Luther said nothing. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He wanted to go to Clayton and hold his hand. Even though he was dead, Luther thought he could somehow make him feel less alone.

“If you speak to anyone about this, I will kill Yvette Giddreaux after she takes her lunch in Union Park some afternoon. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you—whatever I tell you and whenever I tell you it—I will kill one nigger every week in this city. You’ll know it’s me because I will shoot them through the left eye so they will go to their nigger god half blind. And their deaths will be on your head, Luther Laurence. Yours and yours alone. Do we have an understanding?”

He let go of Luther and stepped back.

“Do we?”

Luther nodded.

“Good Negro.” McKenna nodded. “Now Officer Hamilton and Officer Temple and myself, we’re going to stay with you until—Are you listening?”

Clayton’s body fell off the plaster can. It lay on the floor, one arm pointed at the door. Luther turned his head away.

“We’re going to stay here with you until dusk. Say you understand, Luther.”

“I understand,” Luther said.

“Isn’t that ducky?” McKenna put his arm around Luther. “Isn’t that grand?” He steered Luther around until they were both facing Clayton’s body.

“We’re going to bury him in the backyard,” McKenna said. “And we’re going to put the toolbox in the vault. And we’re going to come up with an acceptable story for you to tell Miss Amy Wagenfeld when she sends an investigator your way, which surely she will, as you will be the last person to have seen our Mr. Tomes before he absconded from our fair city, probably with an underage white girl. And once we’ve done all that, we’ll wait for the announcement of the ribbon cutting. And you will call me the moment you know that date or…?”

“You’ll…you’ll—”

“Kill a nigger,” McKenna said, pushing Luther’s head back and forth in a nod. “Is there any part of this I need to repeat for you?”

Luther looked into the man’s eyes. “No.”

“Magnificent.” He let go of Luther and removed his coat. “Boys, take off your coats, the both of you. Let’s give Luther a hand with this plaster, shall we? Man shouldn’t have to do everything by himself, sure.”

CHAPTER thirty

The house on K Street shriveled into itself. The rooms narrowed and the ceilings seemed to droop and the quiet that replaced Nora was spiteful. It remained that way through the spring and then deepened when word reached the Coughlins that Danny had taken Nora for a wife. Joe’s mother went to her room with migraines, and the few times Connor wasn’t working—and he worked around the clock lately—his breath stank of alcohol and his temper was so short that Joe gave him a wide berth whenever they found themselves in the same room. His father was even worse—Joe would look up to see the old man staring at him with a glaze in his eyes that suggested he’d been doing it for some time. The third time this happened, in the kitchen, Joe said, “What?”