Levy looked around at the pretty streets that surrounded the square. Beyond them were trees, lots, people’s houses, the highway. On the other side, the Sound. But it looked like a stage set to him, and he had a terrible feeling that he could walk around a facade of two-­dimensional houses and cut-­out trees and on the other side he would find the barracks, the fence, the ovens. The fresh rain would stop and in its place ash would fall out of the cloud of smoke from the ovens and in a few minutes it would cover his hair and shoulders. He had never been so tired, and he wanted to kneel on the ground again and roll over like a trained dog.

“It was an accident,” Rachel said desperately. Garfield just looked at her. “Here.” She spread the news­paper on the table and Garfield and Hawkins looked at it, then at her. She tried to explain, as if they couldn’t read or understand.

“The freight train goes through every night and he rode too close. He was on his bike and he threw up his arm . . .”

Garfield interrupted. “Gets it torn off, rides ten minutes toward town away from the hospital, collapses in the square.”

“He was in shock,” Rachel tried.

“For ten minutes, on a bike with one arm? . . . Think, Rachel. What was he doing riding by a railroad track in the dead of night? What freight train goes so fast?”

“They found his arm,” Rachel cried.

“On the tracks. So how did it get there? They carried it, maidel, and put it there.” Rachel looked sick and Garfield said, “It sounds awful, but I’ve done worse things . . .”

She cried. “He never hurt them, he didn’t live near us. Why would they do it?”

“Tell me why?” Garfield asked softly.

She looked lost for a minute, then her face changed.

“He thought he had to help,” she said very quietly. “It was his job, he thought, and he went back there. . . .”

“Yes, maidel.”

“And he saw it and they let it kill him.”

“Yes. So what are we talking about? Not something in a vault or a cave, but in a basement in a little town on Long Island. They’ll kill to keep it secret, and anyone might get in there. So what do we do?”

“Kill it,” Rachel said hoarsely. Hawkins and Garfield stared at her. “Kill it now—” She stopped, then said, “Maybe they’ve already done it.”

Garfield shook his head. His face was quiet and his eyes had a faraway look. “No,” he said after a moment, “no. They’d keep it as long as they could. Oh, not too long. They know that if it happened with Ryder, it could happen again. And they might be found out, and they know that they’re old and could get careless. So sooner or later, Joseph Golem has to die. . . .”