“Speaking of murderous families, time to move on to sons of Charles Manson…”

While we’d been at dinner, Evelyn had discovered there were more than a few. She showed me the list, and said she’d already contacted a source she described as a Manson freak. Then we had to declare the evening at an end and, like Jack, rest up for the day to come.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Or, I should say, where I assumed the ceiling would be if I could see it. Evelyn had top-quality blackout blinds, and I’d closed them completely, hoping the darkness might convince my brain it was time for sleep, but so far, all it had done was give my brain time to wander. Naturally it went to the place I’d been trying to keep it from since our discussion.

Justice.

I grew up with a very clear understanding of what that word meant. The concept had been formed at that early age where everything is clearly black and white. Right must triumph. Wrong must be punished.

From the time I was old enough to open a bag of potato chips, I’d played hostess to my father’s monthly poker games. As for whether it was appropriate for me to hear the conversations that went on over those games, I don’t think anyone considered that. They saved the darker talk, the angrier debates, for later, after I’d refilled my last bowl of peanuts and curled up on the recliner. There I’d pretend to be asleep, knowing this was what was expected of me. Eyes closed, I’d listen as the best stories came out, the tales of battles between good and evil, and the knights who fought them.

The beer, rye and Scotch would flow, the hour growing ever later, the importance of the game dwindling as the stories took over. Most times, that’s all it was: stories. But when the anecdotes didn’t have happy endings, the course of the conversation would change. They’d talk about miscarriages of justice, usually in another town, a bigger city.

Sometimes it would just be a head-shaking “can you believe it?” and a spirited discourse on how the case could have been handled better. Now and then, though, head-shaking wasn’t enough. If the miscarriage lay in some particularly heinous crime—a serial rapist, a thrill killer, kiddie porn—the talk took another turn, into the realm of biblical eye for-an-eye justice.

My father usually kept quiet during such debates. Then, one time, the conversation turned more heated than I’d ever heard it, over the case of a ten-year-old girl who’d been tortured and murdered. That time Mr. Weekes—a former law professor turned librarian—was the only defender of mercy. When my father had tried to squelch the argument, my uncle had turned to him.