Jack gathered Matty close, held him through the sobs. Just so. He tried to think of something to say. What could he say? No words for this. He felt his incompetence bitterly and jabbed at his eyes and kissed Matty’s head. Kissed again. What if—? Can you imagine it? That beloved skull, crushed? That blessed head? What would you do?

Hold him in your arms. Hug him. Life is gone. So quick.

XXX

INVICTUS
By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

I have one word for this poem: bullshit.

Doyle pulled up in front of Happy Hair & Nails and parked. The street was roped off with yellow tape, and Midge’s cruiser sat in the intersection with its lights on. Somebody had put a sheet over the body lying there in the street. He stooped under the crime tape.

“It’s just all-out war,” Midge said.

“Did anybody see the truck?”

“It was a Ford. F-150. New. No plates.”

He crouched and pulled back the sheet. “Dammit.”

Midge looked away. “Dead bodies in the street. Who’d ever believe such a thing?”

Doyle covered Red and stood. “Bev saw the Dahl boys?”

“Yessir. They were on foot.”

“They didn’t go far, then.”

He studied the shoe prints. Bloody impressions trailing away through the snow. The older boy had stepped in the damage left by Red. His gait had been odd, maybe injured. Or encumbered. After a few steps the smaller prints disappeared.

So he’d carried the little one.

Doyle raised the yellow tape for Midge to duck under. “There’s nothing more to do here. You go on home.”

He followed the bootprints, walking slowly. Scanning the snow for footprints. For blood. Those boys. He kept thinking of them. Some things you remember, he thought. Like they happened yesterday.

“Ma’am,” he said under the porch light.

She stood there in her nightgown and bare feet, her hand falling slowly from the knob. No expression. She moved not at all. It was dark. Finally she said, “I knew you’d come.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He ain’t got it.”

“Got what?”

“I need to sit down.”