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“arrangements” when his own father died six years ago. The details were hell.
    “I’m sure.” Brownie leaned against the desk.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” Gardner said. “You should be on leave.” Brownie looked exhausted. “No. Too much to do.”
    “Brownie…” Gardner had been afraid of this. “Let’s get out of here, go up to Paul’s, have a few drinks, sort things out.”
    “No, Gard. I’ve got work to do.”
    Gardner drew a breath. The man was stubborn.
    “Phone calls to make, reports to read… and I wouldn’t be good company, not tonight.”
    “Jeez, man. I don’t give a damn if you sit there and spit beer in my face. You need to be with somebody right now. It’s not
     good for you to be alone, especially here.” The lab reeked of death.
    Brownie tried to smile. “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t. Not right now.”
    Gardner looked at a report on the desk. “What are you working on?”
    Brownie covered it with his hand. “A case.”
    “What case?”
    Brownie didn’t reply.
    “We need to talk about it.”
    “What?”
    “Your
suspicions
. Harvis told me.”
    Brownie sat down.
    “What do you think happened?”
    Brownie closed the report’s cover. “I think he was roped.”
    “What did the doctors say?”
    “They don’t know shit.”
    “But what did they say?”
    “Coronary.”
    “And you don’t agree.”
    Brownie looked up. “That was part of it, but not everything. Someone was with him when he went down, made the nine-one-one
     call on a cellular phone, disguised his voice, then disappeared. Obviously didn’t want to be identified. And Daddy had cuts
     on his wrists.”
    “Cuts?”
    “Ligature marks, I’m almost positive. Doctor says they were made when he fell down, but I’ve seen enough of those bastards
     to know what they look like.”
    Gardner crossed his arms. Brownie did know the difference between a fall-down abrasion and a rope burn. “But
who
?” he finally said. “Who would hurt Joseph?” Nobody from Blocktown, certainly.
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
    “Do you have any leads, any evidence?”
    Brownie lowered his head.
    “What do you have?”
    Brownie’s eyes came up. “Nothing…
yet
.”
    Gardner felt a chill. “Take it slow, Brownie.” A bereaved cop with an itchy trigger finger could be dangerous. “Let the department
     handle it.”
    Brownie clenched his teeth. “You mean Davis, the hillbilly pinhead?”
    “I asked Harvis to assign someone else.”
    “But he didn’t do it, did he?”
    Gardner shook his head.
    “They don’t fuckin’ believe me.
That’s
why they assigned Davis. They think I’m overreacting, that there’s nothing there.”
    “But you just admitted that you don’t have any evidence.”
    “This isn’t about evidence, Gard.” Brownie thumped his chest with a fist. “This is about my instinct, my feeling. I don’t
     just
think
there’s something wrong here; I
know
it.”
    Gardner went silent. If Brownie’s instincts could be patented and bottled, they’d both be billionaires. His instincts were
     uncanny and most times on the money. But they still needed proof. “You’re too close right now,” Gardner said finally. “You’ve
     just taken a hell of a hit. You can’t be objective. You have to let it go for a while.”
    Brownie stood up. “I’m not going to allow Frank Davis or anybody else to tell me how Daddy died. I’m going to find out for
     myself. With or without your
permission
!”
    “Take it easy,” Gardner cautioned.
    “I can’t. Please try and understand. Someone
killed
my old man!” His voice cracked and his jaw trembled.
    Gardner grabbed him in a hug. “Let it go, for God’s sake, let it go.”
    Brownie tried to pull away, but Gardner held him tight. And then the facade cracked, and the anguish poured out.
    Thomas Ruth drove his car out of the quarry gate and turned west, toward the secluded spot on the ridge where he could park
     and communicate in privacy. He felt