“So off he went the morning the big snow started. And the day after it ended later, when you could go outside again, there he was, in my backyard, dead. His ears had been cut off, but he’d been killed before that.”

“His ears!” I said. “So, Dornick and Alito killed him. Or someone at the station did. And they planted his body on you. And if you called the cops, everyone would agree that it was an Anaconda hit. Dornick would say Lamont had turned state’s evidence against you and that you’d murdered him in revenge.”

Johnny gave a sour smile. “You’re not so stupid after all, are you, white girl?”

“I have my moments,” I said drily. “What did you do?”

“I took Lamont inside with me and sat with him all day—sweating blood, you’d better believe—thinking every second that the cops were going to come tear my door down. I wouldn’t let my wife or my little girl in. I made up a big lie, a big story, and it cost me my marriage. My wife, she thought I had some other woman in there with me. She left in a hurry, went to her own mama’s. I guess because of the storm, all the cops were on emergency duty. Not even that shitbag Dornick could come around to check on me and Lamont for three days.

“A big warehouse blew down on Stony the day before the snow. As soon as it got dark, I carried my brother down the stairs. I got my little girl’s sled and pulled my man along, wrapped in blankets. Three miles, that was, hard walking, scared every five minutes some damned cop would stop me.

“Don’t you ever repeat that out loud, white girl, that the Hammer was terrified.” He gave a mirthless bark of laughter and flexed his arms so that the snakes rippled under my nose.