Watching him, I could see how he wanted the scene to play out. My role was to hurry after him, offering reassurances. I was supposed to fling myself into the conflict to help him save face. I couldn’t do it. The bottom had dropped out. The search for Mary Claire was over and he knew it as well as I did. She might be buried somewhere, but it had nothing to do with him. While I understood his humiliation, his behavior was calculated to generate a response. He was the vacuum. I was meant to be the air rushing in to fill the space. Stubbornly, I stayed where I was.

I heard the car door slam. The engine roared to life. I looked over and watched him back out in a wide arc before he threw the car in first and drove off with a chirp of his tires.

To no one in particular, I said, “Sorry about that. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

I picked up the folder and returned to my car. I slid under the wheel and sat for a moment, watching pigeons pecking in the grass. I was only five blocks from home and my instinct was to run for cover. What I was facing wasn’t new. Past investigations had occasionally come apart in my hands and I hadn’t felt the need to fall on my sword. I’m an optimist. I operate on the assumption that if a question is legitimate, there’s an answer out there, which is no guarantee I’ll be the one to find it. While the current failing wasn’t mine, I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d messed up somehow.

It was midafternoon and I probably could have talked myself into quitting for the day, but one can only do that so often before it becomes habitual and, therefore, unprofessional. Playing hooky wasn’t the antidote to disappointment. Work was. I had a business to run and I needed to get back to it. Easier said than done.

When I reached the office I set up a pot of coffee and then I sat at my desk and did nothing. I’d chastised Sutton for feeling sorry for himself, but it wasn’t such a bad idea. When you’ve been dealt a blow, self-pity, like rationalization, is just another way of coping with the pain.