“But Mr. Connor, he don’t strike me as the type who—”

She shook her head repeatedly. “Mr. Connor knows nothing of my past. Only Danny. And look how the knowledge tossed us in the fire.” She gave him another tight smile and stubbed out her cigarette with her toe. She lifted the dead butt off the frozen porch and placed it in the pocket of her apron. “Are we done with the questions for the day, Mr. Laurence?”

He nodded.

“What’s her name?” she said.

He met her gaze. “Lila.”

“Lila,” she said, her voice softening. “A fine name, that.”

Luther and Clayton Tomes were doing structural demolition in the Shawmut Avenue building on a Saturday so cold they could see their breath. Even so, the demo was such hard work—crowbar and sledgehammer work—that within the first hour they’d stripped down to their undershirts.

Close to noon, they took a break and ate the sandwiches Mrs. Giddreaux had prepared for them and drank a couple beers.

“After this,” Clayton said, “we—what?—patch up that sub flooring?”

Luther nodded and lit a cigarette, blew out the smoke in a long, weary exhale. “Next week, week after, we can run the electrical up back of them walls, maybe get around to some of them pipes you so excited about.”

“Shit.” Clayton shook his head and let out a loud yawn. “All this work for nothing but a higher ideal? Place for us in Nigger Heaven, sure.”

Luther gave him a soft smile but didn’t say anything. He’d lost comfort with saying “nigger,” even though the only time he’d ever used it was around other colored men. But both Jessie and the Deacon Broscious had used it constantly, and some part of Luther felt he’d entombed it with them back at the Club Almighty. He couldn’t explain it any better than that, just that it didn’t feel right coming off his tongue any longer. Like most things, he assumed, the feeling would pass, but for now….

“Well, I guess we might as well—”

He stopped talking when he saw McKenna stroll through the front door like he owned the damn building. He stood in the foyer, looking up at the dilapidated staircase.

“Damn,” Clayton whispered. “Police.”

“I know it. He’s a friend of my boss. And he act all friendly, but he ain’t. Ain’t no friend of ours, no how.”

Clayton nodded because they’d both met plenty of white men that fit that description in their lives. McKenna entered the room where they’d been working, a big room, nearest to the kitchen, probably had been a dining room fifty years ago.

The first words out of McKenna’s mouth: “Canton?”

“Columbus,” Luther said.

“Ah, right enough.” McKenna smiled at Luther, then turned to Clayton. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He held out a meaty hand. “Lieutenant McKenna, BPD.”

“Clayton Tomes.” Clayton shook the hand.

McKenna gripped his hand, kept shaking it, his smile frozen to his face, his eyes searching Clayton’s and then Luther’s, seeming to look right into his heart.