“If Mitch interrupted some druggies, they’re all yours. I don’t have the resources to go hunting out dopeheads, even if I had the desire. But something tells me that a dead old man without much family or connections isn’t going to demand round-the-clock resources at Area One, either.”

Finchley’s shoulders sagged. “Don’t lecture me on police and the community, Warshawski. I don’t need it.”

“Just talking about real life, Terry. It wasn’t meant as an insult.” I got up. “Thanks for saving Mr. Contreras and me from a rubber hose at the sheriff’s office.”

Finchley flashed one of his rare smiles. “We serve and protect, Vic; you know that.”

Mr. Contreras didn’t speak during the slow drive home. I was exhausted, so tired I could barely focus on the changing lights as we drifted north. If someone wanted to trail us back again, they were welcome to the job.

The day had begun with Dick’s bellowing and ended with a decomposed corpse, with a trip to Schaumburg thrown in for light relief. I longed for some remote mountainside, for snow and a sense of perfect peace, but tomorrow I would have to rise and be ready to do battle again.

I waited with Mr. Contreras until he managed to undo his front door. “I’m coming in with you. You need hot tea with lots of milk and sugar.”

He put up a half-hearted protest. “I’m going to have some too,” I told him. “Not a night for grappa or whisky.”

The hands on his kitchen clock stood at midnight. It wasn’t that late, not really. Surely it wasn’t age that made my hands shake as I hunted in drawers and cupboards for tea. I finally found an old box of Lipton buried under some greasy potholders. It smelled stale, but tea never really goes bad. I used two bags to make a black potful. Mixed with sugar and milk it was a good restorative.

I watched Mr. Contreras while he drank his; his face lost some of its blankness and he wanted to talk. I listened while he went over stories from his and Mitch’s boyhood, the time they’d put a frog in the collection bag at church, how they’d signed their apprenticeship papers the same morning—a detour about Ted Balbini, who sponsored them—and then how Mr. Contreras got drafted but Mitch was 4-F.