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head. “An old girlfriend. She dumped me the day before the prom.”
    “Funny.” Dooley breathed slow, deep. “We dream of pain.”
    “Is that what we do?”
    “I was dreaming of checkers,” Dooley said.
    “Nixon’s dog?”
    “The game. Have you played it?”
    “Everybody’s played checkers.”
    “Smoke before fire. Do you remember that? Black moves first? That was the explanation for it. When I was a kid we’d accept that without even asking how there could be smoke without fire. Red should move first, by all rights.”
    “It’s been a long time...”
    “Kids really love the game.”
    “You were dreaming of playing checkers,” Joel said.
    “Yeah.”
    Joel twisted in his chair and crossed his arms tight across his chest. With but a wanting show from the hearth, a crisp, prickly chill had invaded the den. “Playing checkers is painful?”
    “It can be.” Dooley ran a hand over the stubble on one cheek. “These kids you suspect—are they likable?”
    “Likable? I don’t know.”
    “You said they were good kids. Do you like them? Could you?”
    “Knowing what they did, in all honesty, no,” Joel answered, and growled the sleep from his throat. “But then I think the feeling is mutual, so it’s a wash.”
    “You played bad cop with them, didn’t you?”
    “I was direct,” Joel replied, twisting the query his way.
    “You should have played checkers,” Dooley said.
    “What is this thing with checkers?”
    Sixty-four squares and little circles skating across them. Smoke and fire. “Maybe I’ll tell you when I find your killer.”
    Joel edged forward in the chair. “You’re going to help?”
    “I don’t want a shadow,” Dooley said.
    Joel’s head bobbed in a rapid nod. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
    “You’ll thank me when this is done. I may hate you.”
    An agreeing grin started to show on Joel’s face, but withered before becoming when he realized that no jest was attached to Dooley’s statement.
    “What made you change your mind?”
    “Maybe I’m sick of sitting around this house. Maybe I’m a good cop, like you say.”
    “You don’t sound very sure about those reasons,” Joel observed.
    “Maybe you’re right,” Dooley said, drawing a smile from his guest. He looked away from Joel and into the hearth, at the pulsing glow crawling in worm-like tendrils over the fractured log. A wisp of smoke was trailing clearly up toward the flue. Smoke before fire. “Or maybe I thought this time things might turn out better.”
    “Better? You put the last one away for good.”
    Dooley’s head shook slightly at the fire. “Better for me.”

Four
    The pear trees surrounding Windhaven Elementary on three sides were dormant now, grey and bitter in the breeze that drew painful moans from their once succulent limbs, and frantic scratching as dried branches jousted with each other.
    Just before nine the morning wind rose, pouring a gust through the orchards. The unified cry of the trees bled into the ringing of bells from the campus.
    Monday had come.
    In groups, pairs, and ragged lines, children headed for class, books held close against the winter coats their parents had pulled from storage the night before. The usually boisterous procession was intensely subdued, in particular when passing ‘the spot’. Many found a reason to trek by room 18, and were hurried along by Mrs. Gray, the principal, who dutifully told them that there was nothing to see, though her eyes often stole glances at the blemish on the asphalt. Mr. Carter, the custodian, had done his best to remove it, blasting it with steam once the police had finished, then scrubbing it with detergent. But there it remained, a faded shadow of what had spilled from Guy Edmond. Mr. Carter had suggested another option, but Mrs. Gray had thought it too drastic. Now, watching the little heads twist toward the stain, she thought that his plan might be best after all.
    Of every few children passing room 18, one would approach its