“Could never be sure. I know people here felt safer, though. Past that, who can say?”

“So that was all he ever told you?”

“All he ever told me that made sense. The night he died, he came here drunk, sick, sobbing. Told me about another city.”

“A shadow city.”

Just saying it out loud was intoxicating, like a teetotaler giving in at last to drink. Possibilities unspooled in my mind. If it were true—if it were even plausible—then the world was as big and strange and dangerous as Virgil Carr always believed, and anything could have killed him. Firecracker continued, shaking his head.

“Yeah. ‘We see shadows,’ he said, ‘but it’s a city, a whole city of the dead, come to blot us out. And what if,’ and this was the part that really made him quiver, ‘what if it’s not just that city? What if there are other cities past that one, each one more evil than before?’ Pathetic.”

“You didn’t believe him?”

“How could I, man talking like that? It’s the rye whiskey rotted his brain, and I can say that for certain.”

“How?”

“Because when he was young, strong, whole? If Clubber really thought there was an army of the dead marching on the Westside, he’d have led the charge to fight them back.”

“So you don’t think the night killed him? You don’t think he was taken by the shadows?”

“I burn the lights to keep people feeling safe. That doesn’t mean I really think there’s something to fear in the dark.”

“Then he killed himself.”

“Nah, no chance. Your father was broken, but he was no quitter.”

“Then what?” I said, knowing the answer and hating it bitterly.

“Your father was murdered, girl, and that I’m certain of too.”

Footsteps on the lighthouse stairs. The door groaned open, but Van Alen and I did not break our gaze. In the corner of my eye, Ida Greene pulled off her gloves and set them folded onto the nearest table.

“You didn’t tell me we had guests,” she said.

“Shut up, Ida.”

“Who killed him?” I said. I would get no answer.

Ida Greene took a switchblade from her purse. She pressed the knife to my back, and Van Alen chuckled. The grease in the air got into my throat, and I felt a horrible temptation to sneeze.

“Just an inch,” said Mrs. Greene, “and she’ll never ask another question.”

“What’s the point?” Van Alen swung a heavy sack over his shoulder, a demented, soot-stained Santa Claus. “Come on, Ida. We’re late for our rounds.”

“You’re going nowhere,” I said, “until I get my answers.”

Van Alen threw the sack at me. My arms reached out for it, and the gun fell out of my hand. Mrs. Greene kicked the pistol across the floor, and Van Alen wrapped his fists around my shoulders.