“Crime to justice, and we will immediately notify you if we develop any leads, identify any witnesses, or find any evidence that will further your investigation.” Angleton straightens up. “Come on, Mr. Howard. We have a briefing room to inform.”

“Hey! Now stop right there, you can’t just—”

Angleton smiles at her, and she freezes. I sympathize with her predicament: being smiled at by Angleton is a bit like getting a glimpse through the gates of hell. Or seeing an atom bomb go off over your hometown and getting to watch all your pets and lovers and children and parents die simultaneously. “We will leave now,” he says, and steps past her. I follow him, and try to ignore the solitary tear overflowing her left eyelid and trickling under her surgical mask.

• • •

IT’S AFTER SIX. I’M IN THE BACK OF THE POLICE CAR, SHOULDER to shoulder with Angleton as we ride back to the office, when it hits me and the shakes begin.

I’m no stranger to death. I’m in a profession where people die by accident—there is a reason we have such a strong emphasis on health and safety at work. In my particular role, I am sometimes responsible for killing people. It’s a horrible, sordid business and I try to avoid it by any means possible—but a chunk of my business is carried out in graveyards and mortuaries. (What band does the necromancer dance to? Boney M.) I’m usually blasé about this stuff; after all, you don’t get to graduate from Trainee Eater of Souls to Journeyman Scoffer of Spectres without chewing some ectoplasm.

But every once in a while it gets to me.

I didn’t know Evan well; in fact I barely knew him at all, and I certainly didn’t kill him myself. But that puts him in a particularly odd space, sort of like a friendzone for collateral damage. If he’d been a real friend, ally, or close co-worker I’d be angry and bitter right now, and justifiably so. If he’d been a complete stranger I’d be, well, not indifferent, but not personally invested either. I’d be professionally engaged, and nothing more.

The trouble is, I knew Evan just well enough that he’s not a total stranger, but not well enough for mourning and anger. So I feel acutely uncomfortable and edgy and introspective and worried that I’m not responding normally to this kind of shit, or that perhaps I’m losing it and overreacting to the death of a near stranger, and chasing my mind’s tail in circles—

“Stop it, boy,” says Angleton, and I startle, just as the police car crashes over a speed pillow so hard I crunch my tailbone and clack my teeth together. “I can’t hear myself think while you emote like that.”