“Alonzo?” I asked.

“I wanted to call a medic but then somethin’ hit me.” He raised his hand to the bruise on his temple. There were tears coming from his eyes but he gave no other sign of crying—no heaving or whine.

I could almost see the dying man laid out before Kilian’s eyes. Behind him was the Vietnam War with all its dead, its carpet-bombing and heavy boots. In the distance, far behind that, I imagined Korea and Auschwitz, Nagasaki and ten thousand slave ships coming from the distant horizon over the African Sea.

“Mr. Kilian.” No word had been spoken for some minutes. “Craig.”

He looked up from the ground where the man named Alonzo lay dying. He saw me but I’m not sure that he knew why I was there.

“What?”

“What happened after you got hit?”

Judging from his face, the question didn’t seem to make sense.

“After you stabbed Alonzo,” I added.

“Knocked out,” he said. “When I woke up it was morning. About six hundred hours. The sun was out.”

“What about the girl and the man that got stabbed?”

“Nobody,” he said, shaking his head. “Nobody but the dog.”

“What dog?”

“A little black puppy lickin’ my face. There was no white girl or black man. I didn’t even see any blood on the ground.”

“All gone?”

“Just the puppy and about a thousand white cabbage butterflies flitting through the grass.”

“Was the white woman big and strong?” I asked.

“Nuh-uh. She was little.”

“And how big was Alonzo?”

“A little taller’n me and full. You know, two hundred pounds or more.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get another shot of whiskey.”

4

4

I sat behind Whisper’s desk, leaving Craig the visitor’s chair. I told him to sip this glass because that was all he was getting.

Some of his story had the ring of truth, maybe even most of it. But more than that I believed in the innate goodness of the shell-shocked soldier.

Goodness is a complex word in my profession. Good men and women can be guilty of terrible crimes, just as there are those with evil intent who can never be found guilty in a court of law. In a book I’d recently read, the main character, Billy Budd, was as good as a man can be, but he murders an evil man named Claggart. Good and guilt often go hand in hand.

“So what do you want from me?” I asked.

The veteran’s first response was as if I had slapped him. His head jerked back and there was a flash of anger in his eyes. But somewhere along the way Craig Kilian had learned to conquer his hot temper. He took a deep breath and shuddered.

“You’re a detective,” he said. “A good one, I’m told.”

“By a man I never heard of.”