The black kid had a paisley-shaped scar on one cheek and had kind of a far-off look in his eyes like he didn’t believe a word he was saying. Nobody else talked. The two guards were separated from the kids by a wire screen. They listened to some sports talk radio, a show called Paulie & the Gooch, and didn’t say much besides telling the kids to shut the fuck up twice so they could listen.

All of them were in orange. All of them had been cuffed and didn’t have anything to do but look at the floor and try not to think about where they were going as the van raced along. The black kid told him his name was Perry but everyone called him Pooky. He was from the projects in Grove Hill. Pooky said he’d stolen a car just to get the hell out of town. The judge committed him to Fortune Island until he turned eighteen.

“When I get out,” he said, “I’m getting the hell away from this damn place.”

The other white kid was Isaac, a chunky boy not even fourteen, who had stolen a copy of Grand Theft Auto from Target. The boy didn’t talk much, trying to listen and learn a little bit more about the island. No one had told him a thing.

He’d seen his dad for only a second before they removed him from court. His dad was crying. His dad just kept on saying he was sorry but didn’t say he knew what to do. For the first time, his father looked weak to him.

After a long while, the van slowed and the guards got out, slamming the doors. The boys looked at one another. No one spoke. You could hear the wind and sleet against the van doors. Finally the back door opened and there was a bright artificial light. The two men who’d driven them this far telling them to get the hell out.

“Move,” they said. “Come on. Now.”

It was the first time the boy noticed they weren’t cops but had uniforms with a patch that read MCC over an outline of Massachusetts. They told the boys to line up outside in the dark and cold. He could make out part of a parking lot and a dock in the streetlights. The guards marched them down a long path to a small dock, where an enclosed motorboat was waiting for them. They pushed the kids onboard, telling them to keep their feet inside because no one would be diving in after them.

“Sit down,” said an older man in a ball cap. “Shut up. Don’t start trouble for yourself before you even get here.”

The man looked to be in his forties and had a shaved head and a goatee. He wore a ski jacket and had a tattoo on his neck. The snow, sleet, and darkness made it hard to see past a few feet. The boy stared out the boat’s window at the snow catching and melting on the windows, listening to the steady hum of the motor until it revved hard and they left the dock. The men’s feet were hard and heavy around them. There was laughter and a lot of talk. Someone said something about those little fuckers. The man with the tattoo was at the wheel now, staring into nothing, the front of the boat lifting up and slamming back down.

The boy had never spent much time at sea. You could smell the cold salt air all around you.

He felt like he might puke.

He lifted his eyes, everything off-kilter. Pooky was across from him, shaking his head. “Don’t do it,” he said. “Don’t show you weak or it’s all over.”

The boy just breathed and looked out the window, looking for something. In the distance came the swinging arc of brightness from a lighthouse.

“How bad is it?” the boy said.

“It ain’t good.”

“What do they do to you?”

“Everything.”

10

A few days later, I sat across from Sheila Yates in a conference room at Cone, Oakes. We were very high up, and the view of the docks and the cold, breaking waves in the harbor was impressive. I almost wished I’d worn a tie, perhaps my J. Press blazer with gold buttons. Instead, I had on work clothes. Levi’s, button-down Ball and Buck shirt, Red Wings, and my A-2 bomber jacket. I kept on the A-2 to shield my Smith & Wesson.

“I’m about to go nuts,” Sheila said. “They take him out there. To that island, and there’s no way to see him? This is crazy.”

“We’ll get him out,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Because we will,” I said. “Scali has grown cocky and sloppy. The law is on our side.”

“That doesn’t always mean jack.”

“Depends on who’s cracking the whip.”

Just then a young woman walked into the office carrying a tall cup of Starbucks. She was thin, with a dimpled chin and big, sleepy hazel eyes under a ski hat. She trundled out of an enormous gray coat while she held a batch of papers in her teeth. She sat down at the head of the conference table, still in the ski hat marked with two crossed arrows, and shuffled the papers. I didn’t want to be judgmental, but she looked all of twelve.

“Is Rita coming?” I said.

“Rita is in court today,” she said. “I’m Megan Mullen. I’ll be handling your case.”

“What are you, twelve?” Sheila said.

I stifled a smile. It was a good question.

“No, ma’am, I’m twenty-nine,” she said. “There’s no age discrimination at Harvard Law School. I passed the bar and everything.”

Sheila Yates raised her eyebrows at me. I smiled just a little. I didn’t want Megan Mullen to notice, as she seemed to have small but sharp teeth. She pulled off the ski hat, unveiling a neat bun at the back of her head and two respectable-sized diamond earrings. She pushed up the sleeves on a navy V-neck sweater and settled in to read the papers before her.

I tapped my fingers. “I’m Spenser, by the way.”

“I know who you are,” Megan said.

“Excellent.”

“Rita warned me.”

“Warned you?”

“She said you’re a solid investigator and have done a lot for the firm.”

“And?”

“She said you’d make jokes about me being young.”

“But I’ve refrained.”

Megan looked up from the papers and gave me a wait-and-see glance. I waved an empty palm across the very long desk. We were up so high that a dense fog shifted below us like low-hanging clouds.

“I don’t get this,” she said. “Your son made a joke on Twitter and they arrested him?”

“I know,” Sheila said. “Freakin’ crazy.”

“On what charges?” she said.

“Keep reading,” I said. “It gets freakin’ crazier.”

Megan flipped through the file Sheila Yates and I had put together. This wasn’t a murder case. The file was very thin. “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.”

“So ridiculous my Dillon was hauled away in shackles and taken out into the harbor,” Sheila said. “For rehabilitation, as if he were some kind of criminal. He doesn’t drink. Doesn’t do drugs. He once stole a pack of Doublemint gum when he was four. I made him take it back and pay for it. He’s a great kid.”

“Some people can’t take a joke,” I said.

Megan pushed the papers away from her as if they were a rotten meal. She made an uggh sound and crossed her arms over her very small chest. I bet if she stood on a box, she might come up to my shoulders. She tilted her head at me, dropping those big, sleepy eyes like a hammer. “Oh, I can take a joke,” she said. “If it’s funny.”

“Two lawyers and a priest walk into a bar,” I said.

Megan held up her hand. “Just tell me what you learned in Blackburn.”

“You know Dillon’s grandfather signed a waiver giving up his right to an attorney?” I said.

“I do,” she said. “And we’ve filed an appeal. I just didn’t know the circumstances behind his arrest.”