His hand was white and cold-feeling. Time stopped as half-forgotten fragments tumbled through my mind: “Hail, Mary, full of grace … The Lord is with thee … Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”

It was quiet. Cade had stopped ringing.

I dropped Henry’s hand and stared at him. His gray eyes seemed frozen in eternal disappointment.

“Why?” I asked him.

Cade rang the doorbell again. I turned away, walked slowly to the front door, and opened it.

Cade stood back, surprised. “He’s in the library,” I said.

Cade brushed me aside. I sat on the front steps.

Time passed. Things happened that I half noticed and didn’t care about. Two police came, like before, and, like before, a team with doctor bags. They glanced at me and hurried on.

Then Rayfield came. When I followed him mechanically he looked away. But when he looked at Henry Cantwell there was pity on his face, and something like relief.

From around me came now-familiar noises: orders, doors opening, footsteps. “Just blew his fucking brains out,” someone said.

My brain began screaming.

I went back to the steps and sat. Someone stood over me. I gazed stupidly up.

Cade’s face was filled with hate. “I hope you’re satisfied, Adam.” His voice was barely controlled. “Because you as good as pulled the trigger.”

I sprang up.

From the side, Rayfield moved quickly between us, snapping. “Drive him home,” at Bast. But as Cade stared past him there was still only hate.

Thirty

THIRTY

The next two mornings I went to the firm, burying myself in trial strategy. I avoided Cade. When word seeped back that he had asked that I be fired, I did nothing except work harder. The dizziness came and went.

The media were full of Henry’s suicide and guilt: “The quiet man who exploded,” wrote someone who had never met him. Otis Lee left town unnoticed. Mooring’s role remained hidden.

The second morning, Cade began meeting secretly with senior partners. There was nothing I could do, or cared to do. I was drafting a motion to throw Nate Taylor out of court when Culhane knocked on the door.

“Aren’t you returning phone calls?” she asked.

“I’ve got nothing to say.”

She leaned in the doorway, considering me. “You look awful,” she said seriously, paused, and then asked, “How is your wife taking it?”

I couldn’t explain Kris Ann’s face when I told her: not shocked or even bewildered, but like that of a hunted animal. And then without speaking she had walked upstairs and closed the door behind her. “He was our friend,” I told Culhane now. “So was Mrs. Cantwell. Kris Ann’s life was threatened. It’s hard for us to talk about, or even know what to feel.”

“Still, there must be things you want to say about him.”

“Only to myself.”