The fool. Wouldn’t this be his last and greatest revenge? Suicide was a mean and skulking act, unless one was dying anyway and desired an earlier flight out of pain and suffering. The vast majority of people killed themselves for payback purposes. Some of the nastiest notes Hammer had ever read were the last comments of just such people. She had not much sympathy because there wasn’t a soul she knew who didn’t bump over bad stretches of life’s highways now and again, struggle over long, lonely miles where it entered the mind that maybe one should run off the road, be done with it. Hammer was not exempt. She was well aware of her own spells of destructive eating, drinking, not exercising, laziness. They happened, and she picked herself up and went on. She always chose a better lane and got healthy again. She would not die, because she was responsible, and people needed her.

She walked into her house, not knowing what she would find. Locking the door, she reset the alarm. The TV was loud in Seth’s bedroom across from the kitchen. For a moment, his wife hesitated, tempted to walk back and check, but she couldn’t. Suddenly, she was afraid. She headed to her own part of the house, her heart filled with dread as she freshened up in the bathroom. It was late, but she didn’t change into her nightshirt yet or pour herself a Dewar’s. If he had done it, there would be people all over her property within minutes. There was no point in getting out of her clothes or smelling like booze. Judy Hammer began to cry.

Brazil was thinking about the deal he had made with Hammer as he flew through his story. Still in uniform, he sat before his computer, fingers dancing as he typed and flipped through his notepad. He included incredible detail about this night’s Black Widow killing. With photographic total recall, he showed what was inside the car, describing bloody money, and what the police and medical examiner had done, and how violent death felt and smelled and looked. His piece was graphic and moving, but it did not include the victim’s identity. Brazil kept his word.

This was very stressful. The journalist in him screamed that he had to print the truth, whether or not it was known for a fact. Brazil was honorable. He could not betray the police. He assuaged himself with the reality that Chief Hammer would never screw him, and he knew that West wouldn’t. Brazil would get his quote tomorrow at five P.M., and no one, especially Webb, would catch on until they read it in the Observer the following morning.

Webb had just come on the air for the eleven o’clock news when Hammer walked into her husband’s bedroom. Her heart slowed a little when she saw no blood. Nothing, in the least, stood out. Seth was on his side, head deep in the pillow. Webb’s voice was unusually solemn, the killing the lead story.