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suspect. Driving his Ford Explorer, he stalked Hallman until he caught him on foot, then ran him down and killed him.
        In court, he claimed that his intention had been to frighten Lewis, not to murder him. This assertion seemed to be contradicted by the fact that after running down his victim, Simon had turned and driven over him a second time.
        He expressed remorse. And self-loathing. He wept. He offered no defense except emotional immaturity. More than once, sitting at the defendant’s table, he prayed.
        The prosecution failed to get him on second-degree murder. He was convicted of manslaughter.
        If that particular jury could be reconstituted and polled, no doubt it would unanimously support the change from Braves to Gila Monsters .
        “Turn right at the next corner,” I advised the chief.
        As the consequence of a conviction for assault involving a violent altercation in prison, Simon Makepeace had served his full sentence for manslaughter and a shorter term for the second offense. He had not been paroled; therefore, on release, he had been free to consort with whomever he wished and to go wherever he wanted.
        If he had returned to Pico Mundo, he was now holding his son captive.
        In letters he had written from prison, Simon had judged Carol’s divorce and second marriage to be infidelity and betrayal. Men with his psychological profile frequently concluded that if they couldn’t have the women they wanted, then no one would have them.
        Cancer had taken Carol from Wilbur Jessup and from Simon; but Simon might still have felt a need to punish the man who had taken his role as her lover.
        Wherever Danny might be, he was in a desperate place.
        Although neither as psychologically nor as physically vulnerable as he had been seventeen years ago, Danny was no match for Simon Makepeace. He could not protect himself.
        “Let’s drive through Camp’s End,” I suggested.
        Camp’s End is a ragged, burnt-out neighborhood where bright dreams go to die and dark dreams are too often born. Other trouble had more than once led me to those streets.
        As the chief accelerated and drove with greater purpose, I said, “If it’s Simon, he won’t put up with Danny very long. I’m surprised he didn’t kill him at the house, when he killed Dr. Jessup.”
        “Why do you say that?”
        “Simon never quite believed he could have produced a son with a birth defect. The osteogenesis imperfecta suggested to him that Carol had cheated on him.”
        “So every time he looks at Danny…” The chief didn’t need to finish the thought. “The boy’s a wise-ass, but I’ve always liked him.”
        Descending toward the west, the moon had yellowed. Soon it might be orange, a jack-o‘-lantern out of season.

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    SEVEN
        
        EVEN STREET LAMPS WITH TIME-OCHERED GLASS, EVEN moonlight failed to smooth a layer of romance over the crumbling stucco, the warped clapboard, and the peeling paint of the houses in Camp’s End. A porch roof swagged. A zigzag of tape bandaged a wound in window glass.
        While I waited for inspiration, Chief Porter cruised the streets as if conducting a standard patrol.
        “Since you’ve not been working at the Grille, how do you fill the hours these days?”
        “I read quite a bit.”
        “Books are a blessing.”
        “And I think a lot more than I used to.”
        “I wouldn’t recommend thinking too much.”
        “I don’t carry it so far as brooding.”
        “Even pondering is sometimes too far.”
        Next door to an unweeded lawn lay a dead lawn, which itself lay next door to a lawn in which grass had long ago been replaced by pea gravel.
        Skilled landscapers had rarely touched the trees in this neighborhood. What had not been permanently misshapen by bad pruning had instead been allowed to grow unchecked.
        “I wish I could believe in