The odd deaths of Martin Ortega, Matthew Bysantski, and Paul Duquesne were a big news story for a day and a half, until stranger and fresher stories replaced that one. The extra half-day was entirely due to the inclusion of Paul Duquesne, the outlaw son of a family that was well established before the colonies of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Georgia were founded.

The police in Northern California knew that whatever they revealed about the case might be sensitive to a powerful family, and so they couldn’t release enough to stimulate the appetite of the public for grim details. The story also had built into it an aspect that contributed to its short life span. Criminals tended to band together, and they tended to have enemies who were also criminals, and it was not uncommon for one set of criminals to kill another. What killed stories was ordinariness.

But this time there were segments of the population who shared a professional interest in the story. As soon as the first day, many emails, text messages, and telephone calls were exchanged, reaching parts of the country far from California.

The most and earliest were from law enforcement officials to other law enforcement officials. Many were forwarded copies of official reports. “FYI” or “Seen this?” were ways the senders conveyed their satisfaction. It seemed to be the fulfillment of a law of nature, and a restoration of balance. Crimes weren’t always punished, but criminals always ended.

Other people took the news differently. Six of them spoke on that day when Leah Hawkins slept in her small house on Calloway Street in Weldonville and two police officers cleaned and stored the guns that had been used in the murders of the six escapees from Weldonville prison.

The remaining six had all been living for two years under the names that Regina Varga had invented for them, and which were embossed on the driver’s licenses, credit cards, and other identification they carried. The first call they received came from her, telling them about the series of killings that had gone on during the previous few weeks in Florida, Buffalo, and New York City. The Susanville, California, killings had to be part of the series.

The first call she made was to Timothy McKinney. He listened to the warning and afterward remained silent.

“Tim, are you still there?”

“Yeah. It’s a strange feeling. It’s hard to think of those guys as dead.”

“Okay,” she said, a bit of the frustration she felt beginning to be audible in her voice. She had heard this before from clients. “Now you know what I know. You’re probably in trouble. If I were you, I’d do something about it. But it’s up to you. I’m going out of this business, at least for a while, so I may be hard to reach.”

“You’re telling me you won’t help us again if we need to disappear?”