Roy had arranged for Deacon to pick him up in front of the Air & Space Museum at 12:30, on the Jefferson Drive side of the building. The curbside area was packed with long tour buses and the sidewalks were thick with school groups on tour. Spring was still a few weeks away, and with it the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, a tourist extravaganza. But the crowds were already starting to roll in.

Two short blasts on a car horn up the block got Roy’s attention. He walked in that direction until he found Deacon sitting behind the wheel of a new Jeep Explorer, wedged in between two of the buses. Roy had not seen Deacon in this vehicle before, which was hardly surprising; Deacon changed rides the way normal people changed clothes. “Bad for business otherwise,” he liked to say.

“The fuck, man?” Deacon said as Roy climbed into the passenger seat. “You playing tourist today?”

Roy rubbed his gloved hands together in front of the dashboard heat vent, then dug into his pocket of his heavy jacket. “Graham’s not doing so well with Flora and all,” he said, fishing out a small white bag festooned with the Smithsonian logo. He opened it to show Deacon a couple of packages of freeze-dried ice cream. “He loves this stuff, though, so I thought maybe it’d cheer him up. For a minute, anyway.”

“I’ve had some of that. Tastes like shit.” Deacon circled the museum, pulled out onto Independence Avenue.

“Well, good thing it’s not for you, then,” Roy said. “Graham likes it—guy in the store said it’s their best-selling item.”

“It’s amazing what people would rather have than money,” Deacon said. He had used that expression with Roy before, usually in reference to the product they were moving for the Snowman. It was one of Deacon’s father’s favorite sayings, his daddy being the last in a long line of Southwestern Virginia bootleggers. Fast cars and illicit substances were in Deacon’s blood.

Deacon hit the brakes hard, barely avoiding a small group of people crossing Independence against the light. “Goddamn tourists,” he said, leaning on the horn for emphasis. “Why didn’t you call this morning?” he said to Roy. “I’d have given you a lift.”

Roy shrugged. “Just felt like taking the train.”

Deacon turned right onto Seventh Street, flipping off the Dodge Caravan in the left lane for no particular reason as he did so. “Hate tourists,” he said to no one in particular. “We gotta get you a car, Roy. You’ve never had one?”

“Never even had a license.”

“Never? C’mon.”

“It’s true.”

“Oh, I get it—court order?”

“No, by choice.”

Deacon drove them across Pennsylvania Avenue, still on Seventh, out of the “Federal” city, into the real downtown DC. “That’s just crazy,” he said. “My daddy had me driving when I was seven years old.”

“I rode a lot of horses when I was younger.”

They rolled on into Chinatown, past the Verizon Center where the Capitals and Wizards and all the big concerts play. “You see Ovechkin last night?” Deacon asked. He was a big hockey fan, loved the precision speed and aggression of the game. “Another hat trick. Kid’s unbelievable.”

Roy, on the other hand, wasn’t much of a sports fan. “Hat trick—hockey, right?”

Deacon shook his head. “Gotta get you out to a game one night—it’s a whole different experience watching it live in person. You could bring Graham—maybe he’d get into it. This kid Ovechkin, though, best player in the game and he’s not even twenty-five. Shit—how’d you like to be twenty-five again, whole life in front of you?”

Roy didn’t answer, just stared out the window as they drove past the Howard University campus. “Shit, man, I’m sorry,” Deacon said, recognizing Roy’s mood.

Roy kept staring, thinking of Flora.

“I’m such an asshole,” Deacon said.

“Where we headed, Deke?”

“Well, needed to run up to Shaw for a quick cash pick up—why, you not up for it? We can come back later, you want to head home for a little bit.”

“Pull over.”

“I can run you by the house—“

“Pull over.”

Deacon slammed on the brakes, then made a hard right onto a side street. He scanned the available parking quickly as he gunned the Explorer up the block. “Hang on,” he said, spotting a curb space in the opposite lane. Giving no signal, he made a hard u-turn in the middle of the street and slid into a tight parallel park, all in one more or less single motion, leaving three inches of space in both directions.

Roy realized he’d been holding his breath. He exhaled deeply.

Deacon killed the engine. “What’s up?” he said.

Roy stared at Deacon, meeting his eyes squarely, until the smaller man looked away. When Roy finally spoke, his voice was soft, measured. “Couple of DC cops stopped by the house to see me yesterday,” he said.

Deacon looked back up at Roy, his eyes flashing with anger. “Christ, they’re worse than the Feds. Look, Mr. Frost has a few friends downtown—let’s have him make a call, get them off your back. They think you killed Flora, too?”

“No, they were asking about Ellis McCoy.”

Deacon held Roy’s eyes for just a fraction of a second, then looked away. But in that fraction, Roy knew. In his head, Roy had known since yesterday. And now that he had seen it in his partner’s eyes, if only for a fraction, he knew it in his head.

Deacon recovered quickly. “Ellis McCoy?” he said dismissively. “They gave up on that one years ago.” Roy said nothing. Deacon stumbled on. “Accident. Brakes gave out.”

“The cops told me that the brakes were tampered with,” Roy said, his voice still measured and soft. “They knew it, but it was so expertly done that they couldn’t prove it.” Roy watched Deacon’s reaction carefully—a small, reflexive grin, a man proud of his work despite himself.

“Hunh,” Deacon said, recovering nicely. “I never heard that.”

Roy flushed. Suddenly, the Jeep felt very small, very warm. Roy used his gloved hands to shove the sleeves of his jacket up to his elbows. He unzipped the jacket down below his ribcage to let in some air.

“You OK?” Deacon asked quickly. Roy didn’t answer. “Been meaning to ask you, anyway—where’d you get that tattoo?”

Roy looked down at the large, blue circle on the inside of his massive right forearm. An Aztec calendar, encircling a large, spiral feather. “Long weekend in Mexico,” he said.

“That sounds like a good story—“

“Why’d you do it, Deacon?” Roy said, eyes still on his tattoo. He asked the question so softly, Deacon leaned his head in reflexively.

“What? Look, Roy, I don’t know what you’re—“

“Don’t fuck with me, Deacon.” Roy looked up, staring into Deacon’s eyes until the smaller man looked away again. “Why’d you kill my wife?”

Deacon kept his eyes fixed on the tachometer set in the dashboard, unable to meet his partner’s gaze.

“Deacon.”

Deacon’s right knee started bouncing up and down, his heel keeping involuntary time with his racing heartbeat. His eyes remained glued on the dash. “I don’t—“

“ Deacon.”

The words tumbled out of Deacon all at once, tripping over one another. “Look, Roy, Mr. Frost, he—let’s just drive up to Kalorama right now and sit down with him. We can figure this whole thing out. He said that to me when—he wants to see you. It’s not far. Let’s go.”

Roy remained calm, unmoving, during Deacon’s outburst. His voice maintained the same even, quiet tone. “Mr. Frost had you kill my wife, Deacon?”

Deacon’s body spasmed in the driver’s seat, and a pair of tears leaked from his right eye. Roy couldn’t decide if the tears were born of remorse or fear. He hoped it was the former, but feared it was the latter. “He—he said if it looked like an accident, that you’d—you’d be too dumb to notice.”

Roy reached across the seat and placed a comforting hand on the nape of Deacon’s neck. He gave his partner a soft, reassuring squeeze. Even through the thick leather of his gloves, he could feel Deacon’s pulse racing. “What else did Mr. Frost say, Deacon?”

Deacon was sobbing quietly, openly, now. “He said that she was holding you back—that a man with a family could never reach his full potential.” Deacon looked up, finally, nodding at Ray hopefully, his eyes shining bright through the tears. “He said—he said that with nothing to lose, you could do great things.”

Roy watched the hope rise in Deacon’s damp eyes. “You did this for me?”

“Yeah.” Deacon nodded feverishly, his neck bobbing under the weight of Roy’s paw. “Let’s go see Mr. Frost, work all this out.”

“I don’t think so, Deacon.”

Deacon’s shoulders tensed in response to Roy’s subtle shift in tone. His eyes dropped back down to the steering wheel. “He said he’d kill me if I didn’t do it, Roy.” A fresh tear rolled slowly down Deacon’s cheek. “He said he’d kill me.”

Roy nodded slowly, his left hand still resting on the back of Deacon’s neck. He gave it a little squeeze, his mouth tight with resignation. “You shoulda let him do it.”

Roy squeezed again, and felt the bones in Deacon’s neck give way.