“Sorry, Cal, I’m confused. Seems like only yesterday you were reprimanding my ass for not being as raring to go for my guns as you.”

Johnny Boy saved the image of the blue whale to Melvin’s desktop. He, too, was wearing white latex gloves. They came from the same box as McGrath’s. He returned to the internet. Multiple tabs were open. He shut some down, left others running. He opened Melvin’s Facebook, went to Friends and deleted about half, including Mr. Pace. Then he uploaded the image of the whale to Melvin’s feed. He typed “Goodbye,” hesitated before hitting Post, deleted “Goodbye,” and typed “May the Force be with you all.” Better. Random and quirky, like Melvin was. He glanced around.

There hadn’t been space for Melvin to fall completely on the floor. When the gun had gone off, he’d toppled backward in his chair and landed awkwardly against the foot of his bed, with what was left of his head pushed forward onto his chest. Whatever T-shirt he’d been wearing was now entirely dark crimson, making its geekster motif indiscernible.

Guess they’ll have to check his dog tags to see which star trooper squad he belonged to.

Johnny Boy went to go but sensed something looking at him. The Death Trooper Specialist.

Five hundred bucks.

He checked carefully around the figure to see if its removal would disturb anything, thereby turning the bedroom from suicide scene to crime scene. Johnny Boy plucked the figure from the desk and replaced it in its box. He’d wipe it for prints thoroughly later. Time to go.

He wanted to find out how things had gone with Detective Batiste, but that would have to wait until he’d driven his obligatory five miles before turning his phone back on.

Spencer parked the Subaru a block down from the depot. It was just past eight and still sunny. He would have preferred it to have been dark. He knew that the paranoia would really kick in when he did what he was about to do. If someone had been watching him the entire time from when he’d left the depot and been giving him the benefit of the doubt, then this would be the moment there’d be none. He could just about explain away Abby and Chris going on a road trip. But leaving the car?

He walked a short distance away and stood in the shade of a hickory tree. He pretended to check his phone while scanning the immediate vicinity. Nothing moved. No other cars or motorcycles had followed him into the street. He forced himself to wait another full minute before walking back to the car and placing the key on the rear tire.