And I’ve also figured out why.

This is the way it must have happened.

It was almost midnight before Villay’s Volvo coupe slowed down outside 1870 Lodi Street. There was a hush on the block that wasn’t unusual in the wake of a major crime. The good people counting their blessings and hoping they weren’t next. The bad ones keeping low profiles until the heat subsided.

Villay pulled into the driveway behind the red Honda. He stepped out into the night and listened. Crickets. He didn’t know crickets could survive in the scant weedy patches crammed between the North Side’s dilapidated buildings and blacktop. He scanned the street, up and down, then climbed the front steps, ducking under the yellow tape. The door was locked, but he had a key for the padlock to the hardware that had been bolted in place. He stepped inside and turned on the lights. The heat from the day still lingered and with it the smell of cooked carpet and cigarette ashes. Dark swatches of dried blood stared up at him from the shaggy gold carpet.

“Hello,” he said loudly. The sound of his own voice was intended to calm his nerves, but his hand still trembled as he began rifling through the papers that were crammed into the cubbyhole of an old roll-top desk whose broken top was leaning up against the wall.

Villay had a sense of what it was he was looking for, but began to doubt his instincts as he pulled out his third wad of papers. Then he recognized the wavering scrawl of a man who was ready to die. The fat fold of papers pushing out of the ripped-open envelope made his mouth go dry.

When he saw the scrawled handwritten letters, his breathing grew shallow.

Last Will and Testament

The paper shook so badly in his hands that it was difficult to read. He had trouble separating the pages to turn them.

Roger Williamson’s family had a little money to begin with, and he had used his position wisely. He had a beach condo in Florida, a big home in Manlius, partnerships in two trailer parks and a golf course, and a healthy portfolio of stocks and bonds. The man was worth about six million dollars.

It was a complete will, dated two days before Roger died. Written in his own hand from his hospital in New Jersey. A holographic will. Handwritten and signed. No witnesses, but completely valid in New York State.

It left everything to Celeste Oliver.

Roger Williamson had recently divorced for the third time. His only living child, a daughter, was the young woman Villay was about to marry. Under Roger Williamson’s old will, Villay’s fiancée, Allison, was to get everything. The house. The condo. The partnerships. The portfolio.

When Villay had heard how sick the congressman really was, he even began making up a guest list for a New Year’s party at the Florida condo. He had also begun to interview stockbrokers who would manage the stocks and bonds.

A small panicked whine escaped his throat. Nausea swept over him and he sat down in the desk’s chair, the air hissing out of the plastic cushion. The will was gripped so tightly in his hand that it curled in a funnel around his fist. He took a deep breath and laid it flat on the desk’s narrow ledge, smoothing it and scouring it again.

He was right. The will had no survival clause, so even though the stripper had only outlived the congressman by four days, the probate court would treat the estate as if it passed to her the moment Roger died. Roger Williamson’s money, his hard-earned fortune, would belong not to his own daughter, but to the heirs of the dead stripper.

There was another option, and Villay told himself it wasn’t just about the money. It was about the great man’s reputation and the memory his family would have of him. There was no need to sully all that so some white-trash relative of Celeste Oliver’s could become suddenly and undeservedly rich.

Villay stood and stuffed the will into the inside breast pocket of his blazer. He crammed the other papers back into the cubbyholes and looked around for a sign of his presence before he realized that he had every right to be there and that no one would ever question him about it. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He left the house and shut the door. The padlock clicked and rattled against the hardware as Villay turned for the steps. He drove to the end of Lodi Street-near the highway entrance-and pulled into a weedy lot. It was a dark nook amid the glow of the city’s lights, and when he touched the cigarette lighter from his car to the edge of the will, its orange glow was hot and bright. Villay blew gently and the paper ignited, bursting into flame. Shadows morphed across his face as he tilted the burning document this way and that so that it would catch evenly.

The flame licked his fingertips and he dropped the burning sheets to the ground. The acrid scent, like smoldering leaves, filled the air. Villay raised his foot and stamped out what embers remained of the burnt paper, scattering black ash and small sparks that were quickly swallowed up by the shadows.

IT WAS AN EARLY TASTE OF SUMMER. The sun, a stranger through the months of gray, left me squinting. The snow had melted, but piles of grit and filth from a winter of plowing still dirtied the no-man’s-land where the sidewalk meets the street. The warm air, the sight of an irregular daffodil, and the smell of soggy grass left me lighthearted and eager. I swung my jacket over my shoulder and bounced along on my toes.

Against the wishes of the man hired to defend me, I had insisted on fast-tracking my trial. Emil Rossi, my lawyer, was old school and he believed in badgering the prosecution on every point. But I was an innocent man, anxious to have my life back. Now we were at the end. Tomorrow morning, both sides would make their closing arguments and then the jury would decide.

My father asked me to join him for a beer at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a biker place that regular people go to. I could smell the slow-cooked ribs and chicken as I crossed the street and edged between two Harleys. Inside, a waitress in black T-shirt and push-up bra with a biker attitude asked me what did I want. Normally you had to wait an hour for a table, but it was just four o’clock and the place was half empty.

“All set,” I told her, unfazed and searching.

My father and Black Turtle looked ridiculous in their poorly cut blue suits, lizardskin boots, and short wide ties. I had seen them in the courtroom, but only nodded. It was like they knew what I was thinking, because as I passed the bar, they wrestled off the ties, shed their jackets, and began rolling up their sleeves. In front of them were three longneck bottles of Bud.

I sat down and raised my bottle before taking a long swig.

“What did you think?” I asked. A question that would have been unthinkable before Emil had begun to build me up. After three days of listening to Villay, the jury must have had a pretty bad impression of who I was and what I had done. Things were much better now.

“Good people,” Black Turtle said with a nod curt enough to toss his ponytail briefly into sight.

He meant the impressive list of character witnesses. Today Emil had conducted a parade of university professors, CEOs, and the director of the Red Cross office where I had been a volunteer since age fourteen. We could have had the congressman if we wanted. Bob Rangle magnanimously stepped forward to offer his help. For Rangle, it was a politically dangerous move. Emil voted to accept, but I flatly rejected it without knowing why.

My father finished his beer and leaned forward after wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. At the same time, he reached down under the table, producing a worn leather satchel that he thumped down next to the ketchup.

“You’re gonna take this,” he said in a whisper, “and go.”