“Dylan, he’s not you. He’s not real.”

“Is that the way I look to other people? Dangerous?”

“No. Not at all.”

“The sheriff called me a violent man,” I pointed out.

“Well, you’re not.”

I picked up the photograph of her son from her desk again. “Are you sure about that? Be honest with me, Alicia. We both know I’m the reason that Roscoe’s dead.”

I’d finally sobered up.

With my bail paid, it was four in the morning, and Roscoe was driving me to his mother’s clinic, where Alicia was waiting to take x-rays and give me something for the pain. I was sure Roscoe had been asleep when I called. I knew he’d already had a long day, because there had been another shooting near his parish. There was always another shooting in Chicago. But he told me not to worry; he would be there for me. And he was.

I hadn’t said much on the drive. Roscoe didn’t push me to talk, not at first. We cruised through the green lights on Montrose, and fall leaves blew in the air and slapped across the windshield. The car was warm and quiet on a cool October night. Roscoe wore his white priest’s collar, which fit loosely on his skinny neck. He always wore the collar when he talked to the police. He said they didn’t like to argue with a priest.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked finally, when it was obvious I wasn’t going to open up. He eyed me from behind the wheel, his expression calm and serious, the way it always was. The city lights reflected in his glasses. Even at this late hour, he looked smoothly shaved, except for the neat beard around his mustache and chin.

“Come on, buddy,” he went on. “Talk to me.”

“I drank too much. I got in a fight.”

“You’ve been sober for months. Why fall off the wagon now?”

“It’s been crazy at work. I just wrapped up a week-long conference. I wasn’t ready to go home, so I went to a bar in Mayfair.”

“Is that all?”

It took me a long time to answer. “Okay, it’s also the anniversary.”

“There we go.”

“If I went home, I’d think about it, and I didn’t want to do that tonight.”

Roscoe shook his head. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I needed to deal with this myself.”

“No, you didn’t. How many times have I told you that? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You were alone, and you’d been drinking. Then what happened?”

“There was this man at the bar,” I said. “He was being a shit to his girlfriend. I told him to knock it off.”

“I’m sure that went over well,” Roscoe said.