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HELP WAS US Marshal Larry Kirkland He was uy, with blue eyes, freckles, and short red-orange hair grown just long enough that it was curling in soft ringlets all over his head He usually kept it short enough that there were no curls, which hter had his curls, but with her elica&039;s hair grow into ringlets that touched her tiny shoulders Larry still looked like a grown-up Howdy Doody, but there were lines around hisserious When he came in as my sort-of apprentice in the execution business, he&039;d smiled more I had warned him that this job can eat you, if you let it

We were standing near the bodies as we talked "I staked all the ones that didn&039;t have enough dae to be reliably dead Stake the rest, and then join us upstairs"

"Join you for what?" he asked, and he sounded positively suspicious He&039;d learned that on the job, too

I&039;d already told hi to do to help break the suspects down "You can work in one room with one suspect while I do someone else It&039;ll cut our tiet usable information before dawn"

His face set in faes This was part of where he got his frown lines, this stubborn cynicis my share of those years back, but the last few years I&039;d turned any lines on hed

"What are you s at?" he asked, and his voice matched the suspicion on his face

"You, "

"What does that even mean, Anita?" The frown softened, but he looked tired, not of hours worked, but just the situation, I think We were both tired of it

"It means I can read your face, the set of your shoulders All we&039;re doing is our job, Larry"

"It&039;s my job to take the head and heart of dead varave It&039;s ally sanctioned for death, but it&039;s not my job to help the police terrify suspects It would be like electrocuting a dead body in front of a condemned human prisoner The body is still dead, so you don&039;t kill it in front of the It&039;s barbaric, Anita I won&039;t be Zerbrowski&039;s hed We&039;d had sireements before, not about this particular issue since I&039;d never done an interrogation like this one either, but "So it&039;s okay forthis makes you feel like aIf you know it&039;s wrong, then don&039;t do it It&039;s as siht He always did

"And if I don&039;t do it, and you won&039;t do it, then who does do it?"

"Don&039;t you understand, Anita, no one should do this It&039;s a horrible thing, and it shouldn&039;t be done at all, and it really shouldn&039;t have people with badges doing it We&039;re the good guys, and good guys don&039;t do things like this"

"We need to locate the vaate these suspects the e do anyone else," he said

"Regular interrogation takes tiry again They&039;ve killed They&039;ve killed police officers They know they&039;re deadto lose It will ot to be a way that doesn&039;t uys, Anita"

I shook er like a warry, and I didn&039;t have the control I had now "If I wasn&039;t here you&039;d have to do the bad stuff yourself, Larry"

"If you hadn&039;t been here, I still wouldn&039;t have done it" He sounded so sure of hiht

I counted to ten, forcing myself to breathe even, and slow "How uy save civilian lives?"

He glared at s of his own temper "I don&039;t know"

"Twice," I said

"You know it&039;s more than that," he said

"Four tie thatsomeone saved lives?"

Others would have lied to themselves, but Larry held to his convictions, and still understood the cost of theraces "Twenty times, maybe thirty, where I know you went over the line, but I do acknowledge that it saved lives"

"Howa monster?" I asked

"I never called you that"