The defense claimed that Ronnie Waddell’s intent was burglary, and Robyn’s misfortune was to walk in on it after returning home from the drugstore. Allegedly, Waddell did not watch television and was unfamiliar with her name or brilliant future when he was ransacking her residence and brutalizing her. He was so hopped up on drugs, the defense argued, that he didn’t know what he was doing. The jurors rejected Waddell’s temporary insanity plea and recommended the death penalty.

‘I know the pressure to catch her killer was incredible, ” I said to Marino.

“Friggin’ unbelievable. We had this great latent print We had bite marks. We had three guys doing a cold search through the files morning, noon, and night. I got no idea how many hours I put in on that damn case Then we catch the bastard because he’s driving around North Carolina with an expired inspection sticker.”

He paused, his eyes hard when he added, “Course, Jones wasn’t around by then. Too damn bad he missed out of seeing Waddell get his reward.”

“Do you blame Waddell for what happened to Sonny Jones?” I asked.

“Hey, what do you think?”

“He was a close friend.”

“We worked Homicide together, fished together, we were on the same bowling team.”

“I know his death was hard for you.”

“Yeah, well, the case wore him down. Working all hours, no sleep, never home, and that sure as hell didn’t help matters with his wife. He kept telling me he couldn’t take it no more and then he stopped telling me anything. One night he decides to eat his gun.”

“I’m sorry,” I said gently. “But I’m not sure you can blame Waddell for that.”

“I had a score to settle.”

“And was it settled when you witnessed his execution?”

At first Marino did not reply. He stared across the kitchen, his jaw rigidly set. I watched him smoke and drain his drink.

“Can I refresh that?”

“Yo. Why not.”

I got up and did my thing again as I thought about the injustices and losses that had gone into the making of Marino. He had survived a loveless, impoverished childhood in the wrong part of New Jersey, and nursed an abiding distrust of anyone whose lot had been better. Not long ago his wife of thirty years had left him, and he had a son nobody seemed to know anything about. Regardless of his loyalty to law and order and his record of excellent police work, it was not in his genetic code to get along with the brass. It seemed his life’s journey had placed him on a hard road. I feared that what he hoped to find at the end was not wisdom or peace but paybacks. Marino was always angry about something.

“Let me ask you this, Doc,” he sand to me when I returned to the table. “How would you feel if they caught the assholes who killed Mark?”

His question caught me by surprise. I did not want to think about those men.