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Mooney standing by his desk. He said, “Lost kitty?”
    “What is it you wanted?” Despite liking Mooney—he was junior, a Detective-I to her D-II—Sandy found his tongue a little too sharp at times. Like he was playing out some Raymond Chandler fantasy. It went with the square jawed, buzz cut, buffed out image he liked to present.
    He motioned with his thumb to the computer monitor on his desk. Sandy saw a standard dispatch report. “911 call from this morning,” Mooney said. “A guy pulled a knife on a driver off Platt.”
    “Road rage?”
    “Don’t know. The guy who called it in was named Grant Nunn. The guy who got the threat, according to Nunn, was a guy named Samson, a school teacher.”
    “Is there a homicide lurking around this?” Sandy said.
    “That’s just it. Nunn never made it to work. They just found him in his car in back of Target. Bullet to the head.”
    Sandy said nothing.
    “But get this,” Mooney said. “This teacher, Samson, a few hours ago his house goes crispy. The whole thing. Boom. Up in smoke. That’s a pretty big day for just one guy, don’t you think?”

Chapter 10

    At six-forty-five Wednesday morning, Chuck called Ray Hunt.
    “I’ve got a little problem,” Chuck said. “As in, there was a fire at my house and I don’t have any clothes or shaving gear or anything like that. In fact, I don’t have a house.”
    “Fire!” Ray said.
    “Long story, but I–”
    “You all right? Your brother?”
    “We’re in a motel. I need to get some clothes and shave and all. I’ll try to be in by nine. I may be a little late.”
    “Don’t come in,” Ray said. “I’ll get somebody to cover for you. Not a problem.”
    “I want to,” Chuck said. He almost added I need to.
    “You sure?”
    “Wal-Mart opens at seven. I’ll grab a stunning new wardrobe and a razor and come back here for a shower, and be good to go.”
    “Chuck, this is terrible. Anything I can do, name it.”
    “Just make sure the whale costume comes in on time.”
    Chuck gathered Stan up and drove to Mickey D’s for breakfast, then over to Wal-Mart. By eight-fifty they were back at the motel with enough clothes for a couple of days. As long as they weren’t angling for GQ, they’d be fine. Chuck sped through a shower and shave. Stan was next and could walk to work.
    Chuck did his best Jimmy Johnson, as much as he could in a dented Sentra, and made it to the Hunt school by nine-thirty-five.
    And realized, getting out of the car, how much he truly did need this place. It was a safe haven, a healing zone. He’d been lucky to get the job last year. Ray Hunt’s son, Raleigh, had been in the Marine expeditionary unit Chuck served as chaplain. Chuck reconnected with Raleigh stateside, and found out his father needed a fifth grade teacher for their spring semester. Chuck was about to run out of money. When he went in for the interview, he and Ray Hunt hit it off like they were the ones who were father and son.
    It was Raleigh’s drug problem, Chuck knew, that had put a veil between him and Ray. Ray Hunt was the proverbial straight arrow, and couldn’t understand why Raleigh, who everybody called Rollo, couldn’t lick the problem by sheer will.
    Hunt agreed to hire Chuck for a probationary term, as long as Chuck pursued a full teaching credential. Chuck jumped at it, and dug in. The job became his life preserver.
    It still was. And in a way, it was that for Ray Hunt, too. Because he hadn’t heard from Rollo in half a year.
    Chuck saw Ray striding––Ray never just walked ––toward him in the parking lot, his full head of white hair topping a V-shaped body set in a crisp white shirt and gold tie. He was sixty-four and looked forty. A Viet Nam vet, he’d come back from the war and built up this prestigious private K-12 school with little more than moxie and eighteen-hour-days, alongside his wife, Astrid. Over the past thirty-plus years, the Hunts had become wealthy, respected, and active participants in the