"Five years in jail," I said into the emptiness, trying to imagine it. His voice, when he replied, was bitter.

"Wasn't no jail, damn it. It was a dirt-floor cage eight feet wide. Five years, man. They let me out twice a month. Rest of the time, all I could do was sleep, shit, or pace. Mostly, I paced. Four steps and turn. Four and turn." He looked at me. "I can't handle closed spaces, Work. That's why I walk. When the walls close in, I just get out. You know, because I never could before." He gestured with his whittled-down hands-at the trees, the sky, everything. "You'll never know what this means." He closed his eyes. "This space."

I nodded, but I thought I might damn well find out one day.

"But why are you telling me this?" I asked him.

He opened his eyes and I saw that he was not crazy. Tortured and tormented, but not crazy.

"I have a problem with authority," he said. "You understand? I can't stand the sight of a uniform. And the cops round here have done nothing to make me feel any different. They don't exactly treat me with love and respect." A grin split his lumpen face. "I can't talk to the cops. I won't. You see?"

I understood, but I didn't get it. What did any of this have to do with me? I asked him. He didn't answer right away. Instead, he turned and walked. I hurried after him.

"You see how I walk," he said. "All the time. Anytime. Day or night. Don't matter. The walls close in and I walk 'cause I have to."

We turned right, onto a neat street, where the houses all had an individual charm. Max stopped in front of one, a small cottage with green grass and a hedgerow that separated it from its neighbors on both sides. The house was yellow, with blue shutters and a pair of rocking chairs on the front porch. Roses snaked up a trellis that bordered a stone chimney. I looked up at Max, suddenly realizing how tall he was.

"I'm talking to you because I won't go to the cops." My frustration must have shown, because he took off his hat and scratched at the matted hair beneath. "He was killed the night after Thanksgiving, right? It was raining."

I nodded, a strange sensation in my stomach.

"And they found his body in the Towne Mall, the empty one down by the interstate? Where the creek goes under the parking lot?"

"What . . ." I began, but he didn't respond to me. It was as if he were talking to himself, but with his eyes so hot on me, I could feel them.

"I'm tellin' you this story so you understand. It's important."

"What's important?" I asked.

"I'm tellin' you because I don't think you killed that man."

The sensation in my stomach expanded, heat rushing out into my limbs, my fingers tingling. "What are you saying?"

"I walk all the time," he said. "Sometimes by the tracks. Sometimes the park." A pause. "Sometimes by the interstate." I realized that I had seized his forearm. It was hard and scrawny beneath the slick plastic. He didn't even notice. "I remember that night because of the rain and because it was right after Thanksgiving. It was late, after midnight. And I saw the cars, near the mall. There are never cars there at night. It's a dark place with maybe a bum or two, maybe some junkies, but that's about it. Once I saw a fight there, a long time ago, but never cars. Not that late."

My heart was thudding, my lips dry. What was he saying? I peered through those thick, filthy lenses, looking for something. For some sense of what he was about to say. For some reason not to be afraid.

"You heard something?" I said. "Saw something? What?" I realized that I was squeezing his arm so hard that my hand hurt, but he showed no sign of discomfort. I forced my hand to relax.

"Maybe it's important. Maybe not. I don't know. But I think that maybe the cops should know. Someone should tell them."

"Tell them what?" It was almost a shout.

"I saw somebody come out from the mall that night-quick, but not running. This person moved past the cars and tossed something into the storm drain, then got in one of the cars and bailed."

The enormity of Max's revelation spilled over me. "Last year," I said. "Night after Thanksgiving. You saw a person exit the Towne Mall, throw something into the storm drain, and then leave in a car?"

Max shrugged. "Like I said."

"Did you see what this person looked like?" I asked.

"No."

Relief surged through me. He could not identify Jean.

"It was dark, raining, and this person was far away, wearing a coat and a hat. All dark. But I don't think it was you."

I released his arm, but he paid no attention. "Why not me?"

"This person was shorter, I think. Medium. You are too tall."

"Was it a man or a woman?"

"Who can say? Could have been either."

"But you are certain it wasn't me."

Max shrugged again. "For years I've seen you. You never do anything. You sit on your porch and drink beer. I've known a lot of killers, seen a lot of dead men; I don't reckon you could kill a man. But that's just me, my opinion."

I should have been offended, but I wasn't. He was right. In spite of going to law school, getting married, and running a practice, I never did did anything. I coasted. anything. I coasted.

"What was this person wearing?" I asked.

"Dark clothes. A hat. That's all I can say."

"How about the cars? Can you tell me anything about them?"

"One big. One not so big. Not black, I think. But dark."

I thought for a minute. "Which car did this person leave in?"

"The smaller one. I'm sorry I can't tell you more. They were a ways off and I wasn't really paying attention."

"What happened to the bigger one?"

"It was still there when I left. I was just walking by. I didn't stay. Two days later, I walked by the same place, but the car was not there."

"What did this person throw into the sewer, Max? Did you see it?"

"Nope, but I have a theory, same as you."

"Tell me," I said. But I knew.

"When a person throws something into a hole in the ground, it's gonna be something they don't want to be found. The papers say the cops are looking for the gun that killed your father. I think maybe you look in the storm drain and you'll find it. But that's just me talking, and I'm just a guy."

I saw it through his eyes. Like I'd been there. Of course it was the gun. And if the cops found it? Game over. But the irony was like a fork in my guts. When they found Ezra in the Towne Mall, it was bad enough, but the memories of that awful day so long ago were just that, memories. But this was the tunnel, the throat, and I had to go there, to get the gun before the cops did. Before Max decided that he should tell someone else. Lord help me.

"You were right to tell me, Max. Thank you."

"You gonna tell the cops?"

I couldn't lie to his face, so I gave him the best truth I could. "I'll do what has to be done. Thanks."

"I had to tell you," Max said, and there was something in his voice, something unsaid. I turned back to him just as a car passed us. His eyes were on that car, and he watched it until it was gone; then he looked down upon me. "I've been in this town for nineteen years, Work, almost twenty. I probably walked ten thousand miles in that time. You're the only person who ever asked to walk with me . . . the only one who ever wanted to talk. That may not seem like much to you, but it means something to me." He put one of his shattered hands on my shoulder; his eyes were steady on mine. "Now that's not easy for me to say, but it had to be said, too."

I was moved by his sincerity, and realized that we'd traveled our own painful roads in this town. They were different, our roads, but maybe just as lonely.

"You're a good man, Max; I'm glad that we met." I held out my hand, and this time he shook it, best as he could. "So come on," I said. "Let's walk." I started to turn, but he didn't follow me.

"This is where I stop," he said.

I looked around at the empty street. "Why?"

He gestured at the yellow cottage. "This is my house."

"But I thought . . ." Fortunately, I stopped myself. "It's a lovely home, Max."

He studied the house as if looking for some imperfection, and then, finding none, he looked back at me. "My mother left it to me when she died. I've been here ever since. Come on inside. We'll grab a couple beers and sit on the porch."

I stood loose and still, embarrassed by all the years I'd seen him walk past my house, and by all the assumptions I'd made. In some ways, I was as bad as Barbara, and that fact humbled me.

"Max?"

"Yeah." His face twisted in a smile that no longer looked so gruesome to me.

"May I ask a favor? It's important."

"Ask away. I might even say yes." Another smile.

"If anything should happen to me, I'd like you to take my dog. Look after him. Take him walking with you."

It would be a good life, I thought.

Max studied me before he spoke. "If something happens to you," he said with great solemnity, "I'll take care of your dog. We're friends, right?"

"Yes," I said, meaning it.

"Then good. But nothing's gonna happen. You'll tell the cops about the gun, and take care of the dog yourself. Now come on. I bought beer just for you."

So we sat on his front porch, looked across his tidy lawn, and sipped beer from the bottle. We spoke, but not of important things; and for that brief time, I was not lonely, and neither, I thought, was he.

CHAPTER 19.

Ifound Bone asleep in the truck, curled in the sun. One look up the hill and I could tell the house was empty, but I couldn't face it; that body was still warm. So I went to the office. It still felt like Ezra's building and I thought it would be easier to start there.

It was a little after four and the street was empty, sidewalks, too. I wanted to be angry, but walked like a victim. I went in through the back door and saw my office first. Drawers were pulled out, filing cabinets stripped bare. Case files, personal documents, all of it. My financial information, medical records, photographs. Even a journal I wrote in once in a blue moon. My whole life! I slammed the drawers shut, the sounds like breaking fingers in the quiet building. I glanced in the break room and saw that they'd helped themselves to drinks from my refrigerator. Cans and candy wrappers still littered the small scratched table, and the room stank of cigarettes. I scooped up trash and stuffed it violently into a plastic bag. I cleared half the mess, then flung the bag to the floor. There was no point.

I went upstairs to Ezra's office. It, too, was in shambles, but I ignored the mess and went straight to the corner of rug that hid the dead man's safe. I took a handful of fringe and pulled the rug back. Everything looked the same: two dented boards held fast by four nails-two of them cleanly driven, two bent and hammered into the wood.

The cops had not found it, which made me savagely content. If anyone had the right to tear down the old man's last secret, I did.

The hammer was where I'd left it, and I used the clawed end to pry at the nails. The bent ones came out, but the other two refused. The claw barely fit into the crack between the boards, but a hard yank brought them up with an animal squeal. I tossed them down and bent over the safe. Hank had said to think about what was important to Ezra if I wanted to open it without a locksmith. So I tried to think clearly of the dead man whom fate had made my father.

What was important to him? A simple question. Power. Standing. Prominence. Yet it all came down to money.

In the heart of my father's million-dollar house was his study, and on the desk there was a single framed photograph. It had been there forever, a reminder and a goad. How many times had I caught him staring at it? It was who and what he was: what he'd strived to bury yet couldn't bear to forget. In his heart, and in spite of his overwhelming accomplishments, my father had always been the same grubby boy with scabby knees. The dark eyes had never changed.

I'd been born into comfort, and both of us had known all along that I lacked his hunger. That hunger had made him strong, but it'd made him hard, as well. Ruthlessness was a virtue, and the lack of it in me was, to him, the surest proof that he had fathered a weakling. So where I searched for meaning, he'd sought power. His life had been a determined climb to the top, and it all came down to money; it was the foundation. Money had bought his house in the best neighborhood. Money had bought cars, paid for parties, and financed political campaigns. It was a tool, a lever, and he'd used it to shift the world around him, the people, too. I thought of my career, and knew I'd chosen the easy route. He'd bought me off. I could face that now. Maybe he'd bought us all, except for Jean. For her, the cost was too heavy, and, unable or unwilling to bend, she'd snapped under the weight of it. So in the end, Ezra had paid the price. The whole thing reeked of karma.

I studied the safe. I'd discovered it by accident and could have gone the rest of my life without knowledge of its existence, yet it weighed upon me.

Money and power.

I remembered my father's first million-dollar jury award. I was ten, and he took the family to Charlotte to celebrate. I could still see him, teeth clamped on a cigar, proudly ordering the best bottle of wine in the restaurant, and how he'd turned to Mother. "Nothing can stop me now," he'd said. And I remembered Mother's face, too, her uncertainty.

Not us. Me. Me.

She'd put her arm around Jean, and at the time I didn't recognize it, but looking back, I knew she'd been scared.

That verdict was the beginning. It was the largest jury award in the history of Rowan County, and the press made my father famous. After that, people came looking for Ezra Pickens.

And he was right. Nothing could stop him. He was a celebrity, an icon, and his ego grew with his fame and with his fortune. Everything changed for him after that.

For us, too.

I still remembered the date of the verdict. It was the day Jean turned six.

I typed the date into the keypad. Nothing. I replaced the boards and hammered in four new nails. I took my time, and they sank into the wood, straight and clean. I spread the rug with a sigh and turned away.

It would have been too easy.

I moved around the office, closing drawers, turning off lights, and was about to leave, when the phone rang. I almost didn't answer it.

"Damn all generosity!" It was Tara Reynolds, calling from her office at the Charlotte Observer. Charlotte Observer. "My editor is about to stroke out." "My editor is about to stroke out."

"What are you talking about, Tara?"

"Have you seen the Salisbury Post?" Salisbury Post?" Unlike the Unlike the Observer, Observer, it ran in the afternoons. It would have hit the stands less than an hour ago. it ran in the afternoons. It would have hit the stands less than an hour ago.

"No."

"Well, you should pick up a copy. You're page-one news, Work, and it's a freakin' injustice, that's what it is. I bust my ass on this story, I'm all set to break it, and some idiot from the Post Post gets a call that the cops are at your office and just walks on over and takes your damn picture." gets a call that the cops are at your office and just walks on over and takes your damn picture."