Rich Zardino’s hands were clenched as they walked back to the car. He didn’t trust cops. He didn’t trust anybody. Serving eight years of a life sentence had taught him that he had no friends. After his release and some bad press for the city, the mayor had offered him this job, a “sorry we took eight years of your life” peace offering. Both he and Luther had done their time, innocent or not, and now they were committed to working for peace.

Zardino didn’t want to throw it all away because of a confrontation with a couple of yahoo dt’s. The dt’s would badmouth him and Luther to other cops. Say they were teaching kids their constitutional rights, helping them become better criminals. He knew the cops didn’t trust them. To them, he and Luther would always be thugs, one bad decision away from a life sentence.

“You okay?” Rich Zardino asked Luther. Luther seemed startled by the question, like he was a million miles away. It had taken Luther awhile to warm up to him, an Italian guy from East Boston who had done state prison time for a murder he didn’t commit. What would a guy like that have in common with the kids they were servicing, black and brown kids from Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan? But they both knew it made for great press. A former gangbanger, a convicted felon who had found Christ teamed up with a wrongly-convicted white guy. The kind of stuff they made movies about.

Turned out he was pretty good at communicating with the kids. He was real, and that was all he needed for the kids to trust him, no matter the color of his skin.

“I’m upset those cops put us in that situation,” Luther said. “The big guy could have shown us a little respect and it wouldn’t have gone down like that.”

“Don’t sweat it. It’s over,” Zardino said. “The police have a lot to lose if they file a report.”

“Maybe I should have handled it differently, let them search me, let them see that I’m clean.”

“Bull.” Zardino spat in the street. It was a dirty habit that drove his partner crazy. “You did the right thing. How else are they going to learn to stand up for their rights?”

Luther was always stumping about setting an example. But tonight, no one had learned anything from the beef with the cops. Once the police left, the kids started imitating the pissed-off cop, trying to high-five Luther for how he had handled them. That drove Luther nuts.

“Maybe I am making them better criminals,” Luther said. “But so are the police, by treating everyone like a criminal. They’re teaching them to distrust the police, to disrespect authority and to turn to the streets for support. At least what happened tonight was witnessed by a prosecutor.”

“I don’t trust that guy,” Zardino said.

“You don’t trust any lawyers. I can’t say I blame you after what you’ve been through.”

“I was watching him,” Zardino shifted and got comfortable against the car. “He wasn’t going to say nothing while the cops did their thing. When he found out who we were he realized it wouldn’t look good. I saw the light go on in his head. That’s the only reason he stepped in.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely. I know guys like that. He had no problem with what the cops were doing until he thought it could come back and bite him. Then he’s a peacemaker. Screw him. He’s a lawyer. No, he’s a prosecutor, an officer of the court, sworn to uphold the Constitution. He shouldn’t be letting dt’s do things like that. He’s as bad as they are.”

“He extended the olive branch to us. We might as well use him as an ally.”

“We need to watch our backs.”

“You really are one suspicious dude.”

“That’s what happens when your friends set you up and send you to jail for a crime you had nothing to do with. I don’t trust anyone except my mother.”

“Truth told, my boys forgot about me when I was upstate. No visits. No money in the canteen fund for chips, sodas and snacks. In the end, Richard, it’s always just you and your mom. And the Lord.”

Alves saw her standing at the bus stop. She was always at the bus stop.

She wasn’t too far away. Maybe a hundred yards. If he hurried, he could get to her in time. But his feet were heavy. He tried moving faster, his legs weren’t responding. He had to close the gap between them.

Then the bus came around the corner, smoke billowing behind it. It was loud, without a muffler. He called her name, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the bus.

He had to get to her.

He was running now, but the bus was moving so fast. He called her name again. This time he couldn’t even hear his own voice.

He watched as the bus stopped to let her on. He could see the driver and the passengers.

He shouted her name one last time.

Alves stopped running. The driver watched Robyn Stokes, Alves’s childhood friend, dressed in her hospital whites, as she climbed the steps. When she turned to find a seat, the driver looked over at him. It was a familiar face, the face of a former colleague, a man he didn’t know too well, but had respected. The man who had murdered Robyn Stokes. The driver, Mitch Beaulieu, former assistant district attorney and murderer, pulled the bus away from the curb with Robyn and the rest of his doomed passengers. Alves felt his hip, his back pocket, for a phone, a radio, his gun. Nothing. There was no way to stop the bus. Then he heard a loud bang.

Alves jerked forward in his chair. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight streaming through the conference room windows. The noise Alves heard must have been a door out in the hall slamming.

It was getting harder to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he thought about his old friend Robyn. Killed three years before by a killer the press called the Blood Bath Killer. Left tubs full of water and blood. No bodies. He and Mooney had caught Robyn’s killer, Mitch Beaulieu, but they never found her body. He owed Robyn and her mother one last thing. A Christian burial. A final resting place, a grave to cover with flowers.

Propped in front of him against a pile of folders was a note written on a sheet torn from a detective’s notebook. Quick shower then off to ballistics. You check in with Eunice Curran. WM

Mooney stepped out of the Homicide Unit and turned down the corridor toward the gym. The city had spared no expense when they built One Schroeder Plaza. Their new headquarters had everything from a state-of-the-art crime lab to a gym as good as any private health club in the city.

Mooney stepped into the gym and took his first left into the locker room. He wasn’t looking for a workout. No time. He needed a quick shave and shower.

Within a half hour he was banging on the glass doors of the Ballistics Unit with his knee, a cup of coffee in each hand. He knew Sergeant Reginald Stone would be in early; like Mooney, he was a Marine. He gave it a minute before kicking the baseplates of the heavy doors.

A few seconds later Stone emerged from an office door at the far end of the Ballistics Unit. He didn’t look happy that someone was trying to kick in the door.

“Open up, Reggie,” Mooney shouted through the heavy glass doors.

Stone looked down at Mooney’s hands. “Cream, no sugar?”

“What am I, an idiot?”

Stone smiled and came over to let him in. Mooney went to put the coffees down on a table so he could shake his friend’s hand, but he was greeted with a firm hug instead. It was awkward, since Stone was so much shorter. He had quite a bear hug for a little guy.

“Ease up there, pal. You’re going to be wearing two cups of coffee if you’re not careful,” Mooney said.

He released Mooney from his grip. “Great to see you, Wayne.”

“I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on the promotion, Reggie. The first black officer to head up the Ballistics Unit.”