“But not me. You hand me over to Mrs. Gorkin and the Westinghouse twins.”

Merker shrugged. “I made a deal with her. What can I say?”

“You’re going to give her twenty-five thousand? Like you said?”

Merker’s cheek poked out as he moved his tongue around, maybe trying to keep himself from grinning. “Sure.” He wiggled his nose some more. “That one, Luddite or whatever her name was, seemed to take a fancy to Leo. He’s never been that great in the ladies department. This’ll be a nice treat for him.”

He let his foot off the brake, backed the truck onto the street, leaving Trixie’s car in the driveway. “So where are we going?”

I gave him directions to the highway that would take us west out of the city. Once we took the Oakwood exit, I’d be able to get us to the Clayton Correctional Facility. I’d never been in it, but had driven by it enough times when we lived out that way to know where it was.

Once we were on the highway, and I didn’t have to navigate for Merker, I was quiet. I glanced over occasionally, but Merker was usually preoccupied with wiggling his nose or conducting digital explorations of it. He almost never had both hands on the wheel. I could see, sticking out of his front jeans pocket, what looked like the handle of a knife. A switchblade, most likely.

I was surprised when, after ten minutes or so, he actually spoke. “You ain’t got much to say,” he said.

“Just thinking,” I said.

“Oh. About what?”

“I guess I’m wondering what kind of person would kill a little girl’s parents.”

“They weren’t her parents,” Merker corrected me. “That was her aunt and her aunt’s husband.” So there.

“But they were raising Katie like she was their own child.”

“Yeah, well, that wasn’t my decision, now was it,” Merker said. “That was your friend Trixie’s decision.” He shook his head derisively. “She has an awful lot to answer for, you know.”

He looked up the highway. “Fuck.” Traffic was bunching up. Brake lights were flashing on ahead of us. “What time is it?”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s only ten thirty-five. We have lots of time.”

But Merker wasn’t a patient man. He made a fist out of his nose-picking hand and bounced it angrily off the steering wheel. “Do you see an accident? I don’t even see an accident. Everyone’s just fucking slowing down.”

“The Oakwood exit is just up ahead,” I said. “Take it easy.”

“Take it easy? Does somebody owe you half a mill? Maybe if they did you’d be a bit tense too.”

“Half a mill?” I said, innocently. “You just told Mrs. Gorkin it was a hundred thousand.”