Later

10

We did the drive-thru at the Tarrytown Burger King, and I got a Whopper, as promised. Also a chocolate shake. Mom didn’t want to stop, but Liz insisted. “He’s a growing boy, Tee. He needs chow even if you don’t.”

I liked her for that, and there were other things I liked her for, but there were also things I didn’t like. Big things. I’ll get to that, I’ll have to, but for now let’s just say my feelings about Elizabeth Dutton, Detective 2nd Grade, NYPD, were complicated.

She said one other thing before we got to Croton-on-Hudson, and I need to mention it. She was just making conversation, but it turned out to be important later (I know, that word again). Liz said Thumper had finally killed someone.

The man who called himself Thumper had been on the local news every now and then over the last few years, especially on NY1, which Mom watched most nights while she was making supper (and sometimes while we were eating, if it had been an interesting news day). Thumper’s “reign of terror”—thanks, NY1—had actually been going on even before I was born, and he was sort of an urban legend. You know, like Slender Man or The Hook, only with explosives.

“Who?” I said. “Who did he kill?”

“How long until we get there?” Mom asked. She had no interest in Thumper; she had her own fish to fry.

“A guy who made the mistake of trying to use one of Manhattan’s few remaining phone booths,” Liz said, ignoring my mother. “Bomb Squad thinks it went off the second he lifted the receiver. Two sticks of dynamite—”

“Do we have to talk about this?” Mom asked. “And why is every goddam light red?”

“Two sticks of dynamite taped under the little ledge where people can put their change,” Liz went on, undeterred. “Thumper’s a resourceful SOB, got to give him that. They’re going to crank up another task force—this will be the third since 1996—and I’m going to try for it. I was on the last one, so I’ve got a shot, and I can use the OT.”

“Light’s green,” Mom said. “Go.”

Liz went.