A White Mercedes Pulled Up to Gate Six on a Tuesday Afternoon Without a Permit

I held it long enough for him to notice.

He capped the pen.

“Something else, Sergeant?”

“No, sir.”

“How is Michael liking the eighth grade?”

The question came out easy, the way a man asks about the weather.

I told him fine.

I did not tell him my son had come home on Monday with a knot in his shoelace and no explanation for it.