They must have thought, at that moment, that whoever’d done that to Rick had been the same person who’d put me in the chair, but gradually, the truth began to emerge. I told them to please check on my wife, in the kitchen, and one officer ran ahead to do just that while another stayed with me, wanting to know who else was in the house, how many hurt.

“There’s one guy out there in the trunk,” I said as the officer cut me out of the chair, “but it may be too late for him. And there’s another one, not hurt, but running around the neighborhood someplace with his hands cuffed behind his back.”

“There’s already a guy here in handcuffs.”

“There’s a second one. It’s a long story.”

Once I was free, I was on my feet and running to the kitchen where Sarah was now standing, and we threw our arms around each other and started to cry. I held on to her for a very long time.

“Mom? Dad?”

It was Paul, calling from out front. The police wouldn’t let him inside. We both ran out to see him and embraced him, so happy that we were all alive, except that Paul had no reason to think that all of us being alive was in any way an extraordinary thing.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “What the hell happened to your face?”

“You’re a hero,” I said, hugging him again. “And you don’t even know it.”

“Huh?”

It was my first time outside of the house since the police had arrived, and it was wild. At least half a dozen police cars, three ambulances, a fire truck, just in case. A couple of SUVs with TV station logos splashed across the sides. And nearly everyone on the street was outside, standing in their yards, gawking. It was the first time I’d ever seen the housecoat lady outside without a hose in her hand.

Trixie approached me tentatively as I stood out there with Paul.

“Oh God,” she whispered. “All hell broke loose.”

“Kinda,” I said. “I need you to get me that ledger.”

She nodded and slipped away. I saw Earl across the street, standing by the back of his pickup. Our eyes met, and he nodded, as if to say “I’m glad you’re okay, man, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to stay on this side of the street while the cops are around.” That was just fine with me.

Sarah grabbed one of the ambulance attendants as he walked past, and said, “My husband’s been hurt.”

I recognized him as the male attendant who’d come to our house during The Backpack Incident. While he might have remembered coming to this address, he made no suggestion that we had met before. My face was too badly bruised and bloodied to be recognizable.