Real power, the kind that holds when it is tested, is not swagger or social standing.

It is a clean title to your own home, and an airtight evidentiary record, and a lawyer filing the right motion at the right hour.

They had the feeling of power.

I had the actual thing.

The afternoon was about to make the difference between them unmistakable.

Chapter 12 — Detective Miller

At the precinct, a detective named Miller took my formal statement, and I watched a good investigator’s face change as the evidence accumulated in front of him.

He reviewed the emergency-room intake records.