Ricci silently took three sheets of newspaper from a shallow wine crate beside him, crumpled them, and pushed them underneath the grille of the stove. Then he struck a match and held it to the newspapers to start them burning. Flames crackled up and licked at the bottom of the log.

When the log had caught, he carefully shut the glasspaneled door of the stove and looked at Megan again.

"I figure you've heard the long sad story of how I lost my badge," he said.

"Pete gave me his take on it," she said. "I'd already gotten another from the papers."

"You can see why I like using them as tinder then," he said.

She smiled a little.

"The thought had occurred to me," she said. "In light of today's events, it also strikes me that you have a knack for making enemies in the wrong places."

Ricci hesitated for the barest moment. "You read the version where they say I'm an uncontrollable maverick, or the one where I'm called an outright disgrace to the Boston police department?"

"Both, actually, but I tend to ignore the descriptive nouns and home in on the bare facts," she said. "A kid falls to his death from an Ivy League campus rooftop. The group of frat boys who were up there with him claim it's a terrible hazing accident. Too many beers, reckless behavior. As the city's chief homicide detective, you head what everyone expects to be a perfunctory investigation, until the coroner's report reveals there was no alcohol in the deceased's bloodstream. You start digging around, find out the boys who were on that roof are heavily into dealing drugs and other unsavory after-school projects, then find out there's been some bad blood between the group leader and the kid who was killed. The alpha gets charged with first-degree murder; his friends deal down in exchange for their cooperation as state's witnesses. There's a trial and he's found guilty, which should mean a mandatory twenty-five-to-life sentence. But the jury's verdict is overturned by the judge and he walks on a technicality. Something about an error in how certain evidence was processed by the medical examiner's office." She paused. "How am I doing so far?"

Ricci's eyes held to her firmly.

"You don't mind, I'll wait for the next part before rating you," he said.

Megan nodded. The log in the woodstove popped and spat sap, flames flaring brightly around it.

"Next you do a spate of media interviews repudiating the judge, arguing that the error shouldn't have been enough to get the case into Appellate Court, let alone warrant nullification from the bench," she said. "Even more seriously, you allege that the judge was bought and paid for by the killer's father. They go on television with their counterclaims, say you have some kind of personal ax to grind. A number of details from your departmental records are leaked to the press, including information that you'd received counseling for problem drinking and depression while on the force. There are stories that you have a bad attitude. When it's all over, the kid is still free and you've turned in your badge. The general impression is that you were given the choice of either resigning or being discharged without pension."