I STOOD IN THE STORAGE room of the Morgen, looking down at Dono’s casket.

Somebody had cleared the room of all the cases of food and whiskey, but it was still a small space. The casket and the flower stand with its wreath of white roses took the lion’s share. The mortuary attendant and I took most of the rest. Big Willard had to stand out in the hallway.

The lid of the box was closed. The attendant looked at me. I nodded, and he withdrew a hex key and unlocked and opened the top half of the casket lid. He and Willard walked silently back toward the main room of the bar.

Dono’s skin had a slight sheen to it, like the casket’s varnish. His gray hair was brushed back flat against his scalp. He didn’t look peaceful. He didn’t look angry. He had no expression at all.

The funeral home had dressed him in a navy blue suit with matching tie and white shirt. I didn’t know if the clothes were his or bought by Willard for the occasion. Dono had been shot behind the left ear, but that side was turned to the back of the box.

Someone came up in the hallway behind me. It was one of the junior attendants, returning with the sash for the wreath.

“Get out,” I said.

When I turned back to the casket, I saw that Dono had his wedding ring on. He must have mentioned it in the funeral instructions he’d left with Ganz. Even I wouldn’t have thought to hunt through the house for the ring, much less put it on him.

For your grandmother. If I’m going to see her again, I’d better be wearing it.

“You should have sent for me earlier,” I said. In the small room, my voice bounced around the walls, hollow. “You didn’t need the goddamn diamonds.”

There was no answer. I left him.

The main room was nearly empty. A couple of women in white shirts and black bow ties were setting up a buffet of food at the far side. The bar tables and chairs had been left in place for people to sit where they wanted. A microphone stand was in the center of the small stage.

The front door opened, and Willard and another girl in caterer’s clothes came in from the alley. They were both carrying cases of wine. Willard wore a brown tweed suit made of enough fabric to cover a small car. He closed the door behind them, and they took the cases to the bar. The girl began opening them while Willard made a circuit of the room, checking everything.

“We’re about set,” he said as he lumbered past me. “You want me to open up?”

“Yeah.”

He went back and unlocked the door and opened it wide. I stayed where I was, just out of the room.

There was a small crowd of people waiting outside. Jimmy Corcoran was first through the door, shouldering his way through the throng. He was followed by a couple of men I recognized, although they were a lot older than when I’d last seen them. Dono’s associates, from back in the day. They filed in, shaking hands with Willard like he was a retired heavyweight champ greeting high rollers at a casino.

Luce came in next, leading Addy Proctor. Addy was wearing a black sweater and gray pants, with a black knit shawl draped over her shoulders. Her spiky white hair looked like it was freshly cut. Luce had on a black knee-length dress with two-inch heels, which made Addy look even shorter beside her.

Luce looked around the room and spotted me lurking in the side passageway. She gave me a sad smile. I smiled back. It made my face hurt.

Damn near all of me hurt. It had been only the previous afternoon when Hollis and I had left the island. We’d pounded the speedboat through the evening darkness down the straits as fast as we could stand it. When we finally reached Seattle, I’d dropped the exhausted Hollis off at a motel.

But I’d had one more stop to make before I could rest.

Finally I’d driven to Luce’s to crash. I had called Detective Guerin on the way, to offer him a deal. I would hand him Dono’s killer—and maybe more. And he wouldn’t arrest me until he absolutely had to.

Another handful of people drifted in from the alley. Family types, maybe neighbors or some of Dono’s old contracting clients. Ephraim Ganz came in, wearing a double-breasted suit in a dark purple-black. He looked a little lost. He peered around until he saw me and made a beeline.

“Hi, kid,” he said, shaking hands. “How you doing?”

“Thanks for coming, Ephraim.”

“I don’t think I’ve been in this place in twenty years. I hardly recognize it. ’Cept for that thing.” He pointed at the medieval tapestry.

I saw Hollis by the door, talking with Willard. Hollis had borrowed a dark blue corduroy suit from somewhere, and it actually fit him better than most of his own clothes. His face was still pink and swollen, but his cuts had scabbed over. He nodded toward the stage, and Willard patted him roughly on the arm and walked over. He ignored the microphone and let his rumbling mixer of a voice quiet the crowd.

“Okay,” Willard said. “Thanks for coming. Dono Shaw was a hell of a friend to me. In a good way, I mean. To lots of you, too. Dono asked that Luce—Miss Boylan—start us off today.”

He sat down. Luce walked to the stage. She looked good. Her blond hair was swept back from her forehead in sleek ribbons, held there by some mysterious product, and small silver earrings accented a thick chain around her neck. Someone, Corcoran maybe, whistled low.

Luce held up a sheet of paper. “This might not be what you’d hear at other services,” she said. “But you all know that Dono was not your ordinary guy. He told me once that this song was one he and his late wife held dear.”

She began to sing. She had a high voice, not perfect, but clear and strong.

There were surprised sounds from the crowd, and a brush of laughter from Dono’s associates at the back.

I knew the song. Dono had an old long-playing record of it, sung by three women, with only a bodhran keeping a steady beat to back up the voices. An ancient poem of madness and defiance. Not your average dirge.

Luce waited until the noise had quieted.

Luce’s last note died away. Her song had held everyone rapt, me included, and it was a moment before the applause started.

Over the sound of the clapping, there was a clunk from the back of the room. I turned to see Mike Tolan holding the door open for his mother, Evelyn, the family slipping in under the cover of the clapping. Davey let the door close itself. Luce walked across the room to greet them as Willard stood up again.

“So if anyone’d like to say anything, there’s the mike,” he said. “Whenever the mood strikes you. And if your mood needs some help, there’s the bar.”

Laughter from the crowd. Addy Proctor stepped up to the microphone and started telling a funny story about when she’d moved onto the block and finagled Dono into helping her fix her porch light. I joined Hollis by the door.

“You look like I feel,” he said.

“It’s almost over.”

“Christ, it’s just getting started. When word about the diam—about what happened at the island gets out, our lives are headed to hell in a bullet train. Every kind of cop you can name is going to want a piece of this.”

One of Dono’s legitimate clients was on the stage now, saying something about Dono’s work on his home and how Dono was a true craftsman. Nobody paid much attention. The guys like Corcoran and Willard at the back of the room, the ones with the really interesting stories about Dono, would never tell them. At least not someplace where the tales might count as evidence.

Luce had taken a seat at a table against the back wall, with Davey. Mike wove his way toward them through the crowd from the bar, carrying a bottle of Redbreast whiskey and shot glasses. He caught my eye and waved me over.

As I crossed the room, people kept stopping me—all of them citizens, like the liquor distributor for the Morgen or the guy who fixed Dono’s truck. Each shook my hand and gave his condolences. I nodded and said thanks and excused myself. I’d done all the mourning I could for one day.

At the table Mike was filling the three shot glasses. Davey already had a tumbler in front of him. Mike clapped a big mitt on my shoulder and passed me a glass. I sat down. Luce gave me a short but serious kiss. Davey downed the last of his whiskey and held it out to Mike for a refill. His eyes were on the stage, where another speaker had taken the microphone.

“You gonna get up and talk?” Mike said to him.

Davey snorted. “You’re the one who always kissed Dono’s ass. You go. It’s your last chance.”

“Davey,” said Luce, glancing at me.

“It’s nothing,” Davey said. “Van knows it’s nothing, don’t you, Van?”

I sipped the whiskey. My throat was still raw from nearly drowning at the island, and the good liquor burned like acid. I set the glass back down.

“You and Dono never liked each other,” I said.

“Never liked?”

“All right. You hated him.”

Davey grinned. Now we were talking. “He hated me first.”

“But not best. Dono didn’t care enough about you to really hate you, Davey.”

Mike looked back and forth between Davey and me as we stared at each other across the scarred wood of the table. My fingers were tight around the shot glass.

“The fucker kicked you out of town,” Davey said.

“No. Leaving Seattle was my idea.”

“You might have stayed with me and Mike. Ma would have let you.”

“It was time for me to grow up. Take some responsibility.”

“Bullshit,” Davey said. “You’re making excuses for him. Do you know why Dono asked you to come home? He wanted to twist the knife a little.” Davey’s voice was high. People glanced over from nearby tables. “Dono was giving the bar to Mikey. Yeah. The old fucker wanted to tell you to your face that you were disowned.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Mike.

Davey toasted him. “Congrats, little bro. Free drinks for life.”

Luce looked as puzzled as Mike. “No one else knew about that.” Her expression changed as she stared at Davey. “You were here at the bar. The night Dono told me he was leaving his share of the place to Mike.”

“Hey, it’s not like I meant to listen in,” Davey said. “I was headed out the back for a smoke, and I passed the office and heard Dono talking to you about Van. Of course I stopped.” Davey looked at me. “Sorry, man.”

“Must have been a shock,” I said. “Your brother getting the Morgen.”

Davey scowled. “It should have gone to family. To you.”

Something tickled at my brain, but I set it aside. It wasn’t important. Not yet.

I caught Jimmy Corcoran’s eye and waved for him to come over. He grimaced. Willard and Hollis trailed after him. Mike and Luce looked at me questioningly.

When the three men reached the table, none of them took a chair.

“Hello, Lucille,” Hollis said to Luce. “Thanks for hosting the party.”

Corcoran nodded at me. “Sorry for your loss, kid.”

“I need your expert opinion, Jimmy,” I said. “How good are the white-collar cops here in Seattle? The computer-forensics unit.”

Corcoran looked at me like I was nuts. “You wanna talk here?”

“Just the basics. If the cops had somebody’s computer, what could they find out from it?”

“Okaaay,” he said. “Well, unless the guy was some genius type, I’d say the cops could find everything. What’s on the computer and every place that it had been on the Web, by stripping the internal drives and hunting around the net for traces of the machine’s IP address. Stop me if I’m going too fast for you.”

“I’ll manage. So wherever the computer’s owner hid something—”

“The cops would find it,” said Corcoran. “Might take a while, but I’ll give the pricks credit. They’re good.”

Willard nodded. “The cops even got some pet geeks on call. Those guys just love to hunt each other down, like some kind of pissing contest.”

Luce looked at me. “You’re talking about the laptop.”

“What laptop?” said Mike.

“I found a computer,” I said, “which belonged to a man who planted bugs in Dono’s house. He recorded everything that happened in the house, for weeks.”

“The night Dono was shot,” Mike said. “Holy shit.”

“I had the computer in my hand,” I said. “But I had to stash it in the truck, and then the truck went missing.”

Hollis nodded eagerly. “You told me the cops impounded it while you were avoiding their company. Don’t they have the damned gadget?”

I shook my head. “The police never got the chance. They weren’t the ones who took the truck. And they don’t have the computer.”

“So it’s gone?” said Corcoran. “All that work for fucking nothing?”

Luce put her hand over mine.

“And you’ll never know who did it?” said Davey.

“I already know who, Davey,” I said. “You killed him.”