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drop the bat.
    He grabs at his broken hand. I kick his hand away and step on his forearm again, picking up the bat. I clobber his broken hand twice more. It already looks swollen and purple. When I step away, I regard him with pity. He lies on his back, rocking in pain, cradling his demolished hand, crying like a child.
    I massage my hand, which aches where I broke it from punching the wall a couple years ago. Maybe
that’s
why it hurts when I punch.
    I have the urge to blurt out,
I’m sorry!
What I actually say is, “If you ever touch her again, I’ll cut your hand off.” Resting the bat on my shoulder like a homerun hitter, I turn and walk toward my car.
    * * *
    This encounter with Theo happened two months after Ron’s funeral and two months before I get my Five Years of Service award.
    But several important things happened between the day of Ron’s funeral and the day I took a bat to Theo’s car and hand.
    Let me get you up to speed.

Chapter 8
Theo Russer
    Right after Ron’s funeral, I go back to work and tear my cube apart looking for that picture of him. I final give up my search and kick over my chair over in frustration.
    When the woman in the adjoining cube peeks her head in to see if I’m OK, I tell her that I accidentally knocked the chair over trying to adjust the seat.
    My first investigative task is to find out where Theo Russer lives. The easiest way would be to ask Helen, but I can’t let her know what I’m up to.
    Years ago I would’ve driven to Theo’s town and pulled a phone book from a phone booth. Then, instead of just being polite and writing it down on a separate piece of paper, I would’ve ripped out the page I needed when no one was looking. Thanks to the internet, all that romance is gone. Today, I type THEO RUSSER on whitepages.com and that’s that. Theo lives in Telford, a rural suburb an hour outside of Philadelphia.
    Cody Heet is the only guy I know at work who owns a gun, and Theo is the only other person in Ron’s life that I know owns one. Theo is one of those paintball, NRA, pickup truck, sleeveless-shirt-wearing hicks, but because he has money, he mixes in some preppy clothing and fine wine with his flannel shirts and Miller Lite. I despise this type of guy as a rule, but Theo also adds cheating on his girlfriend and possibly hitting her into the mix. Ron once told me that Theo likes to shoot at stray cats with a BB gun.
    The day of Ron’s funeral, I drive right to Theo’s house from work. I talk to myself as I drive, trying to come up with something clever, manipulative, and intimidating to say to my suspect. I have to catch him off guard, get him to show me something. A poker tell, if you will.
    As I turn onto Theo’s street in Telford, I realize I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m not sure what homework I should’ve done before this confrontation, but I’m sure I should’ve done
something
. I drive past his house with the intention of going home, but half a mile down the road I make a U-turn. I park on the street, a dirt road, sensing that Theo is the kind of guy who might come out of his house in his boxers aiming a shotgun at me if someone parked in his driveway unannounced.
    What sounds like Jimmy Buffet blares from Theo’s windows as I knock on his front door. His shiny red Mustang sits in the driveway. When he opens the door, I’m pleased to see that he’s not in his boxers. But he
is
wearing a sleeveless T-shirt.
    “Yeah?” he says with a what-the-fuck-do-
you
-want tone that is so obnoxious I want to impale him with a weather vane.
    I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
    Theo raises an eyebrow.
    “Are you Theo?” Phew. I spoke. First goal: accomplished.
    “Yeah. Who are you?”
    Shit. I didn’t expect to be cross-examined like this. “My name’s Bobby. I was a good friend of Ron’s.”
    Theo squints. “And…?”
    This is where I tell him that I know Ron’s death wasn’t suicide. That he is my prime suspect. That I won’t stop