I got the impression that this man’s handshake would usually have been firm, masculinity-driven. It was limp and cold now. He had hard hands and a trucker’s build, hours lifting and sitting, the shoulders strong and the belly round. His eyes were puffed from crying.

“What happened to you?” he asked dimly, offering no name of his own.

“Car accident,” Amanda covered for me. “Ted, Michael Bell here has brought us in—his son is inside.”

“I’m so sorry,” I told Michael. I looked around the empty parking lot. “Isn’t there anyone who can come and be with you right now?”

“My whole family is at the house.” He glanced away, distracted. “I can’t … I can’t be there. Not while Andy’s inside. I just walked off. There’s too much crying. Too much…” He trailed off, rubbing his beard, the thoughts swirling. “They called me this morning, to confirm I was home. Six o’clock. You get a phone call from the police and you don’t know what they want and then they come to the door…”

He drew a shuddering breath. I wanted to hug the big man but I didn’t know how he or the cops nearby would react. Now and then, flashes of rage crossed his features, lightning cracks there and then instantly gone. I knew from delivering the news of deaths to loved ones as a cop that the rage could leap out at any moment, bursting through the grief like a fireball.

“I saw the stories about you both, the Jake Scully case,” Michael offered. My stomach twisted. He must have known then who I was, what I had been accused of. That I wasn’t “Collins” but “Conkaffey”: the notorious. “I need … I want everyone on this. I need to know what happened. The cops, they fuck this kind of shit up all the time. You see it on the news. Missing evidence and corrupt officers and … and…” He gestured uselessly, hand flopping by his side. “Whoever has done this, I need to know. I just…”

“We’ll do everything we can,” I said. I didn’t know what exactly had happened inside the bar, but what this man needed now were assurances. “But I’ve got to warn you, Michael, that hiring private investigators this early—you run the risk of putting too many cooks in the kitchen. We’re not going to trample all over the police investigation.” I looked at Amanda, making sure she knew I was telling her also, not just Mr. Bell. “Mate, I really suggest you go home, or you call someone to be here with you.”

“I’m fine,” the father said, shifting from foot to foot, already beginning to retrace his pacing path at the edge of the cordon. “I’m not leaving Andy.”