Edge

in person but heard he’d done a good job turning around some of the more dangerous neighborhoods in the city, which was one of the more dangerous cities in the country. He’d risen high in the MPD from street patrol in South East and was a bit of a hero too, like Ryan Kessler.
    Ryan paused, registering that I’d been doing my homework. “Then he told you he doesn’t know anyreason I’d be a target. I really will have to ask you to leave now. Sorry you wasted your time.”
    I said, “Mr. Kessler, just do me a favor? Please. Let me come in and lay out a few things. Ten minutes.” I was pleasant, not a hint of irritation. I said nothing more, offered no reasons—arguments held in doorways are hard to win; your opponent can just step back and close the door. I now simply looked up at him expectantly. My eyes never left his.
    He sighed again. Loudly. “I guess. Come on. Five minutes.” He turned and, limping, led me through the neat suburban house, which smelled of lemon furniture polish and coffee. I couldn’t draw many conclusions about him or his family from my observations but one thing that stood out was the framed yellowing front page of The Washington Post hanging in the den: H ERO C OP S AVES T WO D URING R OBBERY .
    A picture of a younger Ryan Kessler accompanied the story.
    On the drive here Claire duBois, as efficient as a fine watch, had given me a backgrounder on Ryan. This included details of the officer’s rescue. Some punk had robbed a deli downtown in the District, panicked and started shooting. Ryan was en route to meet an informant and happened to be in the alley behind the deli. He’d heard the shots, drawn his weapon and sped in through the back door, too late to save the husband and wife who owned the place, but he had rescued the customers inside, taking a bullet in the leg before the robber fled.
    The story ended with a curious twist: The woman customer had stayed in touch with him. They’d started going out. She was now his wife, Joanne.Ryan had a daughter by his first wife, who’d died of ovarian cancer when the girl was six.
    After delivering the bios, duBois had told me in the car, “That’s pretty romantic, saving her life. Knight in shining armor.”
    I don’t read much fiction but I enjoy history, medieval included. I could have told her that knight’s armor was the worst defensive system ever created; it looked spiffy but made the warrior far more vulnerable than a simple shield, helmet and chain mail or nothing at all.
    I also reflected that getting shot in the leg seemed like a rather unromantic way to get a spouse.
    As we moved through the cluttered family room, Ryan said, “Here it is, a nice Saturday. Wouldn’t you rather be hanging out with your wife and kids?”
    “Actually, I’m single. And I don’t have children.”
    Ryan was silent for a moment, a familiar response. It usually came from suburbanites of a certain age, upon learning they’re talking to an unmarried, family-less forty-year-old. “Let’s go in here.” We entered the kitchen and new smells mingled with the others: a big weekend breakfast, not a meal I’m generally fond of. The place was cluttered, dirty dishes stacked neatly in the sink. Jackets and sweats were draped on the white colonial dining chairs around a blond table. Against the wall the number of empty paper Safeway bags outnumbered the Whole Foods four to one. Schoolbooks and running shoes and DVD and CD cases. Junk mail and magazines.
    “Coffee?” Ryan asked because he wanted some and preferred not to appear rude, only discouraging.
    “No, thanks.”
    He poured a cup while I stepped to the window and looked out over a backyard like ten thousand backyards nearby. I observed windows and doors.
    Noting my reconnaissance, Ryan sipped, enjoying the coffee. “Really, Agent Corte, I don’t need anybody to stand guard duty.”
    “Actually I want to get you and your family into a safe house until we find the people behind this.”
    He scoffed, “Move out?”
    “Should just be a matter of days, at the most.”
    I heard sounds from upstairs but saw no one else on the ground floor. Claire duBois had given me information on Ryan’s family too. Joanne Kessler, thirty-nine, had worked as a statistician for about eight or nine years, then, after meeting and marrying widower Ryan, she had quit to become a fulltime mother to her stepdaughter, who was ten at the time.
    The daughter, Amanda, was a junior at a public high school. “She