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older guy that Scottie played music with named Dale Fulbright. They were sitting on the curb on Marshall Avenue directly across the street from a mom-and-pop convenience store—it’s not even there anymore. Bobby said, “Hi, guys. What’s going on?” Scottie said, “Nothing.” Fulbright said, “Leave us alone.” So Bobby continued on to Burger Chef, bought a cherry cola, and sat in a corner booth waiting for me. I drove up a few minutes later in my father’s car. “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” That was pretty much how we began all of our conversations back then. I saw Scottie and Fulbright on the curb, and I asked what that was all about. Bobby said, “Who knows?” We drove off. I don’t remember where we went. It must not have been much fun, though, because we returned about an hour later to find cops all over the place, especially in front of the store. We wandered over, asked what was going on. We were told that a couple of guys armed with a .45 just robbed the place. A plainclothes cop asked, “Did you see anyone hanging around the store?” Bobby answered, “I saw Scottie Thomforde and Dale Fulbright sitting on the curb about an hour ago.” The cops drove to Scottie’s house and knocked on the door. Mrs. Thomforde answered. The cops said, “We would like to speak with your son.” That was all it took. Scottie broke down, started crying, said he was sorry, said he had never done anything like that before, said it was all Fulbright’s fault and asked to be forgiven. Fulbright, on the other hand—no one ever confused him with a scholar—answered his door with the .45 in his hand. He shot a cop. The cops shot him. They killed him. The cop he shot had only a flesh wound, but now everyone was angry and they couldn’t take it out on Fulbright. So even though Scottie was two months shy of his eighteenth birthday, had no previous record, and had nothing to do with the shooting, the county attorney went for the max, aggravated robbery in the first, forty-eight months. Scottie served thirty-two. Ruined his life. Scottie blamed—
    â€œLieutenant Dunston,” Honsa said.
    â€œIt never occurred to me that I was ratting out a friend,” Bobby said. “Never entered my mind.”
    â€œIt’s what got us thinking about becoming cops,” I said.
    â€œYou said Thomforde served thirty-two months,” Honsa reminded me. “Yes. Except that was just the beginning. He’s been in and out of prison ever since.”
    â€œWhy now? Why wait all these years to get revenge on Lieutenant Dunston?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhy is he angry at you?”
    â€œUp until now, I didn’t know he was.”
    â€œMcKenzie did him a favor once,” Bobby said. “Before that first jolt in Stillwater, Scottie got into trouble and McKenzie helped him out.”
    â€œSomething changed,” Honsa said.
    â€œSomething,” I said.
    â€œI have his record,” the tech agent said. All this time he had been working his laptop and I hadn’t noticed.
    Honsa peered at the computer screen. “Last crime—he did a short stretch in Stillwater for check forgery, been out for about six months, released to a halfway house…” Honsa’s head came up from the laptop and fixed me with his eyes. His reassuring smile had been replaced with something hard. “It’s in the Badlands.”
    â€œLet’s go get him,” Bobby said. He had his Glock out of its holster, and he was checking the load.
    â€œGo where?” Harry said. “I doubt he’s calling from the halfway house—”
    â€œLet’s go,” Bobby insisted.
    â€œDon’t even think about it,” Honsa said.
    â€œI’m going to get my daughter back.”
    â€œYou’re not leaving this house.”
    â€œDon’t try to