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in Oaxaca. Come up across the border when he was fourteen, fifteen. Had cousins near here, in Woodbridge. They raised him. He learn English, graduate, went straight to the Academy.”
    “He wanted to be a cop?”
    “Always,” she said. “He saw many things in Oaxaca, many things crossing the border that made him angry.”
    “He talk about them?”
    She shook her head. “He got here, thinking, you know, the worst is over. But crime is everywhere, yes? There were gangs in Woodbridge where he grew up. He hated them, wanted to do something.”
    “He wanted to fix the broken things?”
    “Yes,” she said, then considered. “And no. He get very, very angry when he see something wrong, something bad. He tell me, Libney, sometimes you can’t fix. Sometimes you have to punish.”
    “Like what?”
    “We had a neighbor once, beat his dog. We hear it crying at night. Danny let it go three days. Then he talk to the man. Very quiet, on his porch. He never touch him, never make a move to him. But the man move out the next month.”
    “What happened to the dog?”
    She smiled again. “We took him. Spoil rotten for ten years.”
    “Do you have a picture of Danny?”
    She got up from the couch, shuffled to the TV, and picked up one of the large pictures. She traced the face of it with a finger, then walked back and handed it to me. It was one of those canned studio portraits you get at a department store, with the weird gray clouds in the background. There were three people in the picture: Libney and a man I assumed was Danny were seated, holding hands. Danny was dark and whip-thin, with medium-length hair and cocoa-brown eyes. He had that sparse mustache that some Latino men can never seem to grow in completely but insist on wearing anyway. He was smiling, but his strong white teeth had a predatory gleam. The hint of a tattoo peeked out from under the cuff of one sleeve. Behind them stood a stocky younger man with a buzz cut so close the skin of his scalp gleamed through. He was smiling, with an arm around each of them. He wore a dress shirt that, despite the generous cut, couldn’t hide a wide set of shoulders.
    “Danny looks…fierce,” I said, handing the photo back.
    She smiled again. “Yes. I tol’ you, no half way with Danny.”
    “Is that your son in the picture, as well?”
    “Yes,” she said, putting the frame back on the TV. She adjusted it carefully before sitting down. “Paul.”
    “Is he home?”
    She shook her head. “No. He run all my errands since…” She trailed off. She seemed not so much occupied by grief as sinking into it. Sadness rolled off her in waves.
    I gave her a moment, though it wasn’t easy. Time was running away from me, or at least that was how it felt. This interview was necessary, critical even, but it already seemed like I’d spent too long here. I took a deep breath. A car that needed muffler work burbled on the road outside, faded away. I waited until her eyes rose to meet mine.
    I asked, “Is Paul in the military?”
    “Was. Iraq. Afghanistan.”
    “He came back recently?”
    “Las’ year. He was going to go into the Academy like his father, this fall. He dropped out when Danny was…” She turned her head.
    I nodded. “I know this is hard, but did Danny say anything about his work? Anything recent?”
    “Never. He want them to be very separate.” She made a chopping motion with her hand. “We don’t even go to picnics, parties. All our friends are here. He get very mad when I ask him anything.”
    “Do you know what kind of work he did?”
    “No. He was gone for days sometimes. He’d let me know when, how long. He come back very tired. Smelled like cigarettes an’ beer. But happy.”
    “Did he have any friends on the force? In law enforcement?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “What were you supposed to do if something happened to him? To you?”
    “I have his office number. He tell me to call that if I don’t hear from him in