Part 85 (2/2)

for a biker with a Harley and tatoos. The ticket stub from the Rolling

Stones' concert he had, after a lot of blood and sweat, convinced his

parents to let him attend. The pop top from his first illegal beer. He

grinned and, pus.h.i.+ng it aside, found the snapshot of himself and Brian

McAvoy.

The little girl had kept her word, Michael thought. The picture had

arrived in the mail only two weeks after the incredible day his dad had

taken him to meet Devastation. The new alb.u.m had come with it, the

hot-off-the-presses copy. He had been the envy of his contemporaries

for weeks.

Michael thought back to that day, the almost unendurable excitement he'd

felt, the sweaty armpits. He hadn't thought about that day in a long

time. Now, perhaps because of his newly acquired adult status, it

occurred to him that it had been a terrific thing for his father to do.

And uncharacteristic. Not that the old man couldn't come up with

terrific things, but he had gone to the rehearsal hall on police

business. Captain Lou Kesselring never mixed police business and

personal pleasures.

But he had that day, Michael thought.

It was strange, but now that he was remembering it all, he could picture

his father dragging home files, night after night. As far as Michael

could recollect, his father had never brought home work that way before,

or since.

The little boy, Brian McAvoy's little boy, had been murdered. It had

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