The day the deal was announced, Kristal Malley’s parents were caught by a TV crew exiting the courtroom and asked for their opinion of the deal.

Lara Malley, a small, wan brunette, was sobbing. Her husband, Barnett, a tall, raw-boned man around thirty, glared and said, “No comment.”

The camera closed in on his face because anger’s more fun for the camera than despair. He had thin, sandy hair, long sideburns, sharp features, and prominent bones. Dry-eyed; the unmoving eyes of a sniper.

“In your opinion, sir,” the reporter pressed, “do the ages of the defendants make this an appropriate solution for closure?”

Barnett Malley’s jaw flexed and he jerked his hand upward and the soundman picked up scuffling noises. The reporter retreated; Malley didn’t move. The camera zoomed on his fist, frozen midair.

Lara Malley whimpered. Barnett stared into the camera for another second, grasped his wife by the arm, propelled her out of range.

* * *

Tom Laskin called me six weeks later. It was just after noon and I’d finished a session with an eight-year-old boy who’d burned his face playing with swimming pool chemicals. His parents had sued and a quack “environmental medicine” specialist had testified that the child would get cancer when he grew up. The boy had overheard and become traumatized and it was my job to deprogram him.

“Hi, Tom.”

“Could we meet, Alex?”

“About what?”

“I’d rather talk in person. I’ll come to your office.”

“Sure, when?”

“I’ll be finished in an hour. Where are you located?”

* * *

He arrived at my house, wearing a camel jacket, brown slacks, a white shirt, and a red tie. The tie was limp and pulled down from an open collar.

We’d talked over the phone but had never met. I’d seen his picture in newspaper accounts of the Malley case— mid-fifties, gray hair trimmed in an executive cut, square face, steel-rimmed eyeglasses, a prosecutor’s wary eyes— and had formed the image of a big, imposing man.

He turned out to be short— five-six or -seven— heavier and softer and older than pictured, the hair white, the jowls giving way to gravity. His jacket was well-cut but tired. His shoes needed a polish and the bags under his eyes were bluish.

“Pretty place,” he said, sitting on the edge of the living room chair that I offered. “Must be nice working out of your house.”

“It has its advantages. Something to drink?”

He considered the offer. “Why not? Beer, if you’ve got it.”

I went to the kitchen and fetched a couple of Grolsches. When I returned his posture hadn’t relaxed. His hands were clenched and he looked like someone forced to seek therapy.

I popped the caps on the beers and handed him a bottle. He took it but didn’t drink.

“Troy Turner’s dead,” he said.

“Oh, no.”