“’Course it is, but I was hopin’ you might be able to wire it, y’know. Through Western Union. It’s faster. Or I’ll come get it.”

“I’m sending a check. That’s it.” He hesitated, then added, “And I’ve recorded this conversation. I’ve got an app that does that. So, when you call next month, I’m going to play it back to you.”

“What? For the love of Christ! I swear it. Aren’t you listening? You won’t need to, Jase,” Edward insisted. “And you’ll get your money back, you’ll see.” Ed hung up then. Mission accomplished.

Jase clicked his phone off and closed his eyes. He leaned his head against the wall and then banged it a couple of times, groaning. The problem was unending. His father had a love affair with the bottle; that was the long and short of it. And though he’d get sober and stay that way for months at a time, even landing jobs, Ed always broke down. Something or someone set him off, and he was soon cozying up to Jack Daniels or Jim Beam all over again.

Never once had he considered rehab. Jase had tried to get him into treatment, but after Ed’s flat-out refusals to enter any kind of program, Jase had eventually given up. His grandmother’s old adage came to mind: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Especially if it’s a stubborn old mule!”

Edward Bridges had the stubborn part down pat.

And so Jase enabled him, a bit at a time. Sporadically his father called, always about something else, but the bottom line was that Ed ended up pleading for money and making Jase feel like a heel for putting the old man through it.

Jase glanced outside to his deck that ran the length of his one-bedroom unit situated three stories above the street. A moth was beating itself up near the window where, on the inside, a lamp was glowing. “I feel ya, pal,” he said. His whole damned family needed counseling, but it wasn’t going to happen. At least not tonight.

Ignoring his own sudden need for a beer, he pushed himself away from the wall and walked into the living room, where he flopped onto the couch with his laptop. His flat-screen mounted over the fireplace showed highlights of the week’s sports events on ESPN, the sound muted. He clicked onto the Internet through the newspaper’s server and started his search for information on the 21 Killer.