“You’ll be thinking about this man next year, and ten years from now, and ten years after that when you’re in my position, standing on the lip of things, looking over the edge. And when you do, knowing that you cared, even a little bit, and did your best to save him . . . well, knowing that is the only thing that’s going to keep you from tearing out your heart, or drowning it in alcohol. Trust me, I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I know what it feels like when you do it on the other side of caring, and let me tell you, it leaves you haunted.”

“Old man.”

“You got that right, but my hair turned gray a long time ago.”

Ramirez looked at Henderson and for the first time saw the hurt in his eyes. Something had happened to him, something had damaged him badly. And all this time he’d been trying to protect her from the same fate. Someday she’d get the story, she was a detective, after all, someday she’d wring it out from him, but not this day. This day she was just glad he was by her side.

“Detectives,” came a voice from the hallway, “can I get the hell out of here? I’ve been here way too long already, and this shirt is getting ripe.”

It was Byrne. Ramirez offered a quick and uneasy smile to Henderson in thanks, and then she stepped away from the man she had killed and out of the room where she had killed him.

“Didn’t we tell all of you just to stay put?” said Ramirez as she and Henderson approached Byrne. Byrne’s jacket was off, his tie loose, but he looked calm, as if he’d already gotten over the violence that had burst about him just an hour ago.

“Yes, you did,” said Kyle Byrne. “But the senator was whisked out with his lawyer before the news trucks showed up, and Mrs. Truscott did that little fainting thing that got her a quick trip to the hospital, which leaves just me.”

“And you’re lonely, is that it?”

Kyle smiled. “Actually, yes. So I wanted to know if I can get out of here, too.”

“Do we have anything we can hold this boy on?” she said to Henderson.

“Extortion?” said Henderson.

“I don’t know,” said Ramirez, staring at Kyle with a critical eye, as if he were a painting, or a horse. “From what we heard over the radio frequency he gave us, he wasn’t trying to trade the file for money.” “A rson?”

“Based on the burns on Spangler’s skin, I’d put the arson on him.” “How about theft of a valuable file?”

“Taking his dead father’s file from his own former home? That won’t stick.”

“Obstruction of justice?”

“Maybe,” said Ramirez. “But we wouldn’t have found Spangler without him.”

“Abject stupidity?”

“Well, there you go,” said Ramirez. “We’re just going to have to hold him over on the grounds of abject stupidity. Because who else but an idiot would put himself in the middle of this craziness for no apparent purpose?”

“If stupidity was a crime,” said Kyle, “I’d have been locked up long ago.”

“Answer one question and we’ll let you go,” said Ramirez. “Who was in the car?”

“What car? The rental thing?”

“Yeah, the rental thing.”

“Nobody.”

“Did you hear that, Henderson?”

“I heard,” said Henderson. “Now we got him for lying to a police officer.”

“It’s a shame,” said Ramirez. “He was almost in the clear. Have you seen your father lately, Byrne?”

“My father?” said Kyle. “Are you kidding me? You didn’t believe that maniac, did you?”

“He seemed to know what he was talking about.”

“He also drew his eyebrows in with a Sharpie.”

“Someone was taping the whole scene,” said Henderson. “That someone took the tape. To clean things up, we’ll need it back.”

“Let me get out of here and I’ll see what I can do about getting you that tape.”

Ramirez looked at Henderson, Henderson blew out a cheek and then shrugged.

“Okay,” said Ramirez. “If the techs are done with your car, you can get the hell out of here. But tomorrow you’re going to have to go on up and talk to an inspector named Demerit with the Haverford Police Department about the fire at your house.”

“Deal,” said Kyle. He stepped toward Ramirez and lowered his voice. “Now that this is over, can you see me?”

“I can see you fine.”

He glanced at Henderson and then gently took hold of her arm and pulled her into a corner. Henderson turned his back and pretended to read something.

“You know what I mean,” said Byrne. “Look, let’s say tomorrow night at eight, at the same bar where you found me this afternoon. We’ll have a few beers, have some laughs, talk about something that has nothing to do with any of this.”

“I might be busy.”

He leaned forward, scratched his lower lip. Instinctively she licked her own lip with her tongue. He leaned farther forward, and she was surprised that this soon after the death and the blood something inside her was able to open up so quickly and urgently. She was surprised even more at the disappointment she felt when he pulled away without kissing her.

“Tomorrow,” he said with a smile before he turned and headed out of the house.

“And tomorrow and tomorrow,” said Henderson.

“What the hell is that?”

“Shakespeare,” said Henderson.

“Don’t give me that Shakespeare crap, like you’re some student of fine literature. We got reports to write, a case to close, an IAD shooting investigation to deal with. We’ve got ourselves a mess to clean up.”

“Yes, we do,” said Henderson.

“So let’s keep our eyes on the ball,” she said.

“Absolutely. But he’s a pretty interesting kid, isn’t he?”

“Don’t even,” said Ramirez.

“Pretty damn interesting,” said Henderson, laughing.

And Ramirez couldn’t help but laugh with him.

CHAPTER 58

IN THE MIDDLE of the night, lying awake in the sagging bed in that fetid motel room, still waiting for his father to reappear, Kyle Byrne gradually grew more and more certain that his father had never returned, that his father’s body had fully and truly been rendered unto ash fourteen years ago, that the whole renewed relationship was a piece of wishful thinking hatched in the fevered recesses of Kyle’s own deranged brain.