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saw in the bathroom mirror each morning. But his insurance had paid out as much as it was going to, and if he had to spend the rest of his life with a puss that looked like a half-deflated soccer ball, so be it. Alex secretly agreed with his brother that it was no great loss.
    After almost three weeks, Janice and the baby finally returned from her parents’ home in Billerica, but Alex was still exiled to the spare bedroom.
    Alex heard heavy footsteps behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder.
    “So, Allie, how’s the secretarial work going? Mind if I play with your tits?”
    “Don’t bug me, Jimmy, and I’ll get this done faster.”
    It was Alex’s sergeant, a man with chrome-white hair and a perennial toothpick in his mouth, a famous kidder. Alex didn’t bother to look at him. He peered down at a photocopy of Rivera’s statement, then resumed typing.
    “Some of us were looking at your report from the day of the shooting, Al.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “You said the guy you saw leave the gray Nissan by the projects was probably Hispanic. Could he have been a black guy?”
    “Could’ve been.” Alex’s typing slowed down.
    “Could it have been this joker?”
    The sergeant placed a three-by-five color photo of a solemn-faced African-American male on the desk next to the typewriter.
    Alex did not look at the picture, but he stopped typing, pushed the photo away, and turned around.
    “You’re the third guy in the last fucking hour who asked me that question, Jimmy. And guess what? The answer is still the same: It could have been. It could have been him, but I didn’t get a decent look at his face so I can’t say for sure. Okay? I couldn’t say for sure a half hour ago, and I couldn’t say for sure fifteen minutes ago. And I won’t be able to say for sure ten minutes from now, either. So do me a favor and go direct some traffic while I finish this up.”
    He returned to the keyboard, but, after a pause, the sergeant continued.
    “Hey, Allie, how’d you like to lead the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Holyoke this year?”
    “I don’t think Italians are eligible, Jimmy. Maybe I’ll put in for Columbus Day.”
    The sergeant picked up the photo. Alex heard the heavy footsteps of one, possibly two, more officers coming up behind him, casting shadows over his work.
    “Most guys would love to be in your shoes,” the sergeant mused. “All you have to do is say, yep, that’s the guy. They’d probably make you the grand marshal. I’d think about it, if I were you, Allie. I really would.”

6
    W hile Alex Torricelli labored over the warrant applications, Judge Norcross stood in the drizzle in front of a Tudor-style home near the center of Amherst. As he pressed the doorbell, he wondered whether it was such a good thing that he had ever been born.
    Two weeks ago, against his better judgment, he’d accepted a dinner invitation from an oddball classmate from high school, Dixwell Pratt, who’d bobbed up in the Amherst College administration. Then, yesterday, Dix had come up to him in the dog-food aisle at the Stop & Shop, grinning and rubbing his hands together. His wife, he said, had filled out the dinner by organizing a “date” for him with a friend from her book group—a toothsome professor named Claire Lindemann, whom Norcross had apparently met during a hilarious tryst while getting cash—ha, ha, ha. Wasn’t it wonderful?
    No, it was not wonderful. Despite being deeply smitten, Norcross had not managed to contact Professor Lindemann. He’d thought of Our Lady of the ATM many times, had even Googled her and been impressed to learn that she was a tenured full professor of medieval and Renaissance literature with two well-reviewed books and many articles. She was a baseball fan, too. A humorous piece she’d published in Sports Illustrated comparing the Kansas City Royals to the Knights of the Round Table got more enthusiastic hits than any of her academic writings.
    Of course, he’d been tempted to call