Cody found his dad’s office disappointing. Steve Parker was assigned to the Northern District detective unit and worked in a low-slung, modern building off a busy highway. To Cody, it looked pretty much like his dad’s old office back in Milwaukee: row after row of drab cubicles, each with a chair and computer, case files stacked on top of desks, phone books and notepads tossed everywhere, and a coffeepot off to one side.

It reminded him of the insurance agency where his uncle Tim worked in Connecticut. Weren’t police stations supposed to be exciting places? Places where tough-looking men and no-nonsense women shouted into phones and interrogated bad guys and gulped down steaming coffee from Styrofoam cups before jumping into their cars and dashing off with lights flashing to another crime scene? Or was that just on TV and in the movies?

When his dad had picked him up from practice and said he needed to swing by the office to get his mail, Cody had been excited to see the place. But the only thing even remotely exciting about it, he thought, was the bright red M&M’s dispenser in the corner that someone had brought in, probably to amuse any young kids who visited and got bored. Which wouldn’t take long, judging by the look of things.

“Seems there’s been some trouble at your school,” his dad said, sitting at his desk and studying his laptop. “Couple of instances of petty theft at York Middle. County cops are handling it.”

Cody nodded distractedly. He was getting hungry and hoped his dad would hurry up so they could get home to eat.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” his dad said. “Everything okay?”

Cody looked out the window at the rush hour traffic snaking up Cold Spring Lane, a sea of white-yellow headlights and red brake lights as far as he could see. How to explain the charming Dante Rizzo, who seemed like the angriest kid he’d ever come across? And did he even want to get into this with his dad, who was already feeling guilty about moving his family to Baltimore and worried that his son was having a tough time adjusting?

“Everything’s fine,” Cody said. “I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

His dad grunted and went back to his mail.

The night before in the parking lot, after Cody had stumbled to his mom’s car with scrapes on his face and hands, he told her that he’d tripped over a curb in the darkness.

Seeing the look of alarm on her face, he’d added, “You know how clumsy I am.”

But after making sure he wasn’t badly hurt, Kate Parker had looked at him skeptically.

“So, you tripped,” she’d said, drawing out the words. “Over a curb.”

And when Cody had nodded—sure, that’s what happened, honest—Kate Parker had started the car, given him another sideways glance, and said, “Ohhh-kay. Let’s get home and clean you up.”

Okay, fine, it was a lame story. Mega-lame. Cody could see that now. What thirteen-year-old kid trips over a curb? Your ninety-year-old great-grandma with bad eyesight and a walker—maybe she trips over a curb. Not a young, active kid, no matter how hulking he is. But it was all he could come up with at the time.

Cody picked up a copy of The Baltimore Sun and glanced at the sports section. There were a few other detectives in the room, making phone calls, looking through files, and tapping away on their computers. A police scanner squawked unintelligibly in one corner.

After a minute or two, Cody put down the newspaper and took a deep breath.

“Dad,” he said, “were there any bullies in your school when you were a kid?”

His dad swiveled around in his chair and peered at him over his reading glasses.

“Someone bothering you?” he asked.

“No, no,” Cody said, trying to keep his voice light. “Just curious.”

Steve Parker leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head and nodded. “Max Wheeler was the big bully in eighth grade,” he said. “We called him Mad Max. Everyone was terrified of him. But, for some reason, he took a particular dislike to me.”

“Why you?”

“I was never exactly sure. I got pretty good grades. And I was a decent ballplayer. Maybe he resented that. Plus, I think he thought I was a rich kid. Which I definitely wasn’t. Anyway, he made my life hell, that’s for sure.”

“What did he do?” Cody asked, sitting up now.

“Oh, the usual stuff, right out of Bullying 101. He pushed me into lockers. Tripped me a couple of times in the halls. Elbowed me in the chest in gym class once. And he’d wait for me after school too. Just to tell me he was going to kick my butt. Like I hadn’t already gotten the message.”

Steve Parker shook his head at the memory and smiled softly, letting his gaze drift out the window. “He was a big, strong kid, Max was,” he continued. “Way bigger than me. My heart would start pounding whenever I saw him.”

Cody nodded. Yeah, know the feeling.

On the other hand, he couldn’t imagine his dad being afraid of anyone or anything now. A few years ago, when the whole family was on a white-water rafting trip in Wisconsin, his dad had leaped into the churning Menominee River to rescue a little kid who had fallen overboard.

And just last year Steve Parker had made the six o’clock news for foiling an early morning holdup. He had stopped in a convenience store for coffee when a knucklehead with a knife attempted to scoop the contents of the cash register and flee. Cody’s dad chased the robber for two blocks, drew his weapon, and forced the guy to surrender as pedestrians scattered for cover.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran the story with a photo of Detective Parker being thanked by the store owner. For days after, their phone rang with friends and neighbors and relatives calling to congratulate the hero.

Not that Cody’s dad would ever stand for anyone calling him a hero.

“I was just doing my job,” he told everyone. But Cody had never felt prouder of his dad. It was one of the reasons he wanted to be a police officer himself someday, although when he had confessed this to his mother, she had turned pale and said, “Please, sweetie. You’re going to make your mom old before her time.”

“So how’d you get Mad Max to leave you alone?” Cody asked.

His dad chuckled and turned back from the window. “Little bit of ingenuity—and a whole lot of luck,” he said. “One day, I had just had it with Max. I was tired of being bullied. Tired of being afraid all the time. So I decided to stand up to him. Sure, I knew I’d get my butt kicked. But maybe then he’d leave me alone.

“So the big showdown was going to be that day, right after school. And I figured I was a dead man. But that afternoon, I noticed something in science class. We were studying reptiles. All of a sudden, we heard this loud gasp. Everyone turned around. It was Max. He was staring at a picture of a snake that was being passed around. And he was white as a ghost!

“Well,” Cody’s dad continued, dropping his voice for dramatic effect, “guess what I had in my terrarium at home?”

Cody grinned and rubbed his hands together. This was going to be good.

“So I put off the big showdown for a day. And the next morning I bring Herbie, my pet garter snake, to school. Which wasn’t exactly easy. See, we didn’t carry backpacks back then. I brought him in a brown paper bag. Everyone thought it was my lunch.”

Cody tried to imagine what would happen at York Middle if a kid sat down in the cafeteria and pulled a two-foot garter snake out of his lunch bag. They’d probably evacuate the school and bring in a SWAT team.

“Now, school lets out and I start walking home,” his dad continued. “And there’s ol’ Mad Max, waiting for me on the corner. I’m swinging the lunch bag like there’s nothing in there but a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich I didn’t eat, or a cookie or something. Poor Herbie probably thought he was on a carnival ride.

“Naturally, Max blocks my path. Then he pushes me in the chest and says, ‘Let’s play a game, Parker. You give me what’s in the bag, and I won’t smash your face.’ ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘But can this little guy play too?’ Then I pull out Herbie.”

Cody whooped. Then, remembering where he was, he looked around sheepishly.

“You should’ve seen Max’s face,” his dad went on. “His eyes almost bugged out of his head! He actually started trembling. I almost felt sorry for him. Then he turned and ran away as fast as he could. And he never bothered me again.”

Cody and his dad sat in silence for a moment. Steve Parker couldn’t stop smiling at the memory. Cody couldn’t stop grinning and shaking his head in wonder. It was one of the finest stories he had ever heard.

“Anyway,” his dad said, “if you ever need help with someone like Mad Max, you know where to turn.”

Cody nodded and his dad stood and slung his laptop bag over his shoulder. “All right, let’s get home for dinner,” he said. “Your mother will be wondering where we are.”

But by the time they had said good-bye to the other detectives and were heading toward his dad’s car, Cody was back to thinking glumly about his predicament.

For an instant he wondered if Dante was scared of snakes.

Nah, he decided.

More likely, it was the other way around.