Daney put his pink doughnut down. “That was speculation on my part. Because you asked me to speculate. For all we know, Malley simply went nuts after he heard Rand was getting out. Old wounds, opening.”

“Or wounds that never healed,” said Milo. “The way he looked at you in that hardware store.”

“True,” said Daney. “That was pretty intense. Still . . .”

“Any sign of the black truck?”

Daney shook his head. “But I’m gone a lot.”

Milo turned away, seemingly distracted. Daney watched him, then returned to his pink doughnut but didn’t eat.

I let the silence grow for a while before saying, “For argument’s sake, let’s go with the assumption that Rand told Malley something that set him off. What do you think it could’ve been?”

Daney said, “Hmm . . . I guess it wouldn’t have been anything malicious. And I can’t see Rand being confrontational. He was basically a nice kid.”

He waited for Milo’s reaction to that. None followed.

“The only thing I can think of,” he went on, “is there was some sort of miscommunication.”

“Such as?” said Milo.

“I’m not sure what I mean,” said Daney. “Like I said, this is all theorizing.”

“Understood,” said Milo. “But give it a try, ’cause we’ve got nothing else.”

“Well,” said Daney, “when we brought Rand home, he was clearly troubled. Like I told you. The only explanation I can come up with is lingering guilt. Maybe he tried to get some closure by meeting Malley face-to-face and apologizing.”

“Or Malley accosted Rand and demanded an apology,” I said.

“Sure. That, too.”

Milo said, “That makes more sense to me, Rev. Malley follows Rand when he leaves your house to go to the construction site, gets him in the truck, either by convincing him he’s friendly or at gunpoint. Then something— could be an apology demanded by Malley, or something else— goes haywire. What do you think, Doc?”

I said, “Makes sense.”

Daney said, “Rand’s verbal skills were poor, Detective. I can see him saying the wrong thing, phrasing something in a way that would spark Malley’s rage. I mean, isn’t that how so much crime originates?”

“Miscommunication?”

“Two guys in a bar,” said Daney. “An argument gets out of hand? Isn’t that a big part of police work?”

“Sure,” said Milo.

Daney took a bite of the pink doughnut. Ate half and put it down. “There is something else. Kind of far-fetched but as long as we’re theorizing . . .”

“What’s that?”

Daney hesitated.

“Sir?”

“This goes way back, Detective. To the boys’ hearings. I was spending a lot of my time on the case because the defense asked me to be there as support. Cherish and I attended everything and I got to look at the evidence.”

“Something about the evidence was off?” said Milo.