Stride was alone. He felt the ground vibrate with the rumbling thunder of a train gathering speed out of the rail yard. A snake of red and green train cars, littered with graffiti and overflowing with iron ore, shuddered along the parallel tracks, growing closer. Stride slid down the roof of the car and crossed the asphalt highway. On the other side, a shallow slope led to a cluster of oak trees where a creek twisted lazily toward the harbor water. Stride skittered down the hill and hiked to the tracks. He waited for the train engine, which followed the coast of the water as it headed south. The train was long. Dozens of cars shouldered by him. He smelled ore dust, which was as tarry as a cigarette in his lungs. The cars banged, hummed, shimmied, and jolted.

It took ten minutes for the entire train to pass. When the caboose wiggled past him, the giant noise diminished, getting farther away. He watched it go. He realized his skin was damp with rain.

“Who’s your friend?”

Stride jumped. He spun around and found Dada behind him. A dead oak tree loomed behind the black man, and its spindly branches seemed to grow out of his head. Dada dwarfed him, and Stride wasn’t small.

“Is he a cop?”

Dada was six inches away, and Stride wanted to back up, but he didn’t. This close, he could see that Dada was young. Maybe twenty. He wasn’t wearing his colorful beret. His ropes of matted hair sprouted off a high forehead and dangled like wriggling worms to his chest. The whites of his eyes were stark against his dark skin. He had arched, devil-like eyebrows.

“I said, is he a cop?”

Dada’s voice was surprisingly smooth, almost hypnotic.

“Yes,” Stride said.

“Is this about that girl?”

“Yes.”

“They think I killed her?”

“They want to talk to you,” Stride said.

Dada swung a dented canteen by the silver chain on its cap, and then he lifted it to his lips and took a swallow. He wiped his scraggly beard.

“Talk? A white girl gets killed, and a black man is seen with her, and all the police want to do is talk?”

Rain fell harder around them. Water beaded on Dada’s head and face. Stride heard the drops slapping on the earth.

“Did you do it?” Stride asked.

“What do you think?”

Stride stared at him. “No, I don’t think you did.”

“Then get out of my way. There’s another train coming. It’s time for me to go somewhere else.”

“I can’t do that,” Stride said.

He felt the ground shake again with the earthquake of a train getting closer. Every minute, another long dragon left the harbor.

“You’re brave to stand there, but you’re a fool if you think you can stop me.”

“Just talk to him,” Stride said. “Tell him what you saw. Without you, they’re never going to solve this case.”

“Did you know the girl?”

“She was my girlfriend’s sister.”