Afterward, she’d opened windows. She’d even rolled up a bathroom towel along the bottom of the door.

You didn’t have to be a lawyer to imagine how it would play in court. Russell James was the victim now. Not the other way around.

For Gwen, even with a back full of ugly bruises, self-defense would be a tough sell. He imagined the prosecution’s arguments: Had the defendant ever attempted to leave the victim? Had she ever filed a report? Could the defense offer any proof that the defendant had suffered her injuries at the hands of the victim in the first place?

If she’d been able to slip out of bed undetected, why had she chosen to bludgeon the victim to death in his sleep instead of simply leaving the apartment and finding safe haven?

She’d eventually reported the crime. Maybe she’d helped herself there. But in this town, she’d still be above the fold in the papers, a lead-off on the six and ten. A juicy burning-bed story. She’d be there again at trial time.

Worth thought of Gwen, working bad shifts, knuckling over textbooks during her breaks. He thought of all the waste-of-space Russells he’d encountered on the job. He thought of Tiffany Pine.

An overwhelming sadness swept over him, like a wave that had been building from a great depth.

Even if she caught the outside odds, some sort of clemency, starting now, this girl’s life was off the rails. And for what?

He hadn’t known he was capable of thinking this way. Worth wondered how his older brother Kelly would have handled the situation. He thought he knew the answer, and it didn’t really help.

He wondered what Dr. Grail would have written in his case folder.

By the time he’d taken off his gear belt and started unbuttoning his winter duty shirt, Worth had moved beyond all that. Past logic, past speculation, past the right or the wrong, finally on to something he found simpler to grasp:

Strategy.

In that sense it came down to nothing more or less complicated than sacking groceries. A big pile of problems. A few tidy solutions.

Russell had been a good-looking guy.

As it happened, he’d also been just about Worth’s size.

The alley separated Gwen’s building from a sagging two-story house next door. In back, a cross alley ran between a row of overflowing Dumpsters and the backs of two other apartment buildings. Nothing to the north but a fractured pad of asphalt, fenced off from the street by weedy, trash-clogged chain link. Tenant parking. Currently vacant but for one dark, orphaned GTO.

Worth had parked the cruiser out front. As if from a distance, he saw himself hoisting a rolled rug into a fireman’s carry, descending a wooden fire escape in back. He wore a dead guy’s clothes, black ball cap stitched with a NASCAR patch pulled low over his eyes. It was like watching a murky scene in some movie. A movie about bad people. Dumb bad people.

But if anybody with a view happened to look out a window, they wouldn’t see a uniformed cop hauling a bulging bundle out the back of Gwen Mullen’s apartment after midnight. If anybody in the building was paying attention, the presence of the squad unit would most likely draw their attention toward the street.

If anybody who knew Russell came around the corner, or up the fire escape, Worth didn’t know what would happen.

Nobody did.

Problem number three: vehicles.

4

Even with beer and Vicodin, John Pospisil hadn’t slept through the night in ten weeks.

He hadn’t done much of anything except sit around and hurt since the middle of August, but the past few days had been a new kind of fun. Guys at the hall had told him he’d feel it when the weather changed.

He was feeling it.

A guy didn’t want to complain. Not after his tie line breaks and he goes to the hospital with a busted leg instead of zipped up in a bag.

John had been framing a skylight on a million-dollar new build out west when he’d opened his eyes and realized he’d fallen three stories onto flat concrete: through the rafters, into an open stairwell, all the way down to the poured basement floor.

Thirty years as a carpenter, he’d lived around job sites without so much as stepping on a nail. The safety guys always said it only took once.

He still didn’t remember slipping. One minute he was marking a chalk line; the next, they were hauling him out of there with a shattered tibia and a six-inch shear of fibula sticking out of his knee.

Two surgeries, three rods, a stainless steel plate, and half a bucket of screws later, he had enough hardware down there to sink a bass boat, and he wasn’t done yet. Ten weeks along, he still sported what the doc called an external fixator. The insurance company called it an even three grand. It looked to John like a twenty-four-inch bar clamp drilled into the side of his leg.

It made a decent weather gauge, too. John swore the thing conducted every tick of the barometer straight down into the bone.

The clock by the bed said 12:25 when he finally called it quits. He wished he hadn’t followed the doc’s advice and popped the Ambien; he always woke up anyway, and the stuff only made him feel dizzy and strange. He sat on the edge of the mattress until he thought he could stand without falling over in a pile.

Doc wanted him to keep a walker by the bed. A damned walker.

Thirty years.

John Pospisil sighed, hauled himself up, gathered his balance, and crutched his way along the well-worn path through the dark to the La-Z-Boy recliner in the living room.

It was quiet in the house, and a little cool. Light from the streetlamp came in through the gap in the drapes, striping the floor. John stopped at the thermostat and turned the dial just enough to kick the furnace on. He rested another few seconds, then gimped along, finally steadying himself against the recliner at the end of the trail.

Outside, a car passed on the street. While John stood there, the muffled sound of the engine grew into a souped-up grumble that seemed to slow and linger in front of the house. Headlights passed across the curtains.

He raised a crutch and moved the curtain a few inches to the side.

Across the street, a black car idled in the driveway behind Helen Worth’s house, waiting for the garage door to rise. Old sixties Camaro, it looked like. Something along those lines. Sharp, whatever it was. Driver door open. Dome light on.

While John watched, a guy in a black ball cap and a denim jacket came out of the garage. He got in the car and pulled inside. The garage door came down.

It was Matt living there now. Helen’s grandson, a city cop just like old Joe and his sons. Good guy, took care of the place. John had seen him leave for work in his pickup a few hours ago; he didn’t see the pickup in the garage now.

Must have had some company staying. Maybe he’d call over in a little while. Kill a few minutes, make sure everything was kosher. Maybe he’d mind his own business.

Hell. He probably wouldn’t be able to remember what he did or didn’t do. He wished he hadn’t taken the Ambien.

From the house, Worth walked to the GitGo on Center Street. He called a Husker Cab from the pay phone outside.

He used the name Tom Smith, kept the ball cap low, stood with his back to the security camera mounted outside the store.

Three blocks from Gwen’s apartment building, he got out of the cab and paid the driver in cash. He walked with his head down, hands in his pockets.