She was still waiting when he got there.

Curtis Modell couldn’t take it anymore.

He knocked a case of green beans out of his brother’s hands, turned him around, and shoved him into the walkway between two half-unloaded pallets for Aisle 12.

The case hit the stockroom floor and broke open. Cans rolled all over.

“Jesus.” Ricky jerked his arm away. “What the hell?”

“Enough,” Curtis said. “You been acting like a goddamn spook for weeks. What’s your deal already?”

Ricky straightened his apron. He looked pissed.

Like Curtis really gave a rat’s ass. He folded his arms and waited. A couple of the other guys stopped working.

“Ooooh.”

“Cat fight.”

“Kick him in the nuts, Ricky!”

Laughs.

Curtis just stood there. His brother was a gonad, but something was eating him. One way or another, he was going to spit it out.

Ricky finally got that look on his face. It was the look he got whenever he’d done something stupid and didn’t want anybody to know about it.

He dropped his voice and said, “Dude, I gotta tell you something.”

“What?”

“Not here.”

“Why?”

“Meet me out by the Dumpsters in an hour. Don’t let these assholes see you, either.”

Jesus, what a goober. Curtis said, “Fine.”

An hour later, he slipped out the back and found his brother smoking a cigarette in the garbage area. Ricky didn’t smoke.

“Okay,” Curtis said. “Just tell me. What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do shit,” Ricky said.