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“If there isn’t, there should be. Along with a subcommittee dedicated to ogre diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

I chuckled. My oldest friend had one of the strangest senses of humor I’d ever encountered.

We both wore our badges on chains around our necks as we walked through the brush about a hundred yards from the ramp.

Sampson said quietly, “Upper right corner of the north embankment. Out on that girder. That’s Lainey Locket herself watching us.”

I waited a few seconds, then glanced over and saw a tall, rail-thin woman in wild clothes standing on a girder that stuck out the side of the ramp. Beside her was a familiar figure. “That Anna Bananas under the ramp there too?”

Sampson checked. “Looks like it. Locket said they’re friends.”

“And Hawk lives at the top of the south bank.”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” he said as we passed under the ramp and into its shadow.

The police tape was gone. The flags were gone. All that was left of the Audi was melted tire rubber, scorched mud, and barbecued pavement chunks.

Sampson led us left to the south embankment, got up on the retaining wall, and started to climb. On the lowest tier, an old woman in dirty clothes stood outside a cardboard Amana refrigerator box. She stared right through us as we passed.

Two tiers up, where the shelters were crowded together, Sampson stopped and muttered, “Oh, man. I knew he was in a bad way, but I never expected to see him here.”

I peered around Sampson and saw a disheveled man in his early forties sitting by a patched yellow tent about thirty feet from us. He had a blanket around his shoulders and was huddled over a camp stove, stirring something in a little pot.

My heart went out to the guy. I recognized him too. He’d done two tours in Iraq with the US Army before joining the Metro PD, and he did well his first five years with the force, with a career on a steep uphill trajectory. But two weeks after making detective, he’d had some kind of mental breakdown and turned violent, beating a suspect in public. He’d been suspended and was eventually fired for his increasingly erratic behavior, which resulted in multiple cases being compromised. That was the last I’d heard of him.

“Sean?” Sampson said. “Sean Brundage?”

The man twisted his head toward us, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. “Whoever you are, Sean’s not home.”

As we approached, Brundage picked up a pint of vodka, poured half of it into the pot, and set the bottle down. With shaky hands, he poured the pot’s contents into a tin cup.

Sampson took a step closer and squatted down. A family of four watched us warily from the shelter just beyond Brundage’s tent. “It’s John Sampson. Alex Cross is here too. You remember us?”

His eyes seemed to focus. “I remember. Whaddya want?”

Sampson said, “You know Hawk? Lives on the south side?”

Brundage nodded. “Screwed-up dude. He’s former Special Forces. Three tours in Afghanistan. Seems perfectly sane when you meet him, but he can get scary fast. He was in the shit for years.” He took another drink from his cup and shuddered. “He thinks he talks to the spirits of everyone he killed over there.”

“Ever hear of him killing anyone when he wasn’t in Afghanistan?” I asked.

“Nothing more than rumors, man.”

“We’re investigating the car that burned up here yesterday. You see it?”

Brundage drank from his cup, then shook his head. “Slept through it. They were pulling it away when I got up.”

“Kid on the other side says there was someone wearing a clerical collar in the car,” I said.

Brundage got a seen-it-all look on his face and shrugged. “Another of life’s tragedies.”

Sampson said, “Do you know this guy Choir Boy?”

“Hawk talks to him,” Brundage said. “Weird kid. Weird eyes. Dead eyes. Like he’s got no soul, brother. Lot of that going on around here.” The former cop stared at the ground in silence, finished what was in his cup, then poured the rest of the vodka into the steaming pot.

“Sean,” Sampson said after a moment, “can we take you somewhere? Get you some help?”

He shook his head angrily. “Just leave me be. There’s no help for me out there, man. My soul left the station a long, long time ago.”