What she had to do.

God, I hate this.

Pam Willoughby appeared in the doorway. She was wearing sweats and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was talking to one of the other foster children, another teenager. Their faces had that conspiratorial yet innocent expression teenage girls wear like makeup. Two dogs played at their feet: Jackson, the tiny Havanese, and a much larger but equally exuberant Briard, Cosmic Cowboy, who lived with Pam’s foster family.

The policewoman would meet the girl here occasionally, then they’d head off for a movie or Starbucks or ice cream. Pam’s face usually brightened when she saw Sachs.

Not tonight.

Sachs got out of the car and leaned against the hot hood. Pam picked up Jackson and joined her as the other girl waved to Sachs and disappeared into the house with Cosmic Cowboy.

“Sorry to come by so late.”

“It’s okay.” The girl was cautious.

“How’s homework?”

“Homework’s homework. Some’s good, some sucks.”

True now, true in Sachs’s day.

Sachs petted the dog, which Pam clutched possessively. She did this often with her things. The girl always refused offers to let someone else carry her book bag or groceries. Sachs guessed that so much had been taken away from her, she held tight to whatever she could.

“So. What’s up?”

She could think of no way to ease gently into the subject. “I talked to your friend.”

“Friend?” Pam asked.

“Stuart.”

“You what?” Light fragmented by leaves of a ginkgo tree fell on her troubled face.

“I had to.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Pam…I was worried about you. I had a friend in the department-somebody who does security checks-look him up.”

“No!”

“I wanted to see if there were any skeletons in his closet.”

“You didn’t have any right to do that!”

“True. But I did anyway. And I just got an e-mail back.” Sachs felt her stomach muscles clench. Facing killers, driving 170 mph…those were nothing. She was shaken badly now.

“So is he a fucking murderer?” Pam snapped. “A serial killer? A terrorist?”

Sachs hesitated. She wanted to touch the girl’s arm. But didn’t. “No, honey. But…he’s married.”

In the dappled light Sachs saw Pam blink.

“He’s…married?”

“I’m sorry. His wife’s a teacher too. A private school on Long Island. And he has two children.”

“No! You’re wrong.” Sachs saw Pam’s free hand was clenched so tightly the muscles had to be cramping. Anger filled her eyes, but there wasn’t much surprise. Sachs wondered if Pam would be running through certain memories. Maybe Stuart had said he didn’t have a home phone, only a mobile. Or maybe he’d asked her to use a particular e-mail account, not his general one.

And my house is such a mess. I’d be embarrassed for you to see it. I’m a teacher, you know. We’re absentminded… I need to get a housekeeper…

Pam blurted, “It’s a mistake. You’ve got him mixed up with somebody else.”

“I went to see him just now. I asked him and he told me.”

“No, you didn’t! You’re making it up!” The girl’s eyes flared and a cold smile crossed her face, cutting deep into Sachs’s heart. “You’re doing just what my mother did! When she didn’t want me to do something, she lied to me! Just like you’re doing.”

“Pam, I’d never-”

“Everybody takes things away from me! You’re not going to! I love him and he loves me, and you’re not taking him away!” She wheeled and made for the house, the dog firmly under her arm.

“Pam!” Sachs’s voice choked. “No, honey…”

As the girl stepped inside she looked back once fast, hair swirling, posture stiff as iron, leaving Amelia Sachs grateful that the backlight prevented her from seeing Pam’s face; she couldn’t have stomached witnessing the hatred she knew was there.

The travesty at the cemetery still burns like fire.

Miguel 5465 should have died. Should be pinned to a velvet board for the police to examine. They’d say case closed and all would be well.

But he didn’t. That butterfly got away. I can’t try to fake a suicide again. They’ve learned something about me. They’ve collected some knowledge…

Hate Them hate Them hate Them hate Them…

I’m so close to taking my razor and storming out and…

Calm. Down. But it’s becoming harder and harder to do that, as the years go by.

I’ve canceled certain transactions for this evening-I was going to celebrate the suicide-and now I head into my Closet. Being surrounded by my treasures helps. I wander through the fragrant rooms and hold several items close to me. Trophies from various transactions over the past year. Feeling the dried flesh and fingernails and hair against my cheek is such a comfort.

But I’m exhausted. I sit down in front of the Harvey Prescott painting, gaze up at it. The family looking back. As with most portraits their eyes follow you wherever you are.

Comforting. Eerie too.

Maybe one of the reasons I love his work so much is that these people were created fresh. They have no memories to plague them, to make them edgy, to keep them up all night and to drive them out into the streets, collecting treasures, and trophies.

Ah, memories:

June, five years old. Father sits me down, tucks his unlit cigarette away and explains to me I’m not theirs. “We brought you into the family because we wanted you wanted you badly and we love you even if you aren’t our natural son you understand don’t you…” Not exactly, I don’t. I stare at him blankly. Kleenex twisting in Mother’s damp hands. She blurts that she loves me like a natural-born son. No, loves me more, though I don’t understand why she would. It sounds like a lie.

Father leaves for his second job. Mother goes to take care of the other children, leaving me to consider this. My feeling is that something’s been taken away from me. But I don’t know what. I look out my window. It’s beautiful here. Mountains and green and cool air. But I prefer my room and that’s where I go.

August, seven years old. Father and Mother have been fighting. The oldest of us, Lydia, is crying. Don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave…I myself plan for the worst, stocking up. Food and pennies-people never miss pennies. Nothing can stop me from collecting them, $134 worth of shiny or dull copper. Hide them in boxes in my closet…

November, seven years old. Father returns from where he’s been for a month, “scratching for the elusive dollar,” which he says a lot. (Lydia and I smile when he does.) He asks where the other children are. She tells him she couldn’t handle all of them. “Do the math. The fuck you thinking of? Get on the phone and call the city.”

“You weren’t here,” she cries.

This mystifies Lydia and me but we know it’s not good.

In my closet are $252 in pennies, thirty-three cans of tomatoes, eighteen of other vegetables, twelve of SpaghettiOs, which I don’t even like but I have them. That’s all that’s important.

October, nine years old. More emergency foster placements. At the moment there are nine of us. We help, Lydia and me. She’s fourteen and knows how to take care of the younger ones. Lydia asks Father to buy the girls dolls-because she never had one and it’s important-and he said how can they make money from the city if they spend it on crap?

May, ten years old. I come back from school. It took all I could do to take some of the pennies and buy a doll for Lydia. I can’t wait for her reaction. But then I see I made a mistake and left the closet door open. Father is inside, ripping open the boxes. The pennies are lying like dead soldiers on a battlefield. He fills his pockets and takes the boxes. “You steal it you lose it.” I’m crying and telling him I found the pennies. “Good,” Father says triumphantly. “I found ’em too and that must mean they’re mine… Right, young man? How can you argue with that? You can’t. And, Jesus, almost five hundred bucks there.” And pulls the cigarette out from behind his ear.