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He goes home to his trailer in Oak Grove.

He puts away his groceries.

He allowed himself a box of Nabisco Pinwheels—his favorite cookie—and intended to eat a couple while watching TV.

Now he doesn’t want to watch TV, and he certainly doesn’t want any cookies.

If he tried to eat one, he thinks he’d choke on it.

He’s never felt so angry since being bullied by a bigger boy in middle school, and he’s certainly never felt so… so…

“So cornered,” he murmurs.

Will he sleep tonight? Not unless he can calm down.

And he wants to calm down, wants to get hold of himself.

Jalbert looks like he hasn’t been sleeping and he’d like Danny to join him in that.

Get a little ragged, Danny, do something stupid.

Like to take a swing at me? Think how good it would make you feel! Try it!

Is there something he can do to take some of the pressure off? There might be.

He gets out his wallet and thumbs through it.

Each of the investigators has given him a card with their KBI numbers and extensions on the front and their cell numbers on the back.

Just in case he gets tired of his unbelievable dream story and decides to tell them what really happened.

He puts Jalbert’s card back in his wallet and calls Davis’s cell.

She answers on the first ring, her hello almost drowned out by what’s going on near her, or possibly around her.

It’s an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung by young voices.

“Hello, Inspector Davis.

It’s Danny Coughlin.”

There’s a moment of silence from her end, as if she doesn’t know how to respond to this 7 PM call from her prime suspect.

He thinks he has blindsided her as he was blindsided by Jalbert, which seems fair… at least in his current red-assed mood.

The pause is long enough for Danny to hear happy birthday dear Laurie, happy birthday to you, and then Davis is back.

“Give me a second.” Then, to the partygoers (Danny assumes it’s a party), “I have to take this.”

The singing fades as she carries her unexpected call to somewhere quieter.

It’s time enough for him to consider verbs.

Talked? No.

Interviewed? No, that’s totally wrong.

Questioned? Right… but also wrong.

Then he has it.

“How can I help you, Danny?”

“Half an hour ago your partner ambushed me in the supermarket while I was doing my shopping.”

Another pause.

Then, “We still have questions about your locations during those three weeks we’re concerned with.

I did speak to your brother and confirmed you were there on the first weekend in June.

Is he on the spectrum?”

Danny wants to ask if she upset Stevie—he’s easily upset when he’s out of his comfort zone—but he’s not going to let her swerve him away from what he wants to tell her.

“Instead of that black sport jacket of his he was wearing a windbreaker with KBI on the front and back.

He didn’t have a bullhorn and didn’t need one, he was plenty loud.

Not too many people shop on Thursday evening, but everyone who was there had a good listen.

And a good look.”

“Danny, you sound a bit paranoid.”

“Nothing paranoid about thirty people watching while you get rousted.

I got him to follow me outside when I realized what he was up to.

And you know what? There were no questions.

Once we were on the sidewalk it was the same refrain—confess, you did it, you’ll feel better.”

“You will,” she says earnestly.

“You really will.”

“I called to ask you a couple of questions.”

“It’s not my job to answer your questions, Danny.

It’s your job to answer mine.”

“But see, these aren’t about the case.

At least not directly.

They’re more of what I’d call a procedural nature.

The first is this.

Would you have come up to me in the IGA wearing your cop windbreaker and making sure everyone heard what you were asking?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Come on, it’s a simple question.

Would you have embarrassed me in front of my neighbors?”

This time her reply is immediate, low, and furious.

“You did a lot more than embarrass Yvonne Wicker.

You raped her.

You killed her!”

“What the hell happened to innocent until proven guilty, Inspector Davis? I only found her.

But we’ve already been around that mulberry bush and it has nothing to do with what I’m asking.

Would you have done it the way Jalbert did, especially when he had absolutely nothing new to question me about?”

Danny can hear party people, very faint.

The pause is quite long before she says, “Each investigator has his own techniques.”

“That’s your answer?”

She gives a short, exasperated laugh.

“I’m not on the stand.

You don’t get to cross-examine me.

Since you have nothing substantive, I’m going to end this c—”

“Does the name Peter Andersson mean anything to you? That’s Andersson with two esses.”

“Why would it?”

“He’s a writer for a freebie newspaper called Plains Truth.

They printed Ms.

Wicker’s name.

Is that usual procedure? Giving out the names of murder victims when their next of kin hasn’t been notified?”

“I… they were notified!” At last Ella Davis sounds flustered.

“Last week!”

“But the Telescope didn’t have it.

Or if they did, they didn’t print it.

Plains Truth did.

And what about my name? They printed that, too.

Is giving out the names of people who haven’t been charged with a crime part of KBI procedure?”

More silence.

Danny hears a faint pop.

He thinks it might have been a birthday balloon.

“Your name was printed? You’re actually claiming that?”

“Pick up a copy and see for yourself.

We know who leaked it, don’t we? And we know why.

He has nothing concrete, only a story he refuses to believe.

Can’t believe.

Doesn’t have enough imagination to believe.

The same is true of you, but at least you didn’t give my name to the only rag that would have run it.

That’s why I called you.”

“Danny, I—” She stops there before she can maybe say apologize.

Danny doesn’t know that was the word on the tip of her tongue, but he’s pretty sure.

She rewinds.

“Your name could have been leaked to that paper by any number of people.

Very likely by one of your neighbors at the trailer park.

Your idea that Frank Jalbert is persecuting you is absurd.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Let me tell you what I know about Plains Truth,” Danny says.

“I picked one up on my way home from work.

It’s my second to last day.

I’ve been let go.

I have that to thank you for, too.”

She makes no reply.

“It’s mostly ads with a few local news stories thrown in… plus the crime stories, they love those.

Anything from cow tipping to arson.

It gets people to pick the damn thing up.”

“Danny, I really think this conversation has gone on long enough.”

He plows ahead.

“There are no crusading reporters on the Plains Truth staff.

They don’t do investigations.

Andersson and a couple of others sit on their asses and let the news come to them.

In this case, Wicker’s name and mine.

Somebody picked up the phone and gave it to them.”

“If you’re going to ask me to find out who did that, you’re dreaming.

Reporters protect their sources.”

Danny laughs.

“Calling the guys who work for that rag reporters is like calling a remedial math kid Einstein.

I think Peter Andersson will give you a name, if he got one.

Just push him a little.

The way you pushed me.”

Silence, but she hasn’t ended the call.

He can still hear the party, very faint.

Is Laurie her daughter? A niece?

“A name, not the name,” Danny says.

“If Andersson even asked for one, Jalbert would have said he’s with the Manitou PD or the Highway Patrol and hung up.

A reputable paper wouldn’t have published an anonymous tip without another source, but they did, and happy to do it.

It was him, Inspector.

I know it and I think you know it, too.”

“Goodbye, Danny.

Don’t call me again.

Unless you’d like to confess, that is.”

Shot in the dark time.

“Has he been spouting random numbers? Not having to do with anything, just off the cuff?”

Nothing.

“Don’t want to talk about that? Okay.

Wish the birthday girl—” he begins, but she’s gone.

He immediately calls Stevie in Boulder.

His brother answers as he always does, sounding like a recorded voicemail message.

“You have reached Steven Albert Coughlin.”

“Hi, Stevie, it’s—”

“I know, I know,” Stevie says, laughing.

“Danny-Danny-bo-banny, banana-fanna-fo-fanny.

How you doin, brother-man?”

That says everything Danny called to find out.

Ella Davis didn’t tell Stevie that his big brother was under suspicion of murder.

She was… careful? Maybe more.

Maybe the word he’s looking for is diplomatic.

Danny doesn’t want to like her, but he does a little bit, for that.

Stevie has his special ability, and he’s developed—slowly—some social skills, but he’s emotionally fragile.

“I’m in good shape, Stevie.

Did my friend Ella Davis call you?”

“Yes, the lady.

She said she was a police inspector and you were helping them with a case.

Are you helping them with a case, Danny-bo-banny?”

“Trying,” he says, then guides the conversation away.

They talk about Nederland, where Stevie goes hiking on the weekends.

They talk about a dance Stevie went to with his friend Janet and how they kissed three times after it was over, while they were walking home.

Someone is playing music loud and Stevie shouts at them to turn it down, which he never could have done as a teenager; back then he would have simply struck himself in the side of the head until someone made him stop.

Danny says he has to go.

His anger is mostly gone.

Talking to Stevie does that.

Stevie says okay, then says the usual: “Ask me one!”

Danny is ready.

“Folgers Special Roast.”

Stevie laughs.

It’s a beautiful, joyful sound.

When he’s happy, he’s really happy.

“Aisle 5, top shelf on the right as you go toward the meat counter, price twelve dollars and nine cents.

It’s actually Classic Roast.” He lowers his voice confidentially.

“Folgers Special Roast has been discontinued.”

“Good one, Stevie.

I have to go.”

“Okay, Danny-bo-banny.

I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He’s glad it was Davis who talked to Stevie.

The thought of Jalbert doing it—of coming anywhere near his brother—makes Danny feel cold to the bone.