I’ve explained how Nora Walsh became Daddy’s lawyer, which means at this point I’m pretty much caught up on everything important about Daddy’s case. Except for one thing. And it’s a pretty big thing. The reason Daddy was put in prison for the rest of his life. The murder of Ruby Graham.

Growing up, I never wanted to know too much. I knew that a little girl killed in 1988 was the reason Daddy was in Walpole for life. But that’s about all. Then last year Nora came into the picture, and by September she’d cleared out her schedule to start working on the case. That’s when I basically went to work for her — as an intern. I’d started at the Weld the same month, and the school requires students to do internships. It was Ma who came up with the idea, and Nora said she could use all the help she could get. Ma also liked the idea that she’d know where I was after school until she got home. The school was impressed — student legal intern — and approved it right away.

I began spending most of my free time at Nora’s office. I’d do whatever Nora wanted, and the first thing was to help her organize the case documents, transcripts, and police reports called Form 26s that she considered pretty important. Form 26, she explained, was a report police had to write about any person they interviewed during an investigation — a witness, bystander, anyone. We set up a long table in one corner of her office. Nora began calling it the war room.

I liked helping out, making new files and writing labels on them. (It was while I was doing that stuff that I came across Daddy’s “rap sheet” with the arrest photo.) Anyway, the more I hung around the law office, the more Nora gave me to do. I could tell she appreciated me being around, and it felt good to be doing something on the case. Made me feel proud and, in a funny way, closer to Daddy. After a while I began to feel like I was an expert on the files and was some kind of a junior attorney.

I’d watch Nora spend hours reading through the mountain of material, taking notes, scratching her head, and occasionally throwing a file against the wall. “I can’t believe this! I can’t believe this!” she’d scream. Then, after about a month, I arrived at the office one day after school, and Nora was leaning against the doorjamb as if she’d been waiting for me. She was acting all calm-like and had this serious expression. It felt like something was wrong, so I asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Of course,” Nora said. “It’s just . . .” Then she touched my shoulder gently. “Trell? Follow me.”

Nora led me to a tiny couch and sat me down. “It’s just that, now that I’ve gone through all the documents, I need to talk to you about why your daddy’s in prison. I need you to know everything, so that nothing, absolutely nothing, will come as a surprise when we go to court and appeal your daddy’s conviction.”

My eyes began popping out of my head.

Nora pulled a manila folder stamped 80-88. “You’ve seen this number on most of the files you’ve been organizing. It’s the official number for his murder investigation.” Nora looked me straight in the eye, and she said, “Trell, I’m going to tell you the story of your daddy killing a girl named Ruby Graham — the eightieth murder in 1988, and thus the homicide number 80-88.”

Nora knew the way she said it was going to shock me.

“But my daddy didn’t kill anybody!”

Nora took my hands into hers. I didn’t even realize I’d jumped off the couch and clenched my hands into fists. Nora made me sit back down.

She said, “But the police and the district attorney say he did, and they got a jury to agree.” Nora let go of my hands and settled into the couch. “I need you to know exactly how they managed to do that.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.” And as Nora began talking, I held my breath like I was underwater or something. She started by explaining that the summer of 1988 was a wicked one in cities like Boston — record heat and lots of crime. Cocaine and other drugs, guns, and street-gang warfare were all out of control — making for an altogether rotten time to be in the city. I’d already heard something about this from my parents, because this was the same summer they were welcoming me into the world, on May 5, and with all the random violence and innocent people getting hurt, they’d told me how worried they were for my safety, even just going out for a stroll.

Nora said, “By the time August came around, the number of murders in the city was on pace to set a record.” The way she was talking was the way someone telling a story talks, like a teacher to her class at circle time, or maybe like a lawyer to a jury during a trial. Start at the beginning. Set the stage. Introduce the main characters.

That summer, Nora said, a young couple named Romero Taylor and Shey Brown were living in Roxbury with their newborn baby, Trell, in a tiny one-bedroom apartment above a corner market on Humboldt Avenue. Romero Taylor was twenty-one years old, and while he held a job here and there — in the spring, for example, he’d worked the counter at the Au Bon Pain at Logan Airport — he mainly made money dealing drugs. Mostly marijuana but sometimes cocaine. He got “product” from any number of sources, and he was the sort of dealer known as “unaffiliated,” meaning he worked alone and was not part of any organized drug-dealing operation. It was his easygoing manner that enabled him to freelance and get along in a Roxbury neighborhood that was like a tinderbox ready to explode, given all the turf battles. His girlfriend, Shey Brown, meanwhile, was a bit younger, just nineteen. Until their baby was born, she’d worked as a cashier at a Goodwill store in Dudley Square.

“Humboldt Avenue, where they were living, was no walk in the park. Not much better today, but back in 1988, the street was legend. Everybody in the city knew Humboldt Ave. I grew up in Brighton, a world away even if it was actually only three miles from Roxbury, but in my neighborhood we all knew about Humboldt. And what I knew, what every kid knew, was you didn’t want to be going there, because of the shootings, the drugs, the gangs. It had a nickname, too.”

“Heroin Alley,” I said.

Nora seemed surprised. “You know that? Heroin Alley?”

I don’t know why Nora thought I wouldn’t know. I mean, I grew up in Roxbury, and where Ma and I live is only like a ten-minute walk away from Humboldt. So of course I’d heard stories about Humboldt Ave.

Nora continued. “Roxbury was carved up into a bunch of sections, each one controlled by gangs named after the street where their members lived. Like Humboldt Ave. — the gang there was the Humboldt Raiders. It was run by Tyrone Williams and his three cousins. The gang from Castlegate Road? It’s called Castlegate Boys, and Castlegate has always been run by Lamar Parish.”

“Thumper Parish,” I said.

“Say again?”

“Thumper Parish. He’s who you mean. I know about Thumper.”

“You do?”

“His nephew — his name is Paul — is in my grade. I think he’s a total jerk, by the way. Mean. I’m sure his uncle is the same, probably worse.”

Nora was studying me, and I think she was beginning to realize I knew more than she thought. “Okay, then,” she said. “Ruby Graham? 80-88?”

That’s when I shook my head. “I don’t know much about her.” The neighborhood, I knew about. The murder, that was something else.

“Well, okay.” Nora paused, like she was turning a page in her story to start a new chapter. “Ruby Graham was thirteen and lived with her family on a street off Humboldt. But that summer, her mother, with all the trouble, she’d sent Ruby to stay with relatives in North Carolina to keep her safe. Ruby was gone as soon as school got out in June, through July and during most of August. The Saturday night of August 20, 1988, was her first night home. She returned by bus, arriving in the morning. She spent the day with her mother and younger brother, and then after supper went out to see some of her girlfriends she’d missed all vacation.

“Lots of people in the neighborhoods were out, sitting on porches or yard chairs, trying to catch any hint of a breeze after another broiling-hot and muggy day that saw temperatures soar into the nineties. In some parts of the city, the fire department had opened hydrants so that kids could soak themselves. It was like Boston was one big fat candle melting away in the heat, and people were edgy.

“Ruby and her friends were gathered on a part of Humboldt Ave. with lots of shade, a grassy corner lot that was empty except for a squat brick substation owned by the light and power company where a large maple tree hung over the street like an umbrella. Ruby, so happy to see her friends after being away, was radiant — laughing and teasing some of the boys from the street who were hanging out. The heat wasn’t a bother to her, and she was like a pick-me-up energy bar for the others, who stood around as she told stories about being on a farm down South.

“You see, Ruby had climbed atop the blue mailbox like it was a horse, and was sitting there, swinging her legs. She was the center of things, really, happy as happy could be, as the minutes passed by and got on toward dusk.”

Nora stopped again. I could picture everything she was describing. I knew that corner lot, which wasn’t grassy anymore but was littered with broken glass, rocks, and rubbish ever since the power company shut down the substation. I knew the maple tree she meant, and the blue mailbox was still there. I’d walked past it plenty of times over the years. I mailed my letters to my daddy in that box.

“Ruby wouldn’t have known anything about the dispute that had been going on. How could she? She’d been away. Plus the latest trouble was not even forty-eight hours old. It had begun two nights before, when some Humboldt Raiders had ambushed two boys from Castlegate. Humboldt stole their cash and drugs, and during the altercation, one of the Castlegate boys was injured. To make matters worse, it turned out he was the boyfriend of Lamar Parish’s sister. He was taken to Boston City Hospital with a deep knife wound in his gut. Lamar’s sister became hysterical. The situation was red-hot the next couple of days, Lamar Parish and his Castlegate Boys wanting revenge.

“Ruby wouldn’t have had a clue, as she sat on the blue mailbox. Maybe she noticed some of the Humboldt boys glancing around and looking over their shoulders while she entertained everyone with her summer stories. But probably not. Ruby was most likely just swinging her legs and happy to be home.”

I began to feel queasy. Even if I did not know specifically what was coming next, I knew from growing up in Roxbury how things could change in a flash. How behind every tree, down every alley, in every stairwell or porch or rooftop, was the possibility of danger. It was a darkness that in an instant could swallow any light you had, and it could happen randomly and unexpectedly. You could be feeling good and carefree one moment, running for your life the next.

Nora said, “One of Ruby’s girlfriends told police later that the sound of the first gunshot was like a firecracker. Initially no one was alarmed. But then came a second pop, and a third, and someone in the group screamed and began pointing to the lot behind them. A person wearing, of all things, a Halloween mask had come from behind the brick substation. He held a gun in one hand and was firing his weapon as he ran toward the group gathered on the corner.

“The kids began screaming and scattered. Some hit the ground and frantically crawled for cover behind cars and tree trunks, while others ran off every which way down the street. The shooter fired a few more times and then suddenly stopped. He turned and ran off. It was over in a matter of seconds. Kids lifted their heads off the ground, looked around, seeing if it was safe to get up.”

Nora began shaking her head. “I don’t know if it was because the gunman was running toward them as he fired his weapon, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t shoot straight. His target had been the Raiders, but none of the boys from the gang were hit.

“Only one person was shot — the girl perched on the blue mailbox. Ruby Graham. Real quick, the others saw that Ruby was sprawled on the sidewalk, facedown. She wasn’t moving. The kids shouted her name, and one girl ran off to get Ruby’s mother. Blood pooled on the sidewalk near her head.”

Nora stopped. She sat still for a moment. Then she stood up and walked over to the long table filled with boxes. She flipped through the files. I stayed on the couch, frozen in place. Nora pulled out a document, studied it, and returned to the couch.

“I was looking for the doctor’s report.” She sat back down next to me. “I wanted you to see it.”

Nora put the report in front of me. It was two pages. She moved her finger down the document, scanning it until she found the part she was looking for. “Here,” she said, pointing to a paragraph describing three bullet wounds. The words in the paragraph were hard to follow — big words and medical terminology. But I’ll never forget the words describing the bullet that killed Ruby. The bullet penetrating her head, wrote the doctor, had “proved incompatible with life.”

This was the worst story I’d ever heard. I covered my eyes.