The Whitmans had a two-car garage, detached. It sat more than fifty feet back from the house, making it a long trek in the pouring rain with groceries. But today it was sunny, the temps hovering in the midseventies. A.L. made his way past a late-model four-door blue truck and found Troy and another man sitting on lawn chairs in the empty side of a two-car garage.

The truck blocked their view of the street and blocked reporters and curious others from having a look at them. Troy wasn’t smoking but the other man was. A pack of cigarettes lay on the cement floor, almost squarely between the two chairs.

Maybe Troy had needed a cigarette? Maybe that had driven him from the house? Or maybe he’d simply needed to get away from the horrible silent waiting. The hovering agents. The pain in his wife’s eyes. Maybe he’d wanted to sit with his friend for a minute and pretend that it was any other lazy afternoon?

Or maybe he was an asshole who didn’t understand that part of his job as husband and father was to step up in the tough times.

“Troy,” A.L. said in greeting.

He waved but he didn’t get up. He looked very tired.

“I’m Steven Hanzel,” the other man said, his voice too loud. He bounced up and extended his hand.

“Detective McKittridge,” A.L. said.

“I’m assuming there’s no news,” Troy said. “Otherwise, Leah would have beat you out here.”

“No news, sir.”

“It’s crazy,” Steven said. “Just crazy.” His cell phone buzzed and he picked it up. Looked at the screen for a couple seconds. Then the phone went back into his shirt pocket. “Good news is that we’ve picked up another twenty grand.”

Troy nodded. “Fund-raising site. Steven got it going,” he said, apparently for A.L.’s benefit.

“I heard something about it,” A.L. said.

“Least I could do,” Steven said. “People want to help. Donations are coming in from all over the country. It’s amazing. Just...crazy.”

Crazy was evidently Steven Hanzel’s go-to word. And while A.L. wasn’t a guy normally hung up on political correctness, it seemed rather gauche to be talking about the money pouring in. But then again, Hanzel was a banker. His world was money. His repeated use of the word crazy made A.L. think of those first few minutes after he’d met Leah and Troy on Wednesday afternoon. Leah had said it was terrifying and Troy had seemed to correct her by saying it was crazy. Were Troy and his friend together so much that Troy was picking up his vocabulary?

“I was hoping to have a minute,” A.L. said, looking at Troy.

“Of course,” Troy said. He glanced at his friend. “I’ll see you later.”