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Construction workers strolled out of the building site next to the Woodycrest Shopping Forum, their fluorescent vests glowing in the streetlamps around the unfinished office building. A sign on the wire fence by the entrance instructed anyone that entered to be wearing a hard hat at all times.

Seeing as they didn’t have hard hats of their own, Hagen and Ander remained outside the workplace of Otto Walker’s uncle. They were there to perform the most difficult part of their job—inform the next of kin that a relative had died. A few minutes ago, they’d asked another construction worker to ask Phil Walker to please come see them.

An approaching construction worker eyed them with suspicion as he tromped through the gates of the wire fence.

“Phil Walker? I’m Special Agent Hagen Yates. This is Special Agent Ander Bennett. We’re with the FBI.”

The man took off his white hard hat. He had an untidy patch of salt-and-pepper hair that started halfway across his scalp. The streetlamp threw a silver pitch over the top of his forehead. “I’m Phil. What’s this about?”

Hagen looked at him with all the dignity he could muster. The best thing to do was to tell it straight. “Your nephew, Otto…he’s dead. He was found murdered in his apartment this morning.”

Phil dropped the hard hat to the ground. The top was scarred with black marks, the edges chipped. This was a guy who’d sought responsibility and was used to holding it. That responsibility sat heavily on him now, like he’d just seen a building crumble at his feet. “Fuck.”

“We’re sorry for your loss.”

After a few moments, Phil shook his head and stood up straight. “That kid never had any luck.”

“We just need to ask you a few questions about your nephew.”

“Go ahead.”

Ander brought out his notebook. “Did Otto mention anyone who was bothering him recently? Display any unusual behavior?”

Phil pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Otto was a…look, he was…troubled. He was a weird kid. Had a tough life.”

He lit a cigarette and took a long draw. The nicotine seemed to relax him. He placed both hands on his belt and stretched his legs. The heels of his boots sank into soft dirt.

Hagen pushed his hands into his pockets. “How did you come to look after him?”

“My brother. He died when Otto was five. Cancer. His mom passed a couple of years later. Same thing. See what I mean? Shitty luck.” Phil took another drag. The tip of the cigarette glowed an angry red. “Sometimes, life just picks someone and decides…that’s it. It’s gonna beat the crap out of them. Left jab, right jab.”

Hagen rested a foot on top of a stack of girders by the fence. “So you became his guardian?”

“Wasn’t easy. I never married, never met the right girl, so they made me jump through more hoops than an Olympic gymnast to keep him out of foster care. Tried to do the best for him, poor kid, but losing his parents at that age. Does something, you know?”

“Uh-huh.” Hagen had been a teenager when he lost his dad. That had done something. He couldn’t imagine what losing both parents before the age of ten might’ve changed in him. “How did the loss affect Otto?”

“I dunno. He was a dark kid. Always prodding at dead birds and roadkill and shit with a stick or something. I think he showed more interest in dead animals than live ones. Sometimes, he’d ask me what his parents were doing in Heaven, whether I thought they were happy. What was I supposed to tell him, huh?”

Ander lowered his notebook. “That they were happy? And looking down on him?”

“Yeah, I did all that. Didn’t help much. I don’t think he believed me.”

Hagen attempted to refocus the conversation. “Do you know why he left work early today?”

Phil shrugged. “First time I’m hearing about it. Last time I spoke to him was Thursday evening. Last week. He was supposed to come over Friday night, but he said he had plans and couldn’t make it. Told him that was fine. The guys were going out for drinks, so I joined them instead.”

“You know where he went?”

“Didn’t say. I was just glad he was getting out, you know?”

“Because he didn’t have a big social life?”

Phil flicked ash into the dirt. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He wasn’t very outgoing. It was too bad, you know. He was good-looking. Spitting image of my brother. I’d see the way the girls looked at him. But five minutes of conversation, and they’d be tapping on their phones and side-eyeing the exits. I hate to say it, but the kid was a downer. I think he spent most of his time online.”

Hagen glanced at Ander. They’d heard that before. Patrick. Otto. Both had struggled socially, found a life online, and had that life ended in the most brutal way. That said, it wasn’t quite the same, since it was still very possible that Otto Walker killed Patrick Marrion, or at least was involved in that murder, one way or another.

In any event, Hagen was starting to think they’d find the answers they needed on the internet, not at crime scenes and building sites.

The thought irritated him. If he’d wanted to spend his life in front of a screen, he’d have picked a specialty like Mac’s.

Phil’s thoughts were still with his nephew, though. He toyed with the end of the cigarette butt. “You know, I tried to get him interested in music when he was a teenager. Like some old stuff. I thought he might like Black Sabbath. But he never really got into it.” He scratched his cheek. “There was one thing that helped, though.”

“What was that?”

“Church.”

Hagen stared at him. “Seriously?”

Ander picked up the thread. “I mean…don’t get us wrong. We got nothing against going to church. It just didn’t sound like he was heading in that direction.”

Phil took another drag. “Surprised me too. I took him to a service once when he was about seventeen, and he liked it. Started going to church regularly. I’m not religious myself, but the church seemed to give Otto the outlet he was looking for.”

Ander smiled. “Must’ve made you happy.”

“It did.” Phil sighed. He took a last drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out against the top of the girder before shoving the butt into his pocket. “I mean, Otto was still very shy. Even in the church, he didn’t mix well with others. But he had a direction and some stability. I figured he was finally coming out of his shell. He even got a job at a funeral parlor. The priest there introduced him to the director who agreed to give him work if he went to mortuary school.”

“Sounds like a job he’d like. You didn’t worry he’d like it too much? Keep him focused on death instead of on building a new life?”

“Nah.” Phil took out his cigarette packet again. He removed another cigarette, changed his mind, and put it back. “I thought being around other people suffering from grief might’ve helped him, you know? Maybe he’d learn to cope with his own grief at last.”

Ander held his pen at the ready. “Was Otto still going to this church regularly?”

Phil nodded. “As far as I know.”

“And what’s the name of the church? And the priest who was helping him?”

“Saint Aloysius. It’s up in Idlebrook, a neighborhood north of downtown. The priest’s name is Ted Barlow.” Phil changed his mind about the cigarette again and stuck it into the corner of his mouth. He lit the end with a cheap plastic lighter. When he exhaled, the smoke hung in front of his face. “Guess I was wrong. Failed him. I just…I just don’t understand why anyone would’ve hurt him.”

He dropped his head into his hands. His shoulders shook.

Hagen stepped back to give Phil space to cry.

Footsteps shifted the dirt behind him. A heavyset man still wearing his fluorescent vest and hard hat walked up to them, took Phil’s elbow, and raised him upright. “You guys are done here, right?

Hagen nodded. The worker wrapped an arm around Phil’s waist.

“Come on, pal. The guys are waiting.”

Hagen watched them go. He was glad Phil wouldn’t be alone tonight.

And he was happy he wasn’t going home to an empty house either.