The bookshelves stood empty and bare of finish, ready for varnish, the first of ten coats he planned. Tomorrow, the helpers would come back to sand again. He opened a gallon can of varnish, selected a brush, climbed the ladder, and started at the very top, spreading the sealer with long, straight strokes. It was simple, mindless work, the sort that he needed for thinking. He let his mind wander at will over the events of the past days.

Stone knew he was not the first honest policeman to find himself in this position. When a police department had a major crime on its hands, especially one where the victim was a celebrity, what it needed was an arrest—preferably, but not necessarily, of the actual perpetrator. As time passed without a resolution of the crime, pressure increased on the department to produce results, and after a while the pressure could become too much for certain of its members. Assignments were at stake—promotions, careers, pensions—and policemen, just like everybody else, would finally act to protect themselves. Stone reckoned that most of the innocent people in prison had been sent there by police officers and prosecutors who reasoned that these victims were, after all, probably guilty of something, and better a conviction of an innocent person than no conviction at all.

He had seen it happen, but always from a distance. Now he was involved, whether he liked it or not, and he had a decision to make: he could keep his mouth shut and let Dino, Leary, and their superiors try to railroad Hank Morgan; or he could speak up—go directly to the mayor or the newspapers and create a stink. The first course would protect his job, his career, and his pension; the second would subject him to the contempt that came to any policeman who went against his partner and his department. He would be transferred to some hellish backwater, shunned, ridiculed, perhaps even set up to be killed—sent first through some door with death waiting on the other side. It had happened before. Most of all, he would be separating himself from the work to which he had devoted his whole adult life. He would be a man alone, with enemies, and with no friends or support. It was the law of the cop jungle, and no man could last long on the force when he was subjected to it. It was time for him to decide if he was, after all these years, a cop.

The doorbell rang, causing him nearly to topple from the high ladder. He climbed down, moving carefully, cautious of the bourbon inside him. He went to the front door.

Dino stood there. He was dressed to kill in a new suit, obviously on his way to some girl. “We got to talk,” he said.