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“I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“What do you mean?”
Moore ignored the question. “This.” He traced a rough white line with his smallest finger. “This is a tree branch, a hardwood of some sort. Oak, maple. Not my area. The subject impaled himself somehow. The limb was brittle, not rotten. Jagged. See these sharp edges. Here and here. It’s hard to tell from this image, but it’s about twice the diameter of your index finger. Maybe a thumb and a half. It entered here, just below the lowest rib on the right side, then angled in such a way that it pierced the liver through and through. It did damage to multiple organs and tore a three-centimeter perforation in the large intestine.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This is massive trauma, Detective.”
“Okay.”
Moore stepped away, then back. He raised both hands and Hunt sensed his frustration. “This-” He moved his hands over the X-ray, then stopped. “This is a fatal injury. Without immediate surgery, this is fatal. He should have been dead days before you shot him.” Moore raised his hands again. “I can’t explain it.”
A cool finger touched Hunt between the shoulder blades. The hospital pressed down. He pictured Moore’s eager eyes, his questions about large mysteries. “Are you saying it’s a miracle?”
Moore looked at the X-ray, and the light put a cold white sheen on his face. He lay three fingers on the line of jagged wood that pierced Freemantle’s side. “I’m saying that I can’t explain it.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Social Services came for Joh
His mother loosened her grip and spoke to Hunt. “Is there no other way?”
Hunt was equally subdued. “With all that’s happened. The violence. The media. They have no choice.” He stooped and looked Joh
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Joh
He got in the car. And that’s how it was for the next month. Like doing time. The family they gave him to was kind but detached. They treated him like a hard word might break him, yet conspired to act as if nothing unusual had happened. They were unfailingly polite; but he caught them at night, watching the news reports, reading the papers. They’d shake their heads and ask each other: “What does something like that do to a boy?” Joh
The court ordered Joh
Just like that.
They let Joh
Joh
Tell me we’re friends.
Joh
“You should write him back,” his mother told him once.
“After what happened? After what he did?”
“He’s your best friend. His father broke his arm. Think about that.”
Joh
“He’s young, Joh
Joh
She followed Joh
“Are you seeing Detective Hunt?”
“Your father’s funeral is tomorrow, Joh
“It would be okay, I think.”
His mother squeezed his arm and stood. “It’s time.” The court monitor was approaching. “You have the suit?” she asked. “The tie?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like them?”
“Yes.”
They had a few seconds left. The next time they were together, it would be to bury the ones they loved most. The monitor stopped a few feet away. She gestured at her watch, and her face reflected something like regret.
Joh
Joh
The funeral was a double service. Father and daughter, side by side. Hunt called in favors and had the cemetery cordoned off to protect the family from the idle curious, the press. The priest was not the same fat, red-faced priest that Joh
Power.
He made the word sing, so that Joh
The power of God’s love.
Joh
The high, empty sky.
Three weeks after the funeral, Katherine stood in the yard of a well-maintained two-bedroom house. It had a covered front porch, two bathrooms, and the largest, greenest yard she could find. The kitchen was newly remodeled. Down the street was the house that Joh
She stared down the street, then let it go. This place had a tree house, a creek that ran through the backyard.
It would be enough.
When Hunt came out of the house, his shirt was wet with sweat. A tuft of fiberglass insulation sprouted from the back of his head. He turned and looked back at the house. “It’s solid,” he said. “It’s nice.”
“You think Joh
“I think so. Yes.”
Katherine dipped her head. “Joh
“Of course.”
“But in a month or so, I thought maybe you might come over for di
“That would be nice, too.”
Katherine nodded, nervous and scared and uncertain. She turned and looked at the house. “It really is okay, isn’t it?”
Hunt kept his eyes on her face. “It’s perfect.”