8:00 P.M. The note was in the mailbox when McCabe got home around eight. He didn’t notice it at first, hidden among the advertising circulars and bills piled up from deliveries he hadn’t bothered to collect. It was in a plain white envelope with the words DETECTIVE MCCABE, 134 EASTERN PROM penciled in block letters across the front, as if written by a child’s hand. No stamp. No postmark. No return address. He decided to wait until he was upstairs before opening it. A blast of music from Casey’s bedroom assaulted his ears as he entered the apartment.‘Hello. I love you,’ he shouted from the doorway, ‘and turn that damn thing down.’He heard no response, either verbally from his daughter or in a reduction of decibels from her room. He crossed to the kitchen, dumped the junk mail in the recycling bin, took a bottle of Geary’s from the icebox, opened it, and took a long swig. He was in a foul mood, pissed at Sandy, pissed at Shockley, pissed at the world. At least the cold fizz of the beer felt good going down.McCabe went down the hall and leaned against the frame of Casey’s open door.
