“I’D LIKE TO DROP IN on Gary Merker’s mother,” I told Cherry as we walked back to his pickup.

“She’s a treat and a half,” Cherry said. “You might want to go in and talk to her alone. I don’t think she’s very fond of me.”

I glanced over at Cherry as he hit his remote key and unlocked his truck. “And that would be why?”

Cherry opened his door and waited till I had the passenger side open and was getting in before he said, “This would be, like, ten years ago, I guess. I had to arrest him once, at home. Hauled his ass out of the kitchen just as he was about to sit down to his momma’s lasagna. Stolen cars or something. Guy’s eating with one hand, picking his nose with the other. Anyway, he kicks up a fuss as I’m taking him through the living room, and I have to shove him up against the wall, and his forehead, it kind of makes a hole.”

“In the drywall?”

“Yeah. Not a huge one, you know, maybe like a good-sized yam. Like that. He was okay, though. Just the wall that looked like shit.”

We drove about ten minutes and Cherry slowed in front of a small, one-story white house, the only one with an empty garbage can out front, like Mrs. Merker never got around to bringing it in after trash pickup. The house, which looked to have been built sixty or more years ago, sagged in the middle. The streetlights were bright enough to reveal shingles that had curled, and rot had settled into the boards around the windows.

“There a Mr. Merker?” I asked.

“Naw. Run off when Gary was a little guy. Must have known what the little shit would grow up to be, figured get out while the getting was good. No father-son picnics for those two. See if she’s patched the wall. As you go in, it would be on the right side.” He smiled, eager to know.

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll park a ways down the street,” Cherry said. “You have fun now.”

I got out of the car, and had only taken a step when my cell phone rang. I reached for it, flipped it open, and saw my home number displayed.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi, Dad.” Angie. “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” I said. “Finding out some things. How’s it going there?”

Angie didn’t speak for a moment. “Mom cries.”

I swallowed. “Does she say anything?”

“Nothing. Not to me or Paul. She goes into the bedroom, figures we can’t hear her, but I stood outside the door, and she was crying.”

“Is she there? Can I talk to her?”