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desk and announced it was a den. I had never heard of a den, except as caves for foxes in stories, and it sounded great to me. But it wasn’t for kids. His buddies would come over after work, or to drop off groceries or some special present. Uncle Dan too, and sometimes he’d bring his friends, who were nearly all IRA men. They carried guns, but they weren’t all cops. Not gangsters either, but something in between.
    Dad carried the key to the room on his watch chain, and the key to his desk, too. No one was allowed in there, except Mom when she cleaned. It smelled of smoke, and she’d empty the ashtrays, open the window, and mop down the woodwork. She always did it after school, and I’d stand outside the door and look in, curious, wondering what the men did in there. I wanted my dad to pull out that key and unlock the door, put his hand on my shoulder, and invite me in. But he never did. Not even when I joined the force.
    “Stay away from here,” he said. “And don’t bother the men.”
    The men. I was standing there, in my new blue uniform, home from the first day on the job. Two of his pals were clumping up the stairs in their heavy cop shoes, the first guy a sergeant from the Back Bay station, carrying a gym bag.
    “How’s the rookie doin’?” he said, to my father, not to me.
    “Come on in, Basher. The rookie’s none of your concern now. Billy, begone with you.”
    So what? Big deal. Who cares about a bunch of old guys drinking Jameson and smoking cigars anyway? But it was funny. Dad would spend hours with me at a crime scene, calling me down when I was off duty, to show me how he did things, how he looked for evidence, looked at how a body lay. He had worked Homicide for ten years and had one of the best solve rates in the city. He’d tell me anything about a case. But never in his den.
    I realized I’d almost passed the Dorchester. Thinking about home, I almost forgot where I was. It was like I’d slipped back to Boston for a few minutes, and the sidewalk under my feet was leading from the station to my house. I was ready to fall asleep on my feet, and if I did, maybe I’d wake up and see my house, climb the steps, and turn the key in the lock on the front door, inhale the smells of supper, and walk up to my room, past the den and the muffled sounds of talk and harsh laughter.
    I spent the next day reading about Norway, drinking coffee, and watching for Daphne to pass by my desk. I was better at the last two, but I did manage to absorb a few things. The Norwegians had gotten beaten pretty bad in 1940 when the Germans invaded. Even though the British, French, and Poles sent troops to help them, they’d all ended up with their tails between their legs. King Haakon escaped to England, where he set up a government in exile. The Norwegians had managed to pull a good one over on the Germans. Just as the Nazis were about to march into Oslo, the Norwegians made a little withdrawal from their treasury, about eight tons of gold. They took it by train, trucks, and even small boats along the coast, until they met up with British warships that carried the king and the gold to England. In the past two years they had used this money to build up an underground network of civilians back home. They called it the Underground Army, but it hadn’t done much yet. There was also the Norwegian Brigade here in England, made up of men who had escaped from Norway. They were about three thousand strong and growing, and they were itching to be the spearhead of an invasion to liberate their country. The Norwegians had their own commando units that worked with the British Special Operations Executive. Together with SOE units, they were conducting hit-and-run raids along the Norwegian coast, blowing up fisheries and fish-oil-processing plants. That sounded pointless until I read that fish oil was a key ingredient in making nitroglycerin. War certainly is educational.
    I hadn’t gotten much farther when I saw Daphne approaching