A defendant who pleads guilty before a potentially costly trial for the state usually gets some time taken off his sentence. Madsen, Devereaux, and Brodine, however, were each convicted of first-degree murder, both the judge and the DA having rejected a reduction to second degree with depraved indifference. Under recent Massachusetts sentencing guidelines, there is only one possible prison term for first-degree murder—life without possibility of parole.

And personally, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over three scumbags who shot a woman to death and obviously had abscesses where their hearts should have been. Nice knowing you, boys. Careful in the shower.

But the real criminal, the person who’d put them up to this, planned it, paid for it, and left them to suffer for it alone—that person deserved as much agony as, if not more than, those boys would be subjected to for the rest of their lives.

“Case file,” I said to Angie as we left the microfilm room.

She handed it to me and I leafed through it until I found our notes on our meeting with Captain Emmett T. Groning of the Stoneham Police Department. Lisardo’s companion the night he drowned was a kid named Donald Yeager of Stoneham.

“Phone books?” Angie asked the clerk at the information desk.

There were two Yeagers in Stoneham.

Two quarters later, we’d narrowed it down to one. Helene Yeager was ninety-three years old and had never known a Donald Yeager. She’d known a few Michaels, some Eds, even a Chuck, but not that Chuck.

Donald Yeager of 123 Montvale Avenue answered his phone with a hesitant “Yeah?”

“Donald Yeager?” Angie said.

“Yeah?”

“This is Candy Swan, program director of WAAF in Worcester.”

“AAF,” Donald said. “Cool. You guys kick ass.”

“We’re the only station that really rocks,” Angie said and flipped me the bird as I gave her a thumbs-up. “Donald, the reason I’m calling is we’re starting a new segment on our seven-to-midnight show tonight called, ahm, Headbangers from Hell.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, and what we do is interview fans such as yourself, local interest stuff, just so you can speak to our other listeners about why you love AAF, who your favorite bands are, that sort of thing.”

“I’m going to be on the air?”

“Unless you got other plans for the night.”

“No. No way. Shit. Can I call my friends?”

“Absolutely. I just need your verbal consent, and—”

“My what?”

“You need to tell me it’s okay for us to call you back later. Say around seven.”

“Okay? Shit, it’s the balls, man.”

“Good. Now you’ll be there when we call back?”

“I’m not going anywhere. Hey, do I like win a prize or something?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “How’s two black Metallica T-shirts, a Beavis and Butthead video, and four tickets to Wrestlemania Seventeen at the Worcester Centrum sound?”

“Awesome, man! Awesome. But, hey?”

“Yeah?”