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The Straight Circle meets in the basement of the Buell Street Methodist Church every weekday from four to five PM. It’s
Buckeye City—sometimes known as the Second Mistake on the Lake, Cleveland
Reverend Mike,
Straight Circle is, in fact, the Church of the Crashed and Burned.
Now Trig tells the Rev he’s upset because he found out he lost someone he knew. The Rev asks for more details—pries for them, actually—but all Trig will say is that the person he’s mourning died in lockup.
That, and thinking about his father, which he does more and more frequently these days.
Let it go, he thinks. Forget it. That is on March 24th. Forgetting lasts just thirteen days.
BUCKEYE BRANDON: MURDERED PRISON INMATE MAY HAVE BEEN INNOCENT!
Buckeye Brandon’s podcast
If you do it, you can never go back, he tells himself. That’s also true. Once you start, you must keep on, he tells himself, and that’s truest of all. His father’s mantra: You have to push through to the bitter end. No flinching, no turning away.
so no one will make the connection.
Izzy Jaynes gives a one-knuckle courtesy knock on her lieutenant’s door and goes in without waiting. Lewis Warwick is tilted back in his chair,
her current partner, Tom Atta. It’s
DETECTIVE LOUIS WARWICK at 19 COURT PLAZA.
To: Lieutenant Louis Warwick From: Bill Wilson Cc: Chief Alice Patmore
Alan Duffrey. Shanked last month at Big Stone. Died in the infirmary.
Then that podcaster, Buckeye Brandon, blowing off his bazoo, and the follow-up piece in the paper. Both about the guy who came forward to say he framed Duffrey.” “Cary Tolliver.
he framed Duffrey.” “Cary...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“Tolliver making a clean breast was sort of like locking the barn door after the horse was stolen, wouldn’t you say?”
“The Bill Wilson I’m thinking of was the founder of AA. Maybe this guy goes to AA and he’s tipping us to that.”
Holly is vaccinated up the ying-yang, but Covid is still killing someone in America every four minutes, and Holly doesn’t want to take chances.
“Lewis Warwick got this letter. So did Chief Patmore. Check it out.”
“Long story short, Alan Duffrey was the chief loan officer at the First Lake City Bank, but until 2022 he was just another loan department guy in a cubicle. It’s a very big bank.”
As an investigator who has worked with adjusters from many companies, she knows their big secret: the fun stops once a claim, especially a big one, is lodged with the company.
Barbara Robinson’s face on
Izzy and Tom Atta
Cary Tolliver’s room.
Izzy, mindful of Holly Gibney’s pet peeve about
insurance companies: “I’m surprised the company didn’t find a way to wiggle out of it. I mean, he did frame a man who got murdered in prison. Did you know about that?”
Izzy thinks that if there’s an afterlife, Alan Duffrey may be waiting there for his one-time colleague, Cary Tolliver. “And he’ll want to have a few words.” Tom looks at her. “What?” “Nothing.” 5 Holly pulls
“This is not my business. Shoemaker, stick to thy last.”
It’s not impossible that he met the murdered man, Alan Duffrey, in AA or NA. (Also assuming it’s Duffrey the letter-writer is on about.)
Holly Gibney is right there with her. She herself was sexually abused as a young woman and knows few women—including Izzy Jaynes—who were not, in one way or another. Also, Kate McKay has what Holly thinks of as
strut.
Cary Tolliver is not that man.
from Tom Atta
“Known associates.
“Talk to Pete Young in the loan department. Claire Rademacher, the chief cashier. He was buddy-buddy with both of them. Or Kendall Dingley, he’s the branch manager.”
woodsy suburban township
called Upriver.
This makes him think of an AA mantra: One drink is too
many and a thousand are never enough.
If he gets that far without seeing someone walking alone, he’ll pack it in. Maybe just for today, maybe for good.
Sure, Daddy says. Go on and flinch, you fucking flincher.
thinks, Don’t flinch.
He did it, though. When the time came, he didn’t blow his foot off and he didn’t flinch. He’s sorry the woman in the jeans and hoodie had to be a part of his atonement, but he’s sure if there is a heaven, that woman is already being introduced around. Why not? She is one of the innocent.
Kate’s Borsalino—a kind of fedora,
She was wearing it on the cover of both Ms. and Newsweek.
this isn’t Kate McKay’s first rodeo.
cocking it to the left as Kate does. That way it obscures most of her face, thus assuring her of a trip to Saint Mary’s ER not long hence.
