The Scar

Burke.

The name goes into you like cold water.

Burke, come on. Burke, wait.

You finish folding the muffin box lid. You do it very carefully, tab A into slot B, because your hands need a job or they're going to start shaking and never stop. Then you look up.

He's standing on the other side of your glass case, smiling at you.

Silver at the temples. A strong nose, an easy mouth, a good face for a campaign poster. Navy suit today, a raincoat folded over his arm, a tan one. And straight through his left eyebrow, pale and thin as a chalk line, the scar.

The world goes very quiet. The espresso machine hisses somewhere far away.

"Ms. Malloy?" He tilts his head, friendly, concerned. "You all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Long night," you hear yourself say. "Early morning. Baker's hours."

"I'll bet." He tucks his badge away. His eyes go around the shop, taking in the gold-leaf window, the old photo of Nana behind the register, the cases, the door to the back. Taking in everything the way he took in your face through the rain. "Beautiful place. My mother used to bring me here when I was a kid, you know that? Your grandmother used to give out the heels of the bread for free."

He's lying. You know he's lying, and you know he's telling you he did his homework.

"What can I do for you, Detective?"

"Well, I've got your statement here." He pulls a folded sheet from his inside pocket and smooths it on the glass, right over the lemon bars. "And it's a very good statement. Very detailed. The coat, the hair. A scar." He touches his own eyebrow, lightly, almost absently, and smiles. "Through the left eyebrow, it says."

You don't say anything. You can't.

"The thing is," he says gently, "it was raining very hard Thursday night. Visibility was terrible. You were looking through a window with, what, steam on it? You'd been up since three, you said. And you'd just watched something horrible." He shakes his head. "Memory's a tricky thing, Ms. Malloy. I've been doing this twenty-two years. I've seen witnesses swear on their mother's grave that a man was six-foot-two and blond, and he turns out to be five-seven and bald. It's not their fault. The brain fills in."

"I know what I saw."

"I'm sure you think you do." His smile doesn't change at all. "But if I were you, I'd be a lot less sure. For your own sake. Defense attorneys are brutal. A girl alone, running a business, all that stress." He looks around the shop again. "These old buildings. Wiring from the fifties. You'd hate to lose a place like this."

Behind you, in the back, the oven timer goes off.

He waits a beat. Then he points at the case. "Is that the famous soda bread?"

"Yes."

"I'll take a loaf."

You wrap it. Your hands do it on their own, the paper, the fold, the strip of tape with the bakery's name. You hand it over the glass. His fingers brush yours when he takes it, warm and dry, and you have to lock your knees to keep standing.

He pays in exact change. Then he lays a business card on the counter beside the register.

DET. SGT. BURKE STANNARD. ORGANIZED CRIME UNIT. A phone number.

"In case you remember anything," he says. "Anything different."

The bell jingles over the door when he goes. You watch him through the gold letters on the window as he gets into a gray sedan, tosses the soda bread on the passenger seat, and drives away down East Broadway at exactly the speed limit.

The bell stops swinging.

Your knees go.

You end up sitting on the floor behind the counter with your back against the cabinet where Nana kept the paper bags, and you can't breathe right. Little gasps, like there's a strap around your ribs. Dulce is at the bank. The shop is empty. Your hands are shaking so hard you can hear the bracelet on your wrist rattle.

Feet on the back stairs, fast.

Then Killian is there, crouching in front of you in his socks and jeans and an undershirt, his hair still wet from the shower. He doesn't touch you. He holds his hands up where you can see them, close but not touching.

"Ava. Hey. Look at me. Breathe with me. In. That's it. Out." His voice is so steady. "Did someone hurt you? Who was here?"

"It was him." The words come out in pieces. "The man in the alley. It was him, Killian. He came in. He showed me his badge."

Killian goes absolutely still.

"Badge," he repeats.

You fumble the business card off the counter above you and hold it out.

He takes it. He reads it. And you watch the color leave his face. You didn't know that could happen to someone like him. It goes out of him like a tide going out, and what's left is something very hard and very quiet and very old.

"Stannard," he says.

"You know him."

"I know of him." He turns the card over in his fingers. "Everybody in the life knows there's a cop. Aengus never says who. He calls him 'our friend downtown.' Fifteen years. Our friend downtown fixes things. Makes arrests go away. Makes evidence go away." His jaw is working. "And Eamon was going to the state Monday. With copies. With every name."

"Eamon," you say. "The man in the alley. You knew him."

For a long moment Killian doesn't answer. He's looking at the card, but he isn't seeing it.

"Eamon Mulcahy was my oldest friend," he says finally, very low. "My mother was his godmother. When I was fourteen and couldn't read much better than a kid in second grade, he sat with me every night for a year at our kitchen table until I could. Nobody else ever bothered." He swallows. "Aengus told me it was the Russians. He looked me in the face and said it was the Russians."

"Oh, Killian."

"He had his own cop kill him." His voice doesn't rise. Somehow that's worse. "And then he sent me to clean up the witness. To protect the cop."

You sit there on the floor together. The shop clock ticks.

"I can't go to the police," you say slowly, understanding it as you say it. "Can I? I gave my statement to the police. I told them the scar. I told them his name. That's how he knew it was me. That's how he found me so fast."

"No," Killian says. "You can't go to the police."

"And you." You stare at him. "You said no. You told Fennelly no. Not to some witness. To protecting him. To protecting the most important man he owns."

Killian looks at you. Then, very slightly, the corner of his mouth lifts. It isn't a smile. It's a man who's just looked down and seen how far the drop is.

"Yeah," he says. "I'm guessing I'm not his favorite anymore, Ava."

In the pocket of his jeans, his phone buzzes.

He pulls it out. You see the screen over his wrist. A message from a contact saved only as A.

A photo. Taken from somewhere down East Broadway last night, grainy with the zoom: Killian in the middle of the street, walking toward Colm's car. And above the bakery's blue awning, in your bedroom window, a slice of your own face between the blinds, watching him.

Below it, one line.

You've picked a side, son. So has everyone else.