Her face when I turned was pale and intense. “Just … where did you dredge up that?” I asked softly.

“It’s so fucking obvious. The chances you’ve taken, this obsession to prove who killed her—it’s more than saving Henry Cantwell or your wife. It began making sense when Rayfield told me how your father died. So I got the clippings from when it happened and then called police who knew him. They told me everything. It’s incredible. He was thirty-two, like you are now, and a homicide lieutenant. The wife of a policeman—your father’s closest friend—was found raped and murdered. Your father was assigned to the case. He found out that the dead woman had been sleeping with a police captain named Tyrell, a man he’d never liked. His friend’s wife had broken it off—”

“I know the facts, Nora. He was my father.”

“Then let me finish. For almost a year your father tried to prove Tyrell had killed her, until they hated each other. Tyrell spied on your father and tried to have him busted. Each time Tyrell interfered, your father documented that, for evidence. It became obsessive. Tyrell stopped doing anything but worry about Kieron Shaw. Your father never got a warrant: Tyrell was over him, and made sure of that. But when your father was very certain, he went to Tyrell’s house alone to face him. He told Tyrell what he had. Tyrell pulled a gun and shot him through the heart. They sentenced Tyrell to life. Your father was buried, with photographers and newsmen everywhere. His picture ran in all the papers. You look exactly like him.” Culhane’s eyes were sad and knowing. “Adam, you’re not doing this for Henry Cantwell. The man you’ve done this for was murdered twenty years ago. You’ve given him too much already.”

I waited. “Are you through now?”

“Yes.”