He covered his face with his hands. He was crying now. Literally crying into his beer.

“I don’t mean…I don’t mean to accuse Joe or nothing.… He’s a good man. Before June…my wife…would make the drive to the U.S. Medical Center in Springfield, to see me? He would make sure our car got topped off with gas. He and his wife had June over for supper all the time, while I was away. People say terrible things about him, like he took that money. Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone, I always say.”

He dried his eyes with a paper napkin. Found a hanky in a pocket to blow his nose, which he did louder than Satchmo hitting a high note.

When he’d composed himself, I said, “When all is said and done, Lou, there are still two things missing.”

That seemed to confuse him, the eyes under the heavy black eyebrows squinting at me.

“Half the ransom money,” I said, “and an hour. The hour after you booked Carl Hall and before you turned over the other half.”

“I accounted for that time,” he said indignantly.

“Oh, that’s right. You had to drop your car off to your ‘landlady,’ who had an appointment. The rest was kind of vague. ‘Personal errands.’ And all the while three hundred grand is in the trunk.”

He lifted a palm. “Well, we had to load up Dolan’s car. Elmer followed me to June’s to drive me back.” Then, as if it were a point in his favor, he added, “And that footlocker and that metal suitcase, they weren’t in the trunk. They were in the back seat.”

“Ah, well, then that’s different. So while you and Officer Dolan dragged Hall into Newstead station, you left three hundred grand in the back seat of your car? I hope you locked it up, Lou.”

He shrugged. Waved that off. “People don’t steal stuff from in front of a police station.”

“You are a very stupid man, Lou.”

The little black eyes popped big. “Fuck you, Heller! I was a good cop. They gave me medals and promotions. I did a great thing and I’m proud of it. I got that child killer put in the gas chamber, him and his scummy little honey. I got six kids! You think I would touch money with that…that little boy’s blood on it?”

He started weeping again.

Oh, brother.

He dried his eyes with his arm and he found some room to blow his nose on the hanky. He finished his beer. He plucked his smoke from the ashtray and had a few final puffs.

Then, softly earnest, he said, “You will not believe this, but I am not the man I was. I don’t just mean physically speaking. I mean where morals go. I was a good cop, but it’s true I sometimes…stumbled. In prison, in the prison hospital, I read the Bible. I read it before, of course, but this time…I really read it.”