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plaintiff’s lawyers and the tabloid are working together. Worse, we believe the department and our new commander
knew
the
Herald
’s exposé was coming. So as of today, we
know
how the department’s gonna play it.
    Should the other installments of the
Herald
’s exposé “deliver” on part one’s promise, the city will settle with the Duprees out of court and the Vargas brothers are gone. Period, end of story. Then every cop Ruben and I have worked with will be thrown under the lights, then the bus if the investigation shows they’ve scuffed their shoes once or twice during their careers.
    And that includes three-hundred-pound Walter “Jewboy” Mesrow, the gentlest giant ever to come out of Eastern European fairy tales. Walter removes a Texas Jewboys cap, wiping sweat with a leg-of-lamb forearm. His thick black hair remains in the shape of the cap and the wide-set eyes search mine for reassurance I wish I had.
    “Yeah, Walter.” I pat his size 56 vest and the neon cowboy shirt underneath. “Hasn’t been a good day.”
    Officer Mesrow is one of my “sins,” a work in progress, and always will be, not that we’d tell him that. He was nineteen when I met him, a big overripe Serbian immigrant kid surrounded by a gang of teenagerswho’d spilled his four bags of groceries and punched him around a little. Walter was on his knees, blood on his lips, chasing oranges as my fellow Americans taunted him for his clothes and accent. Their girls laughed. I took offense, earned one of my hundred and sixteen CR numbers, and Walter Mesrow, like Little Paul is now, became one of “Bobby’s projects.”
    Walter decided he wanted to become a cop. Had to take the test four times. Some have said that maybe I
helped
with his grade, then after he graduated had him ride with me as his training officer until he could survive on his own. And because of his repeated street mistakes, I took a gangster bullet, as did a bystander, then lied under oath to protect Walter’s job. Our sergeant, Buff Anderson, now watches over Walter. Like I said, all cops have sins.
    Walter’s sin is his weekly Kinky Friedman/Texas Jewboys karaoke habit (hence the nickname), a practice that I’ve sadly participated in more than once. All in all, as every guy on this team would tell you, Jewboy’s loopy grin is one of the day’s little victories. And in this job, little victories are all you get.
    His giant hand hikes a handful of brown Sansabelt pants, the other extends a rolled copy of today’s
Herald
at our sergeant’s chest. “
Out of the sky
, the paper decides Bobby’s a
child molester
?
Three
days before the Dupree depositions? Nope, not for this copper.”
    My name and
child molester
 … of a beautiful girl who meant more to me than breathing. In a few days the
Herald
will likely print that I take off Coleen’s death day every year, that I’m the mystery man who leaves the flowers at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
    Buff brushes the paper aside. He and my team won’t fold on me, but Buff is not a happy sergeant. “What the fuck, Vargas? Library books?”
    “I’m thirteen, for chrissake. I’m supposed to know library books make me a murder suspect? I’m still too young to buy cigarettes.”
    Buff looks away—thirty-two years on the job, balls like cantaloupes—then back, a move that says we’re good. “But still, you should’ve—”
    “
Should’ve what?
The Homicide dicks don’t ask me, why would I say something? I’m
thirteen;
they’re Irish, lynch-mob mad, hunting someone who murdered one of their teenage girls.”
    Jewboy’s giant arm loops my shoulder. Buff smoothes arctic white hair, piercing blue eyes leveled on mine. Buff has three children of his own, one with muscular dystrophy, and works a second job six days a week to pay her medical bills. “Shoulda said about the books.”
    “Books.”
Jewboy stabs his rolled-up
Herald
into his heart and the body armor covering it. “Always got me, too. What’s your brother