“Don’t you two know not to feed wild animals?” he said.

Remy and I blinked.

“You gave something to Deb,” Kirios said.

“No idea what you’re talking about, Kirios,” Remy said.

“Print journalism, Marsh and Morgan. It’s still alive and available for a good story. Usually, it’s the best way to tell it.”

I wanted to remind the reporter how Abe had asked Kirios’s editor for information on Jed Harrington the day of the shooting. How we’d been directed instead to read the paper the next day. But I kept my mouth shut for a change.

The reporter followed us out the door.

“Whatever it is, we got no comment,” Remy said to him.

But Kirios held out a business card. “I’m actually here to give you two something,” he said. “I owed a favor to a Fed named Quarles,” Kirios said. “Apparently, he owed a favor to you. So via three-way, we’re all clean.”

I stared at what was written on the back of Kirios’s business card.

It read:

Alistair Zalinsky is in our custody.

—Quarles

“Who the hell is Alistair Zalinsky?”

The reporter nodded, as if expecting the question.

“Quarles said to tell you he found a single print on the inside of the trigger assembly, left over from some exploded rifle,” Kirios said. “Does that make sense?”

I stared at Kirios.

“He said to let you two know,” the reporter continued. “Your cop’s gonna get some measure of justice for what happened to his son.”

Zalinsky was the old assassin.

The one who’d shot the two drug couriers in the Chevy Caprice and killed Carilla out in the forest. More important, who’d killed Officer Timothy O’Neal’s son, Jacob, inside of Tandy’s. The Feds had him. Which meant they got him on other charges and were taking first crack at the guy.

I thought about what the waitress at the Cracker Barrel had told us about the man she called “Grandpa.”

When the old guy went inside the restroom to inspect the replacement gun parts, he must’ve inadvertently left a print on an unpainted piece of the 3D-printed M24.

“Thanks, Kirios,” I said. “I appreciate the message.”

45

By ten p.m., I had dropped Remy off and was back at my house. I walked the dogs down to the pond and felt tired. The full moon had faded in the last week, and the last quarter moon would be in the sky tomorrow.

I thought about Christian Pelo’s mom and hoped that she’d followed my instructions. That things were under way that would complicate Hartley’s connection to the police department. That would make it difficult for him to be on the board while owning a property where the skeleton of a cold case was found.

As I got back home, I saw Kelly Borland’s Honda CR-V, parked outside of my house.

Kelly was sitting on the steps.

I was still in my blues, but she’d dressed down.

I came up with the dogs. Mostly with Beau, since he was leashed. Purvis was lagging behind us.