A shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I’m still worried about being judged.” He looked Morse straight in the eye and said: “What about you, Steve? What’s your opinion of me?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen that picture of your two little girls that’s on your desk. As a parent you have to have an opinion about what I did.”

“If I answer it, there’s no way you’re not gonna take it personally.”

“Try me. I might surprise you.”

Morse thought about it for another second, then said: “Do I have an opinion about what you did? Sure, I’ve got an opinion about that. It was a hideous, violent, monstrous act of brutality against a defenseless child, and it makes me sick, too, thinking about what she went through during those twelve hours she was left locked in her room. What you did makes me depressed right down to the bottom of my spirit…but we’re talking about the act here. You’re not the same man now that you were then. As a person, I don’t judge you for what you did. It’s taken me a lot of years to get that point, and I never wander too far off that particular highway. So I have no opinion about you as a person one way or the other. But what does that matter? You’ve already condemned yourself, pal. What can any of the other residents do to you?”

“Take away my oatmeal privileges for a week, then I would truly have no reason to go on.”

Morse laughed as he opened the door and steadied himself against the wind and rain. “You are so full of it.”

“Yeah, I get a lot of complaints about that.”

Then Morse closed the door and Tim was alone.

It was bliss.

And so Timothy Beals gently, with great concentration and even greater skill, made a last check of the repairs to the radio and replaced it in its protective casing.

Then sat there and looked at his handiwork.

After a few moments he unwound the radio’s electrical cord and plugged it in to an outlet under the table, switched on the power, then turned the radio’s knob as various layers of static entered the room. It took almost a full trip ‘round the dial before he picked up an oldies station: the 5 Stairsteps singing, “Ooh, Child.”

The sad irony of the first verse was not lost on him; nonetheless, he was surprised to feel a swelling in his throat and a soft, persistent burning behind his eyes.

Carol had loved this song. He remembered the way she used to sing herself to sleep with it most nights. Seemed she used to do everything for herself or by herself. Four years old going on thirty-six.

He reached over and snapped off the radio, then jerked the plug from the outlet.

For some ooh-children, things never did get easier.

People like him made sure of that.

Take it easy, bud, he thought. Just think about what you’ve accomplished today.