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there, Maxie stopped struggling and started worrying. I saw the whites of his eyes, oversized in their sockets, and felt the violence and the power within. Just a little more pressure, a bit more, and it would be over. For Maxie. And for me. So easy. So simple. So right.
    Seconds before I would have fractured Maxie’s windpipe, Phillip came down the street at a run and caught me with a boot across the head. I hit the ground, rolled, and got up. Smiling. It was the first time the blackness had ever thickened behind my eyes, ever misted them over. Not the last time. But the first. I was nine years old and I liked it. In time, I would learn to love it. Now, I only fear it.
    After Maxie, no one in the neighborhood messed with me very much. Or Nicole. No one ever played with us too much either, but that was okay. Nicole understood me, understood the world in a way that seemed beyond time. Two and a half decades later, we were here. In a coffee shop. Talking about a murder.
    “Known you a lifetime,” I said.
    “Best friends?” Nicole said.
    “Yes.”
    “Then why does my best friend get pulled in on a homicide beef, spend half the day in jail, and not pick up the phone to call me?”
    The DA’s office had finally kicked me loose at a little after noon. Such news apparently traveled well.
    “You heard about that?” I said.
    “Yes, Michael, I heard about that. I also knew John Gibbons. Now would you like to explain to me why the DA thinks you killed him?”
    “It’s a little complicated,” I said.
    “No kidding. You can start whenever.”
    Nicole leaned back on her stool, took a sip of her cap, and waited for a response. She could wait a long time. I knew that from experience. I took a deep breath. A cell phone buzzed in her handbag. Nicole held up a finger and checked the caller ID.
    “Hang on. I have to take this.”
    My friend walked away. I stirred my coffee. After a few minutes she returned.
    “Sorry about that. Listen, I know this is important, and believe me, I want to hear the story. Whatever it is. But right now I gotta run.”
    “No problem. What’s up?”
    Nicole pulled on her coat as she talked.
    “Did I tell you about the task force I’m on?”
    I shook my head.
    “Come on. I’ll give you a lift home. It’s on the way.”
    Nicole headed north on Broadway and took a left on Addison. She talked rapidly as she drove.
    “Last month the state formed its first rape task force.”
    “Never heard of it.”
    “I’m telling you about it. It’s a SWAT team of specially trained nurses, detectives, forensic staff, and counselors. We get called in to deal with sexual assaults in the city.”
    “Why sexual assaults?”
    “Lot of reasons. Mostly, though, because evidence is not being collected properly. You know how it is. The victim is traumatized. The nurse is trying to comfort and take the rape kit.”
    “The cops are trying to get a statement…”
    “Exactly. Bad stuff happens.”
    Nicole cruised past Wrigley Field and took a left on Lakewood.
    “The SWAT team is different,” she continued. “Each person has a job he or she is trained for and nothing else.”
    “So the nurse does her rape kit…”
    “And that’s it. Doesn’t communicate with the victim in any way. That is left to the detective and counselors.”
    “Less for the defense to attack at trial,” I said.
    “You got it. Everything is controlled and documented. A clean record from the time we get on scene.”
    “Nice.”
    Nicole pulled up in front of my building and turned to face me.
    “I oversee collection of the forensic evidence. Start a chain of custody for our lab. Pretty easy stuff. The point is, though, we’re at the scene and create a record.”
    “You headed there now?”
    “Yeah. A break-in and assault on the Northwest Side. The victim’s still at her house.”
    Nicole checked her watch.
    “We’re meeting there in forty-five minutes.”
    “How about I tag along?”
    My friend cocked her head and pushed a look of