When he found us standing on his front stoop, Richie Boyle gave Clemens a bear hug. The ex-cop was wearing madras shorts, a sleeveless green Boston Celtics T-shirt, and a ratty pair of black flip-flops. For an old man, he was in great shape. Muscles rippled down his freckled arms as he held Clemens, and his neck was thick, like football players I’d seen on TV. Then he dropped Clemens, slapped his shoulder, and was all smiles, as if Clemens were an old buddy from high school he hadn’t seen in years. But his mood went cold when Clemens introduced me.

“Last name Taylor?” Richie asked Clemens.

Clemens said, “Yep. Trell Taylor. Daughter of one Romero Taylor.”

Richie looked cross-eyed. “What’s this about?”

“Can we come in?” Clemens said.

I could hear voices inside his small dark house. They were loud, then quiet, then loud again. Like someone arguing. But after we followed Richie, I saw a police scanner in the middle of the living room. The noise was cops talking to one another on one of the police channels. I also saw why Richie was so fit looking. There was a chin-up bar in the entry to the kitchen, and the dining room was given over to a weight room, with barbells, free weights, and a hard rubber mat on the floor.

One thing really stood out — a giant, and I mean giant, framed photograph hanging in the middle of the living room wall. Nothing else was near it, and there was a plaque tacked underneath. The whole setup reminded me of a place of worship. The picture featured a row of white guys, some in police uniform, and smack in the middle stood Detective Richie Boyle, his arm around District Attorney Frank Flanagan. They were holding a red-bordered certificate, and the plaque beneath explained they’d received a commendation from the mayor for their public service in the apprehension of George “G-man” Whigham and his drug empire.

Overall, the place was immaculate. File boxes were stacked in rows along one whole side, cardboard boxes like the ones Nora uses in her law office. But these ones had BOSTON POLICE stamped on the side of them. When he’d retired, Richie Boyle must have taken cleaning out his desk at work to the extreme. It looked like he brought home every file from every single case he’d ever worked on.

“Unfinished business,” Richie said when he caught us looking at all the stuff.

Richie filled a glass of cold water for Clemens at the kitchen sink, and only as an afterthought did he offer me one. Clemens said, “Speaking of unfinished business.” Clemens drank the water in one long swallow.

Richie led us back into the tiny living room.

“Ruby Graham,” Clemens said.

Richie Boyle wouldn’t even look at me. Like I wasn’t even there.

“Okay,” Richie said. “Big case. One of the biggest ever.”

“I’ll cut to the chase,” Clemens said. He asked about Daddy living on Humboldt Ave.

Richie rubbed his meaty fingers over his face as if he were bored. He exhaled deeply. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “I knew all about that.”

I shot a look at Clemens, unable to hide my shock.

“Romero Taylor living above the Humboldt Superette but being a shooter for Castlegate? I knew all about that.” Richie Boyle took another deep, bored breath. “So what?”

I couldn’t sit still. “It makes no sense, that’s what.”

Richie turned from Clemens to glare at me. “Didn’t change the evidence,” he said emphatically.

Before I could stand up from the folding chair in Richie’s tiny living room, Clemens’s right hand reached across my lap to gently but firmly keep me in place. He lifted his hand and pointed to the police scanner that was blaring nonstop with cop talk. As if calling a time-out, Clemens changed the subject.

“Can’t give it up, eh, Richie?” he said.

Richie stood and walked over to the scanner. “Keeps me entertained.” He chuckled to himself. “Just last week, Clem, unbelievable.” He began rubbing his hands together and opened a big smile, his bright-white teeth lined up neatly like the file boxes. “You hear about the shooting on Blue Hill Ave.? At the takeout joint — Wa-lukies, Wa-kukies? Some nutty name like that. Three guys walk in, shoot some dude at the counter holding his cheeseburger and fries. People flying for cover under tables. French fries flying, too, all over the place.”

“Walaikums,” Clemens said.

“What?” Richie said.

“Wa-lai-kums. The joint’s name is Walaikums. Shooting was around midnight.”

“So you know about it.”

Clemens said, “I wrote the brief. I’m working the overnight now, and I wrote the news brief for the Globe. The victim — Teddy Evans, age twenty-three — was dead on arrival at Boston City.”

“That’s the one,” Richie said. “Teddy Evans. Guess you could say he died hungry.”

Richie was the only one who laughed.

“So, anyway, get this. The shooters jump in a car, take off. Police see ’em and follow. Other police join in, and suddenly you got this unbelievable chase, the shooters zigzagging their way through side streets, along Franklin Park. I’m listening to the entire thing on the radio. I’m on the edge of my seat. You have to understand, chases are usually over in a few minutes or less. Guy crashes into a pole or something. Police cut ’im off. But this thing just keeps going. The shooter at the wheel, man, must have been some kind of driver. So I’m listening — it’s way better than anything you’ll ever find on TV — and I realize the chase is heading my way. They’re coming down Elm Street, just around the corner from me.

“I run out front. I’m standing in the yard. The sky is all lit up, maybe a dozen cruisers now, their cherry tops flashing. I’ve never seen anything like it. I see the shooters’ car turn onto my street. I’m going, oh my Gawd! Here they come. The driver’s got this wild look on his face, and the back window is rolling down. I’m thinking I better duck and dive, ’cause maybe they’re gonna take a shot at me. But that’s not it. They’re throwin’ something outta the car. Like a couple of rocks. If I was wearing a mitt, I coulda caught ’em — that’s how close it was. I look down and on the ground. On each side of me is a pistol. They’d tossed their weapons.

“Unbelievable, right? They race past me in a flash, the shooters, and so do the police. The whole thing ends five minutes later in Mattapan, where they made a stupid turn and got trapped on a dead end, Woodruff Way.

“In the meantime, I run inside, grab a couple of evidence bags I keep just in case, and place the handguns in them.”

Richie Boyle stopped there, his face glowing. “You shoulda seen the duty captain’s face when I walked into District 5 carrying the murder weapons.”

Richie looked at Clemens. “Unreal, huh?”

“Like the old days,” Clemens said.

“Whaddya mean?”

Clemens said, “I don’t know, sounds like something from the bad old days, the eighties. You know, when ‘Crack was king’ — all hell breakin’. Streets a war zone.”

Richie’s face went slack. “Gawd, hope not.” His voice got serious. “That was hell, Clemens.” Richie began rubbing his chin, his mind heading off in a different direction. “We weren’t ready — that’s the truth,” Richie said. “Chief always saying it’s a New York thing. He was in denial. Then crack hit us. Never seen street crews organized like that in Boston — binoculars, walkie-talkies, weapons like never before, pump shotguns, even Uzis. Pit bulls roaming their bunkers, a first line of security.” Richie shook his head at the memories. “Bad things happened, bad things.”

“Like Ruby Graham,” Clemens said.

Richie shot Clemens a look. “Like Ruby Graham,” he said. “Poor little girl. Flanagan and his people in the DA’s office, along with us police — we were under so much pressure to cap the volcano. That’s what the crack cocaine thing was, a volcano. It took us a while, but we took back the street.”

Clemens said, “And from the ashes rose the likes of Lamar ‘Thumper’ Parish.”

Richie let Clemens’s remark go unchallenged. “Yeah, well, maybe he’s still out there. But we got most of ’em. We got the G-man.” Richie pointed to the giant photograph hanging on the wall. “Remember him? George ‘G-man’ Whigham? He was a big deal. When he swaggered through the projects, it was like time stopped until he went through. Least we got him.”

Richie paused, lost in a distant thought.

Clemens broke the silence. “Richie, what’s with the front yard?”

“What? The lawn?” Richie gave us a crooked smile. “Everybody else on the street pours cement for a front yard doesn’t mean I can’t have a patch of grass? What the heck?”

“I’m not talking about that,” Clemens said. “I’m talking about the monster sign you got planted smack in the middle of your little green acre.”

Clemens meant the sign painted in red and blue letters on a white background: MENINO FOR MAYOR.

Clemens continued. “I’m surprised. I would have expected you’d be all in for Frank Flanagan. You were so tight, a crime-fighting tandem. That’s how I remember it. I figure you’d want to help make sure he gets elected this time, right the wrong of his defeat four years ago.”

“Well, things change.”

For the second time since we’d been at Richie’s, a silence took over. Then, just like before, Clemens broke it, and when he did I realized Clemens had had a plan all along, where, after a time-out and some small talk, he was looping back to the reason we were there. He was a reporter working an interview, I realized.

“It is kinda strange, Richie, don’t you think?”

Richie looked at Clemens.

“That Romero Taylor would be a shooter for Thumper Parish’s Castlegate, and he was living on Humboldt.”

“Jeezus, Clemens, that again?”

“It is strange, Richie. Gets stranger, the fact Romero Taylor wasn’t part of Castlegate, wasn’t part of any gang, for that matter.”

“May seem strange to you, but it wasn’t to us,” Richie said firmly. He was getting worked up. “We had evidence. Evidence. We learn the shooter was wearing an Adidas running suit. We learn running suits were Romero Taylor’s everyday threads; he becomes a person of interest.

“We got witnesses come forward — and that’s no easy thing, mind you, getting anyone in the neighborhood to stick their neck out to help police. God forbid that should ever happen. Maybe it’s because the victim was so young — who knows. The point is they implicated Taylor. Bottom line: Taylor is our killer. End of story.”

I watched Clemens studying Richie, and I watched Richie look away.

“Still,” Clemens said.

“Still what?” Richie interrupted.

“Still doesn’t explain what I was sayin’ about Romero Taylor.”

“Jeezus, Clemens,” Richie said, his voice rising, agitated. “We had evidence, we made the case, we took it to the jury, and that no-good drug-dealing child killer was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Jeezus, Clemens.”

It took me every ounce of control not to interrupt.

Clemens said, “Your witnesses — seems convenient how they turned up.”

“What?” Richie said.

“How it was months after the killing before they turned up — and just weeks before Romero Taylor’s murder trial was starting. Seems convenient. How Frank Flanagan was able to roll out three witnesses in time for the trial.”

“Like I said, it’s rare we get any help from the neighborhood. It took time.” Richie spoke the words slowly; he was gritting his teeth. He continued, “C’mon, Clemens, of all people, you know how it is. Human dirt like Romero Taylor? No conscience. Harms everything he touches. Even if this one wasn’t his — and don’t think for a second I’m suggesting that — but even if he wasn’t the shooter on this one, I promise you he was on another.”

Richie grew heated. “That’s how it is, Clemens. You know that. With these guys, they’re guilty with a capital G. If not for one crime, then it’s another. So at the end of the day, everything evens out.”

I finally had to say something. “What kind of crazy math is that?”

Richie Boyle and I traded looks. I thought he might explode at me. Instead it was like he saw me for the first time, and I wanted to make sure he saw exactly who I am, a fourteen-year-old teenager wanting the truth about why her father was in prison.

I said, “You sayin’ police are fine putting someone in jail for something they didn’t do, because if they didn’t do that crime, they’ve done others — and that’s okay? It all evens out?”

Richie didn’t answer me. He looked down and began to rub his forehead using both hands. The veins on his temple were popping.

“Clemens,” he said. “This is a long time ago. You sure you want to be doing this?”

“Is that a threat, Richie?” Clemens said.

“Threat? No. It’s just I thought you were out of the game.” Richie’s voice was quiet now. “Like me — I thought you were done.”

We left after that. Clemens and Richie Boyle went through the motions of saying good-bye. No bear hugs this time. Clemens and I walked in silence for about a block before I said, “You call him someone who cares about justice?”

“I know,” Clemens said.

“Funny kind of justice, if you ask me.”

“It’s not what I expected.”

Then Clemens looked at me. “Evidence,” he said. “Now we’re the ones who need evidence. New evidence. Evidence to show the evidence they used was wrong and unjust.

“We got heavy work to do,” he said.