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"It sounds like the truth"

"Just a few things left out is all What I was saying, you won't get anything official out of it, but people around the departonna know better You follow me?"

"So?"

"So you couldn't ask for a better passport back onto the force is what it sounds like toto Eddie Koehler over at the Sixth You wouldn't have any trouble getting 'eain"

"It's not what I want"

"That's what he said you'd say But are you sure it isn't? All right, you're a loner, you got a hard-on for the world, you hit this stuff-" he touched his glass "-a little harder than you maybe should But you're a cop, Matt, and you didn't stop being one when you gave the badge back"

I thought for a h the words of ht, in a way But in another way you're wrong, and I stopped being a cop before I handed in my shield"

"All because of that kid that died"

"Not just that" I shrugged "People e"

"Well," he said, and then he didn't say anything for a fewto talk about We discussed the i three-card iven that the fine for the offense is seventy-five dollars and the profit somewhere between five hundred and a thousand dollars a day "And there's this one judge," he said, "who told a whole string of them he'd let 'eain 'Oh, Ah promises, yo' honah' To save seventy-five dollars, those assholes'd proues"

We had a third round of drinks, and I let him pay for that round, too, and then he went back to the station house and I caught a cab hoes, and when there weren't any I went around the corner to Arht

But it wasn't a bad one I drankit last, and ly I talked to people inter to Haverave Jan a call to tell her how things had turned out Her line was busy Either she was talking to someone or she had the phone off the hook, and this tiet the operator to find out which

I had just the right ae Not so h to bring sleep without dreaot down to Pine Street the next day, Charles London knehat to expect Thepapers had the story The line they carried was pretty much what I'd expected from what Fitzroy had said I was mentioned by name as the fellow ex-cop who'd heard Haverive hier

Even so, he didn't look thrilled to see ed to becoing effect upon a variety of people I thought-"

"I knohat you thought"

"It turned out that I rong I'ht coh there will be a trial"

"You don't have to worry about what co a black baby" He looked as though he'd been slapped "She was carrying her husband's baby Shean affair, probably in retaliation for her husband's behavior, but there's no evidence that it had an interracial element That was an invention of your former son-in-law's"

"I see" He took his little walk to theand made sure that the harbor was still out there He turned to me and said, "At least this has turned out well, Mr Scudder"

"Oh?"

"Barbara's killer has been brought to justice I no longer have to worry who ht have killed her, or why Yes, I think we can say it's turned out well"

He could say it if he wanted I wasn't sure that justice hat Burton Havero froured in the ordeal that was just beginning for Havermeyer's son and his blind ex-wife And if London didn't have to worry that Douglas Ettinger had killed his daughter, what he'd learned about Ettinger's character couldn't have been ht, too, of the fault lines I'd already detected in Ettinger's secondthe blonde with the sunny suburban face would hold her space in his desk-top photo cube If they split, would he be able to go on working for his second father-in-law?

Finally, I thought how people could adjust to one reality after another if they put their hter had been killed for no reason at all, and he'd adjusted to that Then he came to believe that she had indeed been killed for a reason, and by so to that Now he knew that she'd been killed by a near-stranger for a reason that had nothing much to do with her Her death had co she'd preserved the life of the intended victin or you could see it as further proof that the world was mad, but either way it was a new reality to which he would surely adjust

Before I left he gave me a check for a thousand dollars A bonus, he said, and he assured us on it, take it and put it in your pocket I was still enough of a cop at heart to remember that much

I tried Jan around lunchtiain later in the afternoon and the line was busy three ti It was around six when I finally reached her

"You're hard to get hold of," I said

"I was out some And then I was on the phone"

"I was out some myself" I told her a lot of what had happened since I'd left her loft the previous afternoon, are that Havermeyer's boy Danny had attended the Happy Hours Child Care Center I told her why Barbara Ettinger had been killed, and I told her that Havermeyer's as blind

"Jesus," she said

We talked a littleabout dinner "My client gaveto earn," I said, "and I feel a need to spend some of it frivolously before I piss the rest of it away on necessities"

"I' h spots after you finish your salad? Any place but Blanche's Tavern is fine withis, Matthew, I have soht"

"Oh"

"And it's not another date I'"

"I see"

"I'ot to deal with it"

"I didn't have the impression that you drank that much"

"It's not how much you drink It's what it does to you I have blackouts I have personality changes I tell oing to have one drink and the nextthe bottle's empty I'ht"

"I thought it didn't work for you"

"Oh, it orking fine Until I drank This tiht for a reat," I said