“What does she look like?”

“White. Kind of fat. Trashy.” He shrugged. “Danny would sleep with anybody.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“He was breaking up with her.”

I had a sudden flash of intuition. “It was you that called the police,” I said. “That first day I came.”

A smile cracked the seamed, brown face. “Sí.”

“You may have saved my life.”

He shrugged. “I need the job. I hate the boss. This is life.”

“Did the police search this place?” I was thinking of drugs.

“They search. They find nothing. They look for Mr. Faith. They find nothing.”

I waited for more, but he was finished. “You told me that Danny is in Florida. How do you know that?”

“He sent a postcard.” No hesitation, no sign of dishonesty.

“Do you still have it?”

“I think so.” He turned for the back room, came back, and handed me a postcard. I took it by the edges; it was a picture of blue water and white sand. It had the name of a resort in the upper-right corner, and a slogan in pink letters across the bottom: SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT. “It was on the bulletin board,” Emmanuel told me.

I looked at the back. In printed letters it read, “Having a blast. Danny.”

“When did you get this?” I asked.

Emmanuel scratched at his cheek. “He had the fight with the girl and then he left. Maybe four days after that. Two weeks ago. Two and a half weeks. Something like that.”

“Did he pack anything?”

“I did not see him after he hit the girl.”

I asked a few more questions, but they led nowhere. I debated whether or not to tell him that Danny Faith was dead, but decided against it. It would hit the papers soon enough.

“Listen, Emmanuel. If the police find Mr. Faith, he may be going away for a while.” I paused, to make sure he was following me. “You might want to start looking for another job.”

“But Danny-”

“Danny won’t be running the motel. It will probably close.”

He looked very troubled. “This is true, what you say?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, stared at the counter for so long I wasn’t sure that he was planning to look up. “The police search everywhere,” he finally said. “But there is a storage unit. It’s by the interstate, the one with the blue doors. There was a maid, Maria. She’s gone now. He made her sign the papers. It is in her name. Number thirty-six.”

I digested this. “Do you know what’s in that storage unit?” I asked.

The old man looked ashamed. “Drugs.”

“How much drugs?”

“Much, I think.”

“Were you and Maria together?”

“Sí. Sometimes.”

“Why did she leave?” I asked.

Emmanuel’s face twisted in disgust. “Mr. Faith. Once she signed the documents for him, he threatened her.”

“Threatened to call INS?”

“If she told anybody about the storage unit, he would make a call. She was illegal. She got scared. She’s in Georgia now.”

I held up the postcard.

“I’d like to keep this.”

Emmanuel shrugged.

I called Robin from the parking lot. I still had doubts about her loyalties, but she had information that I wanted, and I thought I might have something to trade. “Are you still at Dolf’s house?”

“Grantham drove me out of there pretty damn quick. He was pissed.”

“Do you know the self-storage facility by the interstate; it’s on the feeder road south of exit seventy-six.”

“I know it.”

“Meet me there.”

“Thirty minutes.”

I drove back into town and stopped at the copy shop two blocks off the square. I copied the postcard, front and back, then asked the clerk for a bag. She brought me a paper one, and I asked if she had anything plastic. She found a Ziploc in a desk drawer. I folded the copy into my back pocket and put the card in the bag, zipped it up. The bright sand looked very white through the plastic and the logo caught my eye.

SOMETIMES IT’S JUST RIGHT.

I drove to the storage facility and parked on the dirt verge of the feeder road. I got out and sat on the hood. Cars flew by on the interstate above me; the big trucks rumbled and screamed. I looked over the storage facility, long rows of squat buildings that flashed in the sun. They nestled in a depression beside the interstate. Metal doors painted blue broke the long facades. Grass grew tall along chain-link fencing. Barbed wire leaned out from the top.

I waited for Robin and watched the day make its long slide into late afternoon. It took her an hour. When she climbed out of the car, the wind took her hair, wrapped it across her face so that she had to flick it away with a finger. The gesture struck me hard and with unexpected force. It reminded me of a windy day we’d spent on the riverbank seven years ago. She was kneeling on a blanket, we’d just made love, and a sudden wind had licked up off the water to bend her hair across her eyes. I’d pushed the hair back, and pulled her down. Her mouth was soft, the smile easy.

But that was a lifetime ago.

“Sorry,” she said. “Cop stuff.”

“Like what?” I slipped off the hood.

“Salisbury P.D. and the sheriff’s office use the same forensics lab. They’ve worked up the bullet that killed Danny Faith. Chest wound, by the way. They’re just waiting for a comparison sample.” Her eyes were steady. “It won’t be long,” she said.

“Meaning?”

“They found Dolf Shepherd’s.38.”

Although I knew they’d find it, a pit opened up in my stomach. I waited for her to say more. A yellow moth moved above tall grass.

“Will your friend at ballistics help you out?” I finally asked.

“He owes me.”

“Will you let me know what he says?”

“That depends on what he tells me.”

“I can give Zebulon Faith to you,” I said, and that stopped her. “I can give him to you on a plate.”

“If I share my information?”

“I want to know what Grantham knows.”

“I can’t make blind promises, Adam.”

“I need to know. I don’t think I have much time. My prints are on the gun.”

“A gun that may or may not be the murder weapon.”

“Grantham knows I spoke to Danny right before he died. It’s enough for an arrest warrant. He’ll bring me in and hammer me. Just like the last time.”

“You were in New York when Danny was killed. You’ll have alibis, witnesses that can put you there at the time of death.”

I shook my head.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“No alibi,” I said. “No witness.”

“How is that possible?”

“It had been five years, Robin. That’s what you have to understand first. I’d buried this place so deep I couldn’t see it anymore. It’s how I got through the days. I forgot. I made an art of forgetting. That changed after Danny called. It was like he’d put a demon in my head. It wouldn’t shut up. It wanted me to go home. It told me that it was time. If I tried to think, I heard the voice. When I closed my eyes, I saw this place. It made me insane, Robin. Day after day. I thought of you, of my father. I thought of Grace and of the trial. That dead kid and the way that this town just chewed me up and spit me out.

“Suddenly, I couldn’t stand my life. It was so empty, such a goddamn sham, and Danny’s voice tore down everything I’d built. I didn’t go to work. I stopped seeing friends. I locked myself away. It just ate at me until I found myself on the road.”

I lifted my hands, let them drop. “No one saw me, Robin.”

“Demons in the head and no alibi is not something you should ever say again. Grantham has already put in a request with N.Y.P.D. They’ll check up on you. They’ll be thorough. They’ll find where you worked. They’ll find out that you quit and when you quit. You need to think hard about that alibi. Grantham’s going to wonder if you didn’t drive down here and kill Danny. He’ll hold your feet to the fire. He’ll roast you if he can.”

I held her gaze. “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Why are you home, Adam?”

I heard the answer in my head. Because everything that I love is here. Because you refused to come with me.