AN: I’m so sorry it took me seven months to update this monster! I got busy with school, and I found some serious problems I had to iron out. All of this, and I still didn’t manage to fit the last bit in, damn it--there is an epilogue pending--but I think it might work out better this way. Shouldn’t there be a change of pace between the before and the after? A final chapter break might do some of my work for me. Thank you all so much for reading this far, and thank you to any new readers who are joining me. Huge thanks to everyone. I’m super tired and emotional and can’t explain just how much I appreciate the undeserved amount of feedback this melodramatic and confusing story has received.

Warnings: an army of red herrings, language, liberties with police procedure, mentions of violence, StanxKyle, CraigxThomas…really, too many other pairings. I hope I ended this on a note that isn’t completely desolate, but if it’s just too horrible to handle, know that there is an epilogue coming and things do change.

I’m so worried about this chapter! I’m mostly out of cheap tricks. Mostly. Thank you thank you thank you for clicking on this story. I really want you to enjoy it.

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Lex Talionis

- - - - - - - - -

The private documents that Johnson had shown Gregory earlier hadn’t given them legal cause to pull Craig in for questioning, but his physical outbursts had. The South Park shift had been waiting for him to arrive in Dawson’s custody when I returned from the church. I pulled up a chair behind the two-way mirror as Craig took a seat in interrogation with his wrists cuffed, Dawson huffing and glaring beside him, Gregory with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Montgomery’s hand had bruised a ring around his arm. Like Dawson, Gregory looked tired and grim and pissed off.

“Mr. Tucker, we only needed to talk to you,” he said. “The lieutenant is too kind to have forgiven you once. The next time you physically threaten an officer, there will be charges.”

“Do it, shit heaps,” Craig challenged. “Still doesn’t get you what you want.”

Gregory eyed him with thin patience. “And what do you think we want?”

“You want me to rot in jail for withholding information. You want the helpless insubordinate to play Public Enemy Number One for the papers because your sister station missed its chance at a serial fucking rapist.”

“You’d make a better hero if weren’t so set upon playing the villain,” Gregory said, his voice cold. He tossed a packet of papers onto the table in front of him. “Tell me what this is.”

An identical file was waiting for me on my desk. I picked it up and flipped through it, the pages still warm from the copy machine. It was a shakily-written report of sexual assault. The handwriting was tremulous, swimming all over the page in ragged print--it had clearly been written after the onset of a crippling trauma. Such a rare exhibition of immediacy. Waves of shock still emanated openly from each letter. I found the last page and felt my heart begin thudding harder in my chest.

The witness line sported Craig’s signature, but the accuser’s name was “Tweak, Richard T.”

Tweek had been named from his father. And Sergeant Cartman had taken his own name from his victim.

Six years. This had happened six years ago. It would’ve been two years after graduation, one year since Craig had opened the Laundromat. I still remembered the ribbon-cutting ceremony, how there had been a slight delay because Tweek was afraid to use the scissors. Thomas did the honors instead. That following business season was when Tweek had flourished unexpectedly, thriving in the safety and fond attentions of his new roommates. He appeared to sleep better and spoke more fluently. His mannerisms grew warmer, almost flirtatious. That was what had spawned the talk that he had a nice thing going with Craig and Thomas behind closed doors, but if their relationship was more than platonic, they were all too gentlemanly to say so. Their mutual respect was unspoken and sacred.

There was nothing of that closed-lipped charm in Craig now, nothing that believed in discretion. He had kept his silence for too long.

“This would be the report that we put in not five hours after the rape,” Craig told Gregory, speaking with a sudden, barely-controlled dignity. “Did you consider it might also be what I have against the police? Do you have any idea how Tweek felt about this?”

“You know very well that this is the first time we’ve seen it,” Gregory said. “Leopold Stotch stored it upon Eric Cartman’s request.”

“Ah, of course the fucker kept it,” said Craig. “Memorized it. Masturbated to it frequently.”

“He named himself from Mr. Tweak.”

Craig leaned forward to meet his eyes. “You figure that one out all by yourself?”

Gregory’s response was lost to me as Harris knocked on the door and gestured down the corridor. I stood up to look. Thomas had just arrived at the station, his cheeks flushed red with the cold, and was demanding to see Craig at the front desk. The North Park officer was getting flustered; Thomas’ unmanageable language was escalating the situation considerably. I gave Harris a reluctant nod. Harris turned around and called for Thomas, taking his coat as he led him to our interrogation room. “--needed him for questioning,” Harris was saying as they got into earshot. “He took a swing at Dawson. They pulled him in, but I don’t think they’re pressing charges.”

Thomas opened the door and stopped short when he saw me. “Where--” he began.

“Quiet,” I said, pushing out a chair for him. “Sit down.”

He started to refuse, saw Craig on the other side of the glass, then swallowed and lowered himself immediately beside me. His eyes were glistening.

Inside, Dawson was unlocking Craig’s cuffs. When his hands were free, Craig shook off his jacket and tossed it aside, crossing his arms over his chest. His new tattoo stood out angrily on his bicep. Gregory tilted his head to read it.

“‘Lex talionis.’”

“The law of retaliation,” Craig said, without passion. “‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm, a life for a life.’ Or so they claim. Kyle would laugh at it, too. Where’s his fucking retribution?”

“Why keep the adage so close if you don’t believe in it?” Gregory asked.

“Because maybe I’ll have reason to someday. What can I say? I’m a fucking dreamer.”

Gregory didn’t flinch at the sudden acidity in his voice. “This document, Mr. Tucker. Please.”

Instead of shooting off another reflexive deflection, Craig paused to look back at it, and that’s what got him. His shoulders slumped. Slowly, he picked up the file. The pages were crinkled in places, brittle and aged, crisp with six-year-old tears. Craig put the back of his hand to his mouth, shivering. He had taken off his baseball cap earlier, but now he shoved it on again with shaky force, almost obscuring the fierce twist in his expression. He took a long time to collect himself.

“I can’t keep taking this,” he said finally. Startled by the weakness of his own voice, he cleared his throat, spoke again, stronger: “Do you understand? After this, I’m done. You will never speak to me about this again, unless you’re going for posthumous conviction. I poured my fucking heart out, and look where the paperwork ended up.”

“We have it now, and it isn’t going anywhere,” Gregory said.

“Yeah, famous last words.” Craig quieted. “That’s what Cartman told Kyle when he came to pick him up again. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’”

To my left, Thomas swore under his breath and let out a tiny, humorless laugh. “He remembers that, but he can’t pick up a damn gallon of milk on his way back to the apartment.”

I turned to him with distress, not sure how to respond. Luckily, Craig took that moment to pick up his narrative, fingers still poised on the edge of the stack of papers. I had never known he was so capable of such exposed sensitivity. For all his posturing, Craig was just as hurt as the rest of us.

“We were all twenty. Me, Thomas, and…Tweek. We were out of debt and making a profit from the laundromat, all the loans paid off and everything--like, it was the only time life was really good, when we actually thought things were going to stay tolerable, or even get better. None of us ever had delusions of grandeur, either. All we wanted was to generate more business and keep the apartment and maybe someday get our locks fixed. That was it. We kept our goals simple so we wouldn’t get fucked over. Pretty funny, when you think about it.”

Eric would agree. Gregory’s brow knitted. Dawson continued to stand there, listening without defensiveness, no longer playing bodyguard. There was no fight left in Craig.

“Thomas and I were on shift when Kyle came in,” Craig said. “I was surprised. I asked him what he was doing back in town.”

“You recognized him?” asked Gregory.

“His face was different, thinner, but you know--it was him. His hair.”

So Kyle hadn’t dyed it back then, I thought, then felt my stomach knot. Of course he wouldn’t have. Eric hadn’t developed his taste for blonds until after he’d had Tweek; that crime was likely what had lured him out of secrecy into a bolder world, one in which he freely blackmailed grocers and propositioned priests and ran people down in front of police stations. Because then, gloriously, he realized that he could get away with it.

“Kyle was in shock,” Craig continued, sitting very still. “Later, we found out that it was the first time he’d been out of Cartman’s house in about four years. We couldn’t understand what he was saying, though. Who would believe what had happened to him? He tried to explain that he’d never moved away, had been living as Cartman’s prisoner, but it was all so fucking unfathomable. We didn’t know what to think. He looked at a newspaper we had sitting on the counter, picked it up, and asked what year it was. When we told him, he thought we were lying. He had to see three more papers before it started to sink in.”

“Did you believe him then?” asked Gregory.

Craig snorted. “Not really. Would you? But--Thomas did. He told him to wait until his mother got back with the car, then he’d take him to the police station in Cañon City or Fairplay. Kyle was so relieved he was crying. Then he realized--we all realized--that Cartman hadn’t followed him.”

The sheer terror of that awareness. Kyle’s heart must’ve fucking stopped. Both behind the glass and in interrogation, all five of us were silent, just waiting for Craig to breathe. Thomas’ hand crept towards me. Without thinking, I took it in my own and squeezed.

“Cartman saw where he was going,” Craig said, emotionlessly, “so he didn’t even drive to the laundromat. He just went straight to our apartment and opened the door. Remember the locks we were trying to get fixed? Yeah. We had no security system. Tweek was standing at the counter sorting old bills. All Cartman had to do was walk in, grab him from behind, and throw him to the floor.”

Craig was going to spare us the particulars, but I had Tweek’s report in front of me. Tweek had written everything with courageous detail--Eric batting him around with cheerful playfulness, Eric dragging him casually into positions he liked. He’d taunted him openly about Craig and Thomas, demanding to know the mechanics of their physical involvement. He just wanted to take away everything that meant anything to me, Tweek had scribbled, the letters so shaky they were nearly illegible. He kept saying, “Why would they want you? They have each other.”

“I don’t think he was supposed to live through it,” Craig said suddenly, drawing the brim of his hat even further down over his eyes. His voice finally cracked. “Fuck it, I mean, no one should have to go through what he did, and he was getting better about things, but he was still afraid of the fucking toaster, you know? Staying alive and staying sentient were the bravest things he’d ever done.”

I wanted to feel relief with the knowledge of Tweek’s survival…but I couldn’t. Neither could Craig, hard as he had tried.

“I didn’t have the sedan then, but I ran those five blocks when I finally realized what could be happening to him. Passed Cartman on the stairs. Couldn’t even fucking stop because I was too afraid that Tweek was already bleeding to death or something. When I got into the apartment, I found out that Cartman had left him in the shower with the water on to get rid of the physical evidence. He wasn’t breathing; I had to do CPR. Five reps. Five. Tweek didn’t want to come back, and I forced him. That was worse than what Cartman had done, wasn’t it? At the very least, every human deserves the chance to die when he wants to.”

“You know that’s not true,” said Dawson. “Try telling Broflovski that he should’ve just given up. Tell Marsh that he should’ve allowed Broflovski to pass on if he truly loved him.”

Craig laughed loudly, without humor. “That’s Stanley and Kyle, not me and Tweek! We live in the real world! Don’t judge anyone by their standards; we’re not all the invincible residue of some old fucking fairytale! Tweek barely left his house until high school, and then he arbitrarily got attacked by a former classmate in the safety of his own home. What the fuck kind of authority do you think I had over him, anyway? This fucking town; everyone talks. None of us were together. He was a virgin before Cartman. We never had sex, but I’ve never stopped loving him, either!”

The air in surveillance felt suddenly too thin. Thomas had stiffened beside me.

“Here’s the kicker,” Craig continued, gaining motion. “Tweek just wanted to forget everything that had happened. I was the one who told him no, that we were going to go to the police, and he was going to be brave and fill out the report to put Cartman behind bars. Tweek called me a heartless bastard. I didn’t even let him change clothes. I had to carry him to Thomas’ mother’s car and he cried the whole way there, but I promised that everything would be okay, because I was driving him to the best station in the state.”

“Denver,” said Gregory, closing his eyes.

“Yes, Denver. Fucking Denver. By then, Cartman and the commissioner were the best of friends. Montgomery took one look at the suspect line and told Tweek to his face that he was a fucking liar.” Craig’s voice rose. “See where I’m going with this? We didn’t even get to say Kyle’s name. We were turned out of the station because we had ‘no definitive case.’ Tweek was still bleeding between the legs, and we had no definitive case! Montgomery ‘lost’ the paperwork and Tweek and I both got a little note in our files that said, ‘These kids just want attention, ignore them.’ And this was a problem for me, but not for Tweek. Because two days later he just packed a bag and disappeared.”

Dawson let out a low, disbelieving breath. “You have no idea where he is?”

“None at all. He could be dead. I hope he is, anyway.”

“You don’t really.”

Craig looked at him, his eyes narrowed and brimming with unshed tears. He clearly already regretted what he’d said. “Listen, I just hope he’s found a little fucking peace.”

Gregory seemed unsure whether or not he should look Craig in the eyes. “Did you stop at the launderette before you went to Denver?”

“Yeah. Cartman had already come back for Kyle. Thomas told me that he tried to stop them, but Cartman told Kyle that every time he left the house, one of his friends was going to take his place in bed. He hit Thomas, you know. Gave him a black eye and locked him in the supply closet. Thomas wasn’t even afraid, he was furious…and heartsick. He stayed there while I took Tweek to Denver and phoned the Fairplay Police, but they couldn’t do anything, either--Kyle was chained back in hiding. We didn’t even know which house he’d come from; there was no way for him to step forward. Two hours later, Fairplay left. Right after they’d gotten the commissioner’s memo.”

“Was there nothing more you could have done?” Gregory asked. “Could someone else in town have authenticated your story? Perhaps a higher authority--”

There was a deafening bang as Craig slammed his fists on the metal table, making it jump. “Fuck you, you don’t get to say that to me!” he yelled. “I lost the best thing in my life trying to uphold justice! Tweek was bleeding in my arms when I told him that the police would make it all better! I didn’t fail you; you failed me! I gave up everything to do what was right, and you’re telling me I should have done more?”

“All right,” said Gregory. “All right.”

Craig’s voice was shrill. “Exactly what the fuck do you want to hear?”

“Tell us what happened after that. With Mr. Broflovski.”

“Kyle, Kyle, fucking Kyle. Sure, he came back eventually, now that Cartman had us under his thumb. Kyle did their laundry every once in a while, never with any schedule, so we couldn’t just arrange to have the police waiting for him. I mean, we were a fucking joke with the cops by then, anyway. They didn’t even pick up the phone when we called. We had to keep a closet full of first-aid kits because Kyle was always showing up bleeding from the ears or something. We fed him, we bought him things, we tried to keep him breathing. We did the best we could! Just tell me I was wrong!”

Gregory couldn’t say outright that he had done the right thing, so Dawson stepped in, quiet and cryptic: “Tucker, we’re just sorry you paid for this.”

“How much did I pay for it, though?” asked Craig. “Do you have any idea? Fifty-fucking-percent for six years. That’s how much ‘the right thing’ cost me.”

Next to me, Thomas broke my concentration by drawing in a sharp breath, closing both hands over his mouth. “No,” he said quietly.

“Thomas?” I said, alarmed.

Dawson’s voice echoed from interrogation. “Fifty--what, you were giving him half of your business proceeds? Why?”

“So he wouldn’t do to Thomas what he’d done to Tweek,” said Craig.

Thomas laughed. He crossed his arms over his abdomen, letting his eyes close. “Shit…of course. How ridiculous are we both, to have trusted Cartman to keep his word?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

His smile was so strange, so calm. “When I was twenty-one, I made an arrangement with Cartman. I would meet him in a hotel once a month if he agreed not to steal profits from Craig.”

I felt my heart plummet to my feet. Kyle, Butters, Tweek--and now Thomas, sacrificing himself to the man who had destroyed his best friends. Why had I expected anything less? This was South Park, where all bets were off. The laundromat was never meant to be a permanent business; it was a vehicle through which three young men were earning the means to escape. After everything that had happened, all Thomas wanted was to leave. How could he have realized that Eric was hampering them from both sides? Did the thought ever occur to him in those hotel rooms--and could he have changed anything with that knowledge, or would Eric have had him by force?

“Sex for money, Craig’s money,” Thomas said suddenly, his voice cutting. “I know. I don’t need you to tell me what that makes me.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” I said. “Not even close. Thomas…does Craig know?”

Thomas jerked his head up at that. “Fuck, no.”

I leveled my gaze back inside the room. “Okay. But I think he should.”

He tried to keep glaring at me, but he couldn’t sustain his anger. He sank down in his seat. “It was just my body,” he said softly, as if saying that made it any easier. “It was just my body.”

Gregory was no longer conducting himself defensively. He’d taken a seat across from Craig, showing him a ledger that Kyle had kept a few years ago. “Even allowing for various bonuses, the total revenue is consistently disproportionate to Mr. Cartman’s salary,” he said, indicating the relevant margins. “We assumed it came from his mother, but this was your income, wasn’t it? Over the course of almost six years, he’d procured nearly--”

“Don’t give me a number,” Craig interrupted, his expression contorting. “I know exactly how much it was. By this time, we would’ve had enough to buy a new car or move across the country, go someplace where no one knows who we are. Cartman kept us on the shortest leash he could. There was a point a couple of years back when I took a second job just to balance the books a little better, so Thomas wouldn’t have to see us in the red.” He finally looked up, his gaze cloudy. “That was the worst of it, you know. Realizing that despite what we’d been through, we could never be together, because I couldn’t even look Thomas in the eyes without remembering how badly I’d failed him.”

“That’s not how it looks to us; that’s not how it’ll look to him,” said Dawson. “Have you even talked to him about this?”

“He deserves better than me,” Craig said. “Loving someone is knowing when to let go. I did it for Tweek. Damned if I wouldn’t do it again for Thomas.”

Thomas clenched his hands against his chest. He mouthed Craig’s name.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Gregory said, pulling the ledger away and snapping it shut to command Craig’s full attention. “Surely you can permit yourself some peace? After all this, you managed to maintain faith in the form of someone you care about. If that’s not worth pursuing, what is? Thomas is not Mr. Tweak. No one expects you to keep paying for something that was never your fault.”

Dawson raised his eyebrows. Internally, I felt myself recalling that same surprise--this was the man who’d tried only yesterday to explain to me the virtues of dying alone.

Neither Thomas nor Craig knew him well enough to recognize this turnabout. Thomas was nodding minutely, his face oddly serene. Craig stared at Tweek’s file for a long moment, his fingertips reverently tracing the fragile pages of the report.

Then, slowly, he folded it shut.

“I think I need to go home,” he said haltingly. “Can I go home? It was…a long day.”

“We appreciate your cooperation,” said Dawson, then chuckled. “I mean, better late than never.”

“No charges?”

“You’re off the hook. I’m pretty sure that’s the very least we could do for you now.”

Craig scooped his jacket off the floor and put it on. The tattoo disappeared beneath the sleeve. Lex talionis, Latin’s biggest lie. But before he stood up, Craig did something that none of us had expected: he reached out with quiet professionalism to shake Gregory’s hand, then Dawson’s. They were as taken aback by the gesture as I was. Craig merely secured his hat again and drew himself to his feet with a low sigh.

“Shit,” Thomas said suddenly, jumping out of his chair. “I don’t want him to know I was listening!”

I turned off the surveillance monitor and ushered him outside, towards the dark hallway of forensics. No one was in the lab. We rounded the corner just as Craig, Dawson, and Gregory emerged from interrogation, presumably heading towards the office to speak to Harris. Thomas relaxed his grip on my jacket as they disappeared, leaning back against the wall. His blue eyes were very pale in the dark.

“Today was the first time he’s ever talked about Tweek,” he said, his voice frail. “You know a little something about this shit, don’t you? The skeletons that keep falling out of your closet?”

“Yes. God, yes.” Despite the innocence of his question, the turn of phrase badly chilled me. “Tom, do you think he’s dead?”

Thomas smiled weakly. “Who, Tweek? Nah. We still talk occasionally.”

That made me pause. “You do?”

“Mmm. He calls me every once in a while, just to say hello. Craig doesn’t know we keep in touch.” He looked up at me, frightened and defensive. “I mean, it’s better this way. Yeah? Shit, I know it is. It just has to be. Tweek can’t face us, but he still wants us to be happy; I would have done him the same courtesy. Fuck, I did try! The only reason Tweek was at the apartment that day instead of me was because we switched shifts. I thought they should spend the next Sunday alone to catch up. It should’ve…god, what’s the use of that kind of thinking? Pointless. All of it.”

I knew what Thomas had almost said: it should’ve been me. Without realizing what I was going to do, I reached out to hug him. He squeezed back fiercely, grateful and uninhibited. Despite the coolness of our interaction during the last few days, I could still feel the sixteen years of friendship between us. The job forced a distance, but we never forgot. Thomas was desperately solid in my arms.

“Thomas,” Craig called from the hall, his voice hoarse. “You ready to go home?”

“Be there in a minute,” said Thomas.

“Tom, if you ever need to talk to someone,” I said, clenching him tighter. “The thing with Cartman--”

“Thank you, Kenny. I’m just glad it’s over.”

“You’ll tell Craig?”

His expression blurred. “I don’t know. No. Maybe.”

“Someone needs to. I’ll talk to him if you like, but he deserves to hear it from you.” I hesitated, drawing back so I could meet his gaze. “Listen…what he said in there…”

“No, don’t apologize to me,” he said, looking away. “I’m not just Tweek’s replacement. I mean…damn it, all three of us loved each other so much. There couldn’t have been an order; romance was never in the cards. And…even knowing that now…I would give up anything to recover what we were. If we could just go back for a few minutes. A few seconds.”

I couldn’t imagine how damaging the town rumors had been. With all their potential, the three of them had cared too much to divide themselves. If only life allowed for this rare kind of beauty. If only justice could form itself around the best of humanity…instead of the worst.

After giving me one final hug, Thomas backed out of the hallway to meet Craig. “I think I need to tell you something,” he told him, staring him straight in the eyes.

Craig’s response melted a part of me I hadn’t realized was frozen: “I need to tell you everything.”

They left together, their hands linked.

It wasn’t how Stan and Kyle loved, I thought, standing there in the darkness. The bond wasn’t singular; it was never realized. But such a mutual depth of untouched feeling demonstrated something just as real. This was how quiet lovers swore their hearts to each other, how the unanswered world sealed its promises: it fostered the type of devotion that said more in sacrifice than it did in attainment.

And, god, it said so much.

- - - - - - - - -

Gregory was standing in my office when I finally returned to grab my coat, his face tense and meditative as he stared out the window towards Christophe’s still-active crime scene. The police tape was flickering in the wind. Gregory’s eyes marked the ribbon’s progress with a febrile intensity that made me hesitate in the doorway, then jump when he turned. For one disconcerting moment, I could see a shadow of Harrison Yates in him--the dying part, the part that seemed fifty years too old--then he softened apologetically into a smile, clearly exhausted, but as human as I’d ever seen him.

“How about that drink?” he said.

We ended up going to a bar a few miles away from the station--not the one frequented by Randy Marsh and my father, but a rustic new establishment that had been deliberately sited to tempt weary drivers off the main road. Despite Free Wing Wednesdays, its clientele was comprised mostly of travelers, the type of low-key drifters who rarely stuck around for more than a couple of pints. It was more private than any other business in South Park. We drank quickly and abundantly, grateful for our seclusion. I told him about Pip before segueing reluctantly into Thomas’ story.

“Eric fucked with everyone who got in his way,” I said. “Literally, more often than not. He’s a disgrace to humanity as a race, let alone his uniform. Where the fuck was internal affairs?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out in the investigation that follows,” said Gregory.

“I can’t even think about that right now. This is huge. Can you imagine the backlash?”

Gregory considered, then shook his head, dubious. “You want to know the truth? No. I can’t. Too much of this is unprecedented. Individual offenses are dismissible, but what’s happened here...an entire district of corrupt officers, murder and blackmail, a kidnap victim who finally fought back. Priests, for God’s sake. Dirty laundry. I imagine Harris and Denver have temporarily agreed to a suppression order--both for their own reasons, of course--but I guarantee that there will be recoil, and we will all feel it.”

“Do you think Kyle can get out of this?”

His eyes dimmed. “With his life, certainly, and it will be an unparalleled moment in United States history. Without ample jail time…I don’t know. I just don’t think so.”

“Isn’t there anything Token could do?” I asked, lowering my voice. “Hypothetically, I mean. Couldn’t he claim self-defense?”

“Mr. Broflovski would’ve had to declare it sooner for any credibility. It’s not as if he’s, say, a police officer. He’s a kidnap victim. I know that his circumstances are remarkable, but historically speaking, originators of these incongruities rarely get to see the changes they induce. It’s only after they suffer that people see a need for revision.” Gregory drained his glass. “That’s perhaps the single thing that justice ensures, for better or worse: someone pays for it.”

I couldn’t reply. I was unsurprised, but very tired. I didn’t want to digest the terror of that truth.

For nearly fifteen minutes, the silence was broken only by the jukebox in the corner, a dusty Wurlitzer that skipped on every third word. I was halfway through my third beer when Gregory finally lowered his own empty glass and frowned.

“Constable?” I asked.

“Listen, I don’t mean to make this dramatic,” he said. “I didn’t ask you here for counseling.”

“Good, because that would be like the blind leading the blind,” I said, lifting my drink back to my lips. I wasn’t getting much of a buzz. I’d decided to match Gregory in an attempt not to seem forward. The day had been painfully sobering. If I’d been alone, I likely would’ve started with bourbon and ended with my head in the toilet.

Gregory saw that I was almost finished and motioned for refills. The barkeep poured delicately, without noise. Gregory nodded at her in thanks and examined his new glass carefully, watching the foam dissipate, beginning to frown again.

“I used to go on an annual pub crawl with one of my friends,” he said abruptly. “He always visited me for two days a year, in the evening. One night we’d spend intoxicated, the other sober.” He paused. “The sober nights were stranger.”

“Yeah? Why do you think that was?”

There was a faraway look in his eyes. “It all depends on the nature of the relationship, I suppose. Some people are only honest when they don’t think they’ll remember each other the next day.”

“It’s weird that you just saw this friend twice a year. Didn’t you enjoy his company?”

He busied himself with his beer. Did I imagine the sudden color that rose in his cheeks? He spoke quickly, almost nervously. “Oh--yes, I did. Truly. But he was busy, and we were rarely in the same place at the same time. His job involved frequent travel, and…well, what reason would he have to visit Rutland? I think that setting aside these two nights each year was his way of saying that he was committed to maintaining our companionship…but only on a distant level. As if I would never be suitable for him, with any regularity.”

I sensed his insecurity, and was surprised by how much it bothered me. “Well--that’s his loss, isn’t it? Any normal person would be happy to know you.”

He looked up at me. “Do you think so?” he asked.

“Yeah, I do. I know I am.”

Gregory smiled. It was the first smile he’d ever meant solely for me; it seemed to warm the whole room. “I’m pleased,” he said, after a long moment. “I’m so pleased that…I’m lightheaded.”

I started to respond, pausing when he reached for his cup and missed by a good three inches. His cheeks had grown unmistakably rosier now. “Bad news, constable,” I said, unable to stop the grin that spread across my face. “Under normal circumstances, I don’t think I’m quite eloquent enough to induce dizziness with my compliments. Tell me, how often do you drink?”

“Coffee?”

“Uh…other things.”

“Seldom.” Five full seconds passed before Gregory thought to look offended. “Wait, detective. I am not drunk, I am ruminating.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes, sir. What are you ruminating about?”

He thought about this for a while, long enough for the juke to stammer into the first verse of “Hey Jude.” His expression was almost comedic in its concentration. “Well…several things,” he said finally. “I worry that I’ve compromised our relationship somehow.”

“How so?”

“By asking you here…and by being a shockingly poor conversationalist.”

I patted him on the shoulder, making him sway a little. “You’re not on the clock, so what’s the problem?”

Gregory was now struggling to open a package of peanuts. His eyes lit up suddenly. “Oh, the problem,” he declared, in a fit of inspiration, “is that the only difference between acting professional and being professional is how people perceive you. When one’s competency is dependent on how he conducts himself in front of others, what is his own motivation for self-improvement? A promotion? A handshake from a senior?”

“Let me get that,” I said, reaching to help him with the peanuts.

“No, that’s not proactive!” Gregory insisted, deflecting my hand. “I should do this by myself. I have the means to do this by myself. At what point do I sit down and admit, hello, Gregory, perhaps no one ever taught you how to speak to people properly--or how to open a bag of peanuts?”

“You just grab the sides and--”

“It was a metaphor. Of course I know how to open a bag of peanuts!”

He did so a little too demonstratively, rupturing the plastic. Peanuts scattered across the tabletop. I burst out laughing. He cleared his throat and began to scoop them into a pile, his hands a little too clumsy to navigate them around our empty glasses.

“I don’t even like peanuts,” he said blankly.

“Eat them anyway to get something in your stomach, because I’m buying you another drink,” I ordered, flagging the barkeep. With his guard down, Gregory was hilariously amenable, if unintentionally so. “Hey, do you want something…British? Vesper martini, shaken, not stirred?”

He grumbled and shuffled some bills out of his wallet. “Just for that, I’m getting you a Baileys.”

“I like Baileys.”

“You would,” Gregory said, darkly accusing, making me laugh again.

“Oh god, careful. I think you dropped your inhibitions.”

He actually glanced under the table to check before processing what I said.

God knew I was going to tease him in the morning for being such a lightweight, but right then, there was something too hopelessly charming about Constable St. Clair. I had seen forty different angles of this man in only a few days. The specialist, the bad cop, the good cop, the lonely diner…some unfathomable person who’d convinced himself that he was only worth seeing twice a year, despite his brilliance, his thousands of tiny facets. After the long work day, his hair was no longer swept back in that severe style. His bangs were parted on either side of his face in blond curls, framing impenetrable brown eyes. Even drunk, his gaze had focus.

“Listen, constable,” I said, tentative, pausing halfway out of our booth with my money in hand.

“Yes.” He hesitated. “And…could you call me ‘Gregory?’”

I relaxed into a smile. It felt good and sane, unforced. “As long as I can be ‘Kenny,’” I said. “And if you’d be willing to have another drink or six and ‘ruminate’ a little more together sometime, that would be fine, too.”

“I supposed that’s acceptable, since you have to tolerate me when I’m sober,” he agreed. “What did you want to say…Kenny?”

I took a deep breath. “Well…you asked me a question about motivation,” I said, after a beat of deliberation. “Your job is kind of built around reputation. I realize that. But you have certain obligations towards yourself, from yourself. The best thing you could do is allow your own limitations. You’re decent, you’re professional, you’re committed. I wish you’d understand that giving yourself time to breathe doesn’t compromise any of that.”

Gregory listened to me carefully as I spoke, his posture tense, but receptive. He looked back down at the table. When he finally glanced up again, I saw in his face some of the understated sensitivity that had incited him to comfort Craig in interrogation earlier that evening. The effect was soft and miraculous, like melting stone.

“I’ve always wondered if there was an inverse correlation between the strength of a person, and the pretenses he assumes in self-defense,” he said quietly. “It’s true in my case. I apologize for it. The kind of humanity that I perceive as weakness is the same capability that makes you commendable…thank you for realizing this before me. I look to you as my behavioral example.”

The praise was overwhelming; I felt my face numbing with suffusion. “Oh, no--please don’t do that. It would be a step backwards.”

“You give yourself far too little credit,” Gregory said. “I’d rather have been the soul of this investigation than the force.”

“Goes both ways, constable,” I said, and toasted him. “The heart’s a muscle, too.”

- - - - - - - - -

I woke up the next morning with renewed vigor. It was cloudy outside, and the first substantial snow of the season had blanketed the streets in ice, dangerous and beautiful. Something about seeing the world that way felt like a miracle. It was true cleanliness, and my head was clear. I felt empowered.

I dressed quickly and drove to the station, not noticing the strange silence until I was halfway to the counter. I frowned, looking around. No one was answering the ringing phones. Park County had the floor, their faces disinterested and unfamiliar. Gregory was the only person I recognized, standing at the edge of the counter with a notepad in hand and his back turned towards me, and I drew in a breath to call to him. My mouth was just forming around the first syllable when Murphy grabbed the front of my shirt, yanked me into his dark office, and snapped the door shut.

“What the hell?” I demanded, startled. I stopped short. Dawson and Johnson were standing to Murphy’s right, looking equally grim. Beyond them, silhouetted against the blinded windows, Harris sat on the desk with the television remote in his hand. The monitor in the corner was set on a blue screen.

“Picked up the hospital surveillance,” Harris said.

He pressed the play button. The display jumped to life at a high angle in the corner of a hallway, flickering in black and white. Four figures stood in the hallway. Harris tapped the one in the center, standing near the tall man in the dark tie.

“This is you,” he said shortly. “The guy nearby is Sergeant Cartman. Dawson’s across from you and Marsh is to your left. In a second, you will all disperse, and Cartman will continue on to Christophe’s room.”

He fast-forwarded. I watched us scatter, nurses moving by in the foreground, a doctor idling for a few minutes in front of the TV before continuing on his rounds. Harris hit ‘play’ again just as someone entered the frame from the opposite hall. I frowned, leaning forward. A man wearing bright white shoes and a dark jacket, either brown or gray, his hood drawn up over his hair and face. There was something familiar about his gait. Harris had paused while he was in mid-step.

“This might actually be Mr. Broflovski,” Harris said. “That improvised alibi he gave you, remember? It may not have been so impromptu after all.”

I couldn’t understand. “Wait, he--what the fuck?”

“Well, we can’t confirm this until we find an eyewitness. Hell’s Pass has got ancient cameras; the security system hasn’t been updated in god knows how many years. This is the best picture we can get. We saw Broflovski’s shoes at the crime scene, but white Keds won’t hold up in court.”

“I don’t get it,” I said faintly.

Harris pursed his lips and stood up slowly to face me, shifting his balance from one foot to the other, trying to find a place to start. “Here’s the thing,” he said finally, light playing off his shoulders as moved. “None of us ever believed that Broflovski killed Cartman. The mechanics are wrong, for one. He’s about five inches too short to have angled a knife into Cartman’s neck along the wound’s course, unless he was standing on something. Second--his hands are weak. You’ve seen how small they are, right? It’s because he’s been in cuffs for the better part of ten years. I mean, you can explain away both of these things. Maybe he was kneeling on the bed when he first attacked Cartman. Maybe the adrenaline fueled this confrontation, gave him a little extra punch. But all this is only a roundabout way of saying that his being the murderer is extremely implausible. Ken…do you really think he killed him?”

“I--of course I do. I mean--what, knowing him personally?” I was stammering. “No, I didn’t believe that he was capable of murder, but his circumstances were serious, and I never had a reason not to think he was guilty! I reviewed all the files, the forensics! There was no sign of--”

“We kept this information from you,” Dawson admitted. “We couldn’t let you allay Broflovski; we needed him tense. We needed you on your toes, too.”

“So who killed Eric, if you don’t think Kyle did it?”

Silently, Harris pressed the play button again, this time at regular speed. The man in the Keds continued down the hall and disappeared. I watched the timer tick in the corner. Thirty seconds had passed before Eric left, walking fast, opting for the back exit instead of the front doors. Then Keds. But then someone else emerged. A tall man with blond hair and smartly ironed slacks. I had seen the same black gloves at the funeral, the same tie--there was no badge around his neck, but that aggressive stride was iconic and recognizable enough even on the blurred security tape.

My vision doubled briefly. “Oh my god.”

“This is a very serious allegation,” Harris said quietly. “We’re not making any formal accusations. But Gregory was at the hospital the night before he was officially assigned to the case, and he may well have been the last person Eric Cartman spoke to before he was killed.”

I had to sit down. Johnson moved to help me find a chair. Everything around me felt very dim and surreal.

“I maintain that the difference between working city and countryside is the officer’s knowledge of his people,” said Harris. “Everyone knows everyone here. You simply can’t have a perfectly dispassionate investigation. I’m alarmed because I hadn’t realized the extent of the constable’s attachment to South Park, as I had yours--I still don’t know the specifics, and he obviously hasn’t told me. Do you have any idea what his connection is to any of these people? Who were his friends?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not even feeling the words as they left my mouth.

“Not even a hunch?”

“I was only in class with him for a few days. We only knew each other by reputation.”

Murphy threw his arms up. “Great. We’ve got a transfer who’s working from the inside, but we don’t even know who he’s pulling for. Is he trying to have Broflovski indicted, or Cartman, or what?”

It was the only answer I had. “He wants Kyle to walk.”

“Considering Broflovski’s apparent innocence, I suppose that much is okay,” said Harris. “Gregory’s not--framing him. But he is using him as a scapegoat to buy himself time, so we can’t assume that none of his intentions are malicious.”

“You really think Gregory killed Cartman,” I said. “You actually believe this.”

Everyone stopped. I didn’t know how to decipher the looks they exchanged. No one smiled. Then Harris roughly hit the eject button on the VCR, popping the tape, the room flooding again with that painful blue light.

“Here’s what we know,” he said. “We’ve only held Broflovski for the lack of evidence in his favor. He never confessed. There was blood on his hands, possibly because he took a pulse from the body, since not even the neighbor actually saw him with the knife. I don’t know if he realizes we think he’s innocent. He might be catching on, given the fact that we’ve all been granting him special treatment since his arrival--my fault for not coordinating that. The marks on Cartman’s body, though--the stomach, the face, the throat. None of these individual wounds were fatal. The attacker didn’t kill him outright: he watched Cartman bleed out.”

Would Kyle do that? After ten years, I certainly would have--but what of the narrow time frame? I suddenly remembered the arrest with Murphy, breaking in through the front door, how I’d looked down to see Kyle’s normally arranged shoes conspicuously left in the center of the rug. As if he’d kicked them off running. As if the scene was just as fresh to him as it had been to us, and he’d still been reeling in shock when Murphy and I found him. The time of death would count for very little if Eric’s passing and Kyle’s arrival had been a matter of seconds instead of minutes. Decomposition couldn’t be tallied that precisely. The room had been too cold from the rain.

Wait--the rain? Why had I noted the weather when I had been inside?

It hit me. The first thing I had seen there hadn’t been Kyle.

“The curtains,” I said. “The curtains were moving. I felt a breeze…that window was open.”

“Just wide enough for someone to hop out and get away,” agreed Dawson. “Yes, we noticed that, too.”

“We have only one piece of tangible evidence,” said Harris. “We found it in Broflovski’s cell this morning.”

He handed me a note, already swathed in a plastic evidence bag. It was a message written in blue ink in someone’s sloppy hand: Don’t give them anything. Keep it up a little longer; it’s almost taken care of.

“Properly cryptic and revealing at the same time, yes?” said Murphy.

Harris smiled without humor. “Mr. Broflovski isn’t in the clear, Ken. See, he might have planned this with the constable. They were both in Christophe’s hospital room that night. The only piece we’re missing is Gregory’s motive.”

I couldn’t think of anything that linked the three of them, or even Gregory and Christophe. I mutely shook my head.

“We’re reinstating your arrest privileges,” Harris said, standing up. “I’m putting the constable on heavily-monitored desk duty. He doesn’t know what we’ve found, and you are absolutely not to tell him. You are still not the primary. You’re working under me, and we need a confession or a motive. I gave you the four-day ultimatum to keep you moving, but now we’ve just got to finish this before Gregory catches on. Can you handle this?”

Working against my mentor and my good friend the kidnap victim. Why would there be a problem?

“Ken,” Harris said loudly.

“Yes,” I said, snapping to attention. “Yes--I can handle it.”

None of them were convinced.

“Kenny,” Harris said again, this time gently.

“Seriously, I’ll be fine in a minute. Just--shit, I’m…can anyone give me something I can smoke?” My hands were shaking. For the first time since eleventh grade, I wanted a cigarette.

Dawson reached into his coat and tapped a Newport out of the pack. Menthol was better than nothing. He lit it right there in Murphy’s office and I put it between my lips, zipping up my coat again so I could go outside. Harris and the others were throwing each other unreadable glances again. I didn’t stop to interpret them. Gregory called out to me as I shoved through the front doors, but I kept walking, past the crime scene to the bench on the other side of the street. The cold was sharp and bracing. I leaned against the chain-link fence and took a deep breath, feeling the winter like a weight in my lungs. I wonder if I could get it heavy enough to crush me.

I smoked the minty menthol in slow drags. In ten minutes, I had lost a good friend and the sense of purpose I’d had when I first woke up. I couldn’t believe Gregory was capable of murder, not like that--the man never even appeared in public without ironed clothes; something as messy as Eric’s death was simply not possible for him.

My own reasoning made me scoff. That was the best I could come up with? Gregory was too tidy?

We had become closer in the last few days, but I remembered my initial impression of distrust. I had promised myself not to rely on him until I knew what he was hiding from me. Faced with the footage of Gregory near Christophe’s room in the hospital, I had to accept the very real possibility that he had never actually opened up to me in the first place--Gregory calculated, he used people as his pawns, and perhaps our growing friendship was just another fabrication in his flimsy cover-up. The idea hurt like hell. This was a man that I had learned to respect. No matter how many drinks we’d shared, he had been pointing me in the wrong direction while he tried to clean the blood from his hands.

I finished the cigarette and sighed, staring around the parking lot. There was a gorgeous black Lexus with tinted windows sitting around the side of the station. I stared at it for a long time, wondering which poor bastard in South Park had sold his house to buy it. I didn’t recognize the plates.

“Admiring my ride?” someone said behind me.

I jumped and started to turn around. “What--”

“Quiet. Eyes forward.”

It took me a moment to place the new visitor: it was Token. He’d dropped all his fussy lawyer pretensions, and the voice that issued surreptitiously from the corner of his mouth was informal, familiar, and clearly under great strain. I sat back against the fence, trying to concentrate on the sky. I wanted badly to face him. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

There was a click as he flicked a lighter and lit up a cigarette of his own, feigning distraction. “I had to talk to Kyle about a few things,” he said. “Had to talk to you, too.”

“About what?”

“Your case. Gregory. You know, all the shit that would get us both in a hell of a lot of trouble if anyone saw us talking. Reel it in, Ken, I feel you leaning towards me.”

I hadn’t realized I was drawing closer. I straightened up quickly, feeling stupid. “Fucking suck at this cloak-and-dagger bullshit,” I said.

Token chuckled around his cigarette. “Oh, that’s good. Means you haven’t been disingenuous enough to need to hone your skills.” There was a long silence as he smoked. It smelled way better than my menthol. I could almost make out his reflection in the ice on the sidewalk--a slim, stylish outline, the curves of his suit jacket crisp and unassuming. His back was to me, face visible in profile. He was wearing dark sunglasses despite the overcast weather, and his lips barely moved as he spoke.

“How’s it going in there? Is it starting to look less like Kyle and more like someone from the inside?”

“Just maybe,” I said, shutting my eyes. “How is it that everyone knew what was going on except me?”

“It’s because you’re too close to see the full picture. Nothing makes sense out of context. You need to learn to take a few steps back.”

“Well, I didn’t have a reason to until today.”

He sighed. His breath dispersed in a faint cloud. “You’re way behind. That’s why I’m here; to catch you up. Call it common courtesy.” He glanced around, then leaned back again, speaking even more quietly. “Listen--you weren’t around when the class formed La Resistance in elementary school. That means you’re the only person in our age group who doesn’t know that Gregory and Christophe were friends.”

I sat up too fast and rattled the chain-links. “What?”

“Kenny, shut up! Jesus!”

“They were friends?”

“Well, they knew each other intimately. I don’t know if that makes them friends, but they were at least business partners. That business being covert operations. I’d forgotten you’d never met Christophe until I dropped a hint in interrogation, and you didn’t pick up on it. That prick Gregory called me out. I couldn’t pursue it without incriminating myself.”

“Shit, you’ve done nothing wrong,” I said. “Taking Kyle’s case upon Clyde’s request? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Token paused for a long moment. “So you know about Clyde?”

“Heard it through the grapevine, yeah. Don’t worry about him--no charges.”

After several intense days of communication, Token finally allowed himself a sliver of vulnerability. “I was so pissed when he told me he was getting married,” he confessed in a low voice. “‘Pay now, play later.’ That was always my philosophy. But he’s my best friend because he’s his own person, a good person, and I never wanted him to go through what happened to Millie. When he called me up and said Kyle had been arrested, I was relieved that I finally had a chance to redeem myself. So many thousands of dollars went towards law school instead of Clyde’s family, you know--I wanted to show him that it had paid off, even if he didn’t reap the benefits directly.”

“You know he never expected that of you,” I said. “Maybe I don’t agree with what he did, and maybe he got pretty fucking lucky, but he took care of it. He just paid for it in knowledge and suffering, not in time. You’re right to say he’s a good man. I’d be proud to call him my best friend.”

“Who do you call your best friend now?” Token asked.

That made me stop. I hadn’t thought about it. My own bitterness surprised me. “Stan, I guess.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“Kyle’s in the picture again. I can’t even get near them. What can I say? Maybe this is just the way it’s meant to be; my track record isn’t that great. I once shared BFF vows with Eric fucking Cartman. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for that.”

There was a hiss as Token tossed his cigarette into a puddle of melted ice, making it ripple. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “Cartman’s always been the outlier. If sexually abusing your mutual friend for ten years doesn’t break the contract, I don’t know what the hell does.”

I felt a wan smile tug at my lips. “When you put it that way…”

“But you’re going about this wrong. Stan’s importance to you is not relative to his feelings for someone else. You took this case for him, didn’t you? At least more for him than yourself, or even Kyle. Look at all the personal sacrifices that people have made in the last few days. Flying across the country. Taking new jobs. Committing murder. You can’t arrange these things by scope; that just diminishes them, and you.”

My classmates, I thought, closing my eyes. These boys--these men. If our reunion had been under better circumstances, it would’ve been beautiful. But could we have come together this way for joy? For beauty? Not all of us had managed to make it to Clyde’s wedding or the grand opening of the Wash-‘n-Wear, nor Pip’s first sermon, my graduation. The last time we’d assembled in full was during high school, for Jimmy Vulmer’s funeral. I didn’t want to believe that crises fashioned our only potential for teamwork…but it was too clear that tragedy got us together the fastest.

“We’re a swell group of angst-mongers,” said Token, as if reading my thoughts. “Know what, though? The time has come to stop admiring that. It hurts me to say this, it really does--but you’re a professional, Kenny, and you must’ve seen the huge gaps between who we are and who we pretend to be. So far, you’ve managed to be consistent. But what kind of favors is that doing everyone?”

“It’s doing me a favor,” I snapped.

“Well, of course it is. It’s safe, it’s easy, and it gets you stepped on.”

I started to argue with that, but the memory of Gregory stopped me. He had played me like he played Harris, but that wasn’t as personal--they hadn’t been on a first name basis. Yes, I’d been stepped on. Baring my soul to the world meant that everyone could see right through me to the parts that were still raw and bleeding. Was it worth it, to wear my heart on my sleeve at the risk of its being torn off? At the end of the day, maybe “at least he was consistent” wouldn’t look so great on my headstone.

“Sorry, Kenny,” said Token softly, sensing my grief. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”

He was reaching out between the chain links, a subtle gesture of comfort, not grand enough to register on film. His hand was inches from my shoulder. I could lean into that touch, feel him solid and soothing behind me. But Gregory was not going to hurt me without my learning from it. He had taught me at least one good thing.

Choose anger.

I jerked away from Token and stood up, making the fence tremble with the force of the motion. Token jumped a little, startled.

“Ken, what the hell--?”

“I’m going to do my job,” I said shortly. “I’m going to cut the bullshit and do my job.”

Token grabbed my sleeve, tugging me around. I could finally face him. I was immediately confronted by my own reflection in his aviators, resolve silvered in the tinted glass, and what I saw both frightened and empowered me: I was ready. I was ready to hear the truth.

“Hey, I can’t question Kyle without his lawyer present,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”

“Not if you need me.”

“I need you,” I said.

Token lifted his glasses. His eyes were dark. “I’ve waited my whole life to hear those words,” he said, his voice rich with sarcasm. Then he smiled grimly and dropped the shades back over his face. “Lead on, detective.”

- - - - - - - - -

I opened the door to let Token into the holding cell a few steps before me, heard Kyle stand up in a hurry. “Token, did you talk to him?” Kyle said. “He didn’t visit me this morning. I think something’s wrong.”

“You’ve got that right,” I said. “Are you talking about Gregory?”

“Uh--Kenny?” Kyle had flinched, guilty as sin. Even in the face of his unease, I refused to let my expression slip. This wasn’t Kyle from school, I told myself; I didn’t know him, he was just another victim who’d swept crucial information under the rug. I stared at his scars instead. In scars, he was someone I’d never even met.

“I need you to tell me what happened,” I said.

“But I’ve already told you,” Kyle said. “I’ve told you at least a dozen times.”

“Try it again, this time truthfully.”

He glanced at Token, begging for answers. Token looked on with quiet sympathy, but offered him no respite. Kyle sank back onto his cot, repeating the story without adornment, hands unconsciously rubbing the bruises on his wrists.

“Okay. Cartman told me what happened to Christophe late in the evening. He took me to the hospital to see him. I waited in the car for a while before going in, so we wouldn’t be seen walking together. Chris was already asleep by the time I got into his room--I gave Cartman time to go to the car by himself, then I went back to the parking lot and we drove home. Harris was waiting outside the house, so Cartman stopped a block away and made me walk to meet him. Harris took me to the station, where I fed Stan and Dawson bullshit until eleven, and then Murphy took me home and I found Cartman lying on the carpet with his throat slashed open. Happy?”

“Not quite,” I said. This was the first time I had heard Kyle deliver his alibi verbally. Dawson had taken his first and second statements, and I’d read the records, but hearing it aloud was something very different--he’d repeated it almost verbatim. As would anyone working off a script. “Who did you see in the hospital that night?”

“I saw Stan and Dawson exiting, and I almost bumped into you in the hallway when you were talking to Cartman. I waited for you to leave.”

The video evidence supported that much. “No one else.”

“And Christophe, obviously.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

I flipped open my notepad and wrote down the information. I could’ve kept the notes in my head, but the memos made Kyle nervous. His breathing was a little shallower as he stood back up and approached the bars, looking so small in his orange jumpsuit.

“What’s this about, Kenny?” he pleaded.

“Mr. Broflovski,” I continued, ignoring the shock that bloomed in his eyes at this formality, “tell me more about finding Cartman in your bedroom.”

Kyle wasn’t looking to Token for comfort anymore. He was staring at me as if I’d just stabbed him myself, reevaluating, flooded with disbelief at my betrayal. “Detective McCormick, you already have my fucking statement. I walked into the house and saw him lying there, dead. I flipped him over and checked his pulse, but he was already getting cold. The knife was in the carpet. I stood by it and cried until I heard sirens, and then you came in and arrested me.”

Now I was writing just so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes.

“Fuck you,” Kyle said. His voice broke. “Fuck you, Kenny! You faked this whole thing! I thought you were still my friend!”

Don’t digest it. Don’t make it real. “You really didn’t do it,” I summarized.

“I really didn’t do it,” Kyle said. “You just threw away our friendship for something I already told you. You son of a bitch!”

Despite how strategic Token’s interjection had seemed in interrogation, it had been true. That meant that Token had always known what I’d had the gall to doubt: Kyle had not committed the murder. Not even after Cartman had assaulted him for years, broken him down until he would stay alone in a prison without locks. His proclaimed innocence wasn’t merely a defensive move, it was a fact. Nothing had changed with my involvement--it was arrogant to assume that the South Park police could have encouraged a turnaround after so long. Someone else had set off the spark. Someone who had been on the outside--at least back then.

“So what did you and Gregory St. Clair talk about in Christophe’s hospital room?” I asked casually.

Kyle froze. It was unmistakable. The tone of the questioning changed immediately, offering me a moment to breathe. Kyle had no room to be righteous while he was in retreat.

“How…?”

“The hospital surveillance. You, Cartman, and Gregory intersected for a full minute before Cartman took off like someone had lit a fire under his ass. What were you three talking about?”

Kyle’s lips were trembling. He pursed them together to still them, but his hands continued to shake, and it took all of my self-control not to clasp them in my own. “You don’t understand,” he whispered. “I had to go there. He was going to kill him.”

Token and I both stood up straighter at that one. “Who?” Token demanded, not ashamed to be in the dark. “Gregory was going to kill Cartman?”

“No! God. It was Cartman. Cartman was going to kill Christophe.”

Right. Eric had happily mowed Christophe down in front of a police station. No way he would’ve let that slide. Chris was never supposed to survive the hit-and-run, but when he did, Eric decided to make sure he would never get well enough to talk. What had he told us that night? He was from Christophe’s insurance company? Bullshit. He had been there to finish what he had started, and Kyle was there to stop him. Lucky, because we hadn’t known then what he was planning.

“Go on,” I said.

“I didn’t realize what he was doing at the hospital until I saw Stan and Dawson leave. Then I ran to his room. Cartman was looking for a syringe to inject an air bubble into Christophe’s IV.” Kyle sagged against the bars, lowering his voice. “Cartman--he hit me hard. I think I fell down. When I opened my eyes, Gregory had the syringe in his hand, and Cartman was backing up against the wall.”

Beside me, the corners of Token’s mouth curled up in a small, wicked smile. Even if Gregory was a murderer, this was a matter of degree, and I too felt a trickle of approval at the idea of Eric finally having to face someone he couldn’t kick while he was down. Gregory could not be bullied. But with sudden light on this new visual, I was not struck by Cartman’s apprehension, or Gregory’s power, or even Kyle’s disbelief at his first rescue in ten years. Above everything, I could imagine the grim satisfaction in Christophe’s eyes. Chris had been caged motionless in his own broken body, but never without the possibility of retribution. Not with the company he kept. Not with a friend like Gregory.

“Cartman left,” said Kyle, barely audible. “Gregory helped me up and asked me where I wanted to go. I said Yes Foods Grocery. I didn’t think Cartman would be stupid enough to return home, but I didn’t know for sure--we passed by the house, though, and sure enough, I saw Harris in his squad car. Same thing I said before, except it was Gregory who let me out a block away.”

“He just kicked you out onto the street?” I said.

“It wasn’t like that. He knew I’d be safer with the police than I would with him. He said he would watch the house and stop me if I tried to go in when Cartman was home, but that he had no legal authority over any of us yet--tomorrow, he promised. Just one more day.”

That’s right--Harris had been in the process of integrating him into our system the night of Cartman’s murder. That meant that he’d put in for transfer several weeks ago, before Christophe had come to see us, but not before Kyle’s “fall down the stairs.” No wonder Token had hinted towards Gregory’s involvement in interrogation. During the seven-day delay between Kyle’s accident and Christophe’s report, Chris had phoned his own connection to the law--the Chief Constable of Rutland, no killable ties to South Park--and then all they had to wait for was Gregory’s paperwork to go through. They had been looking for lawful vengeance. Companionship aside, they were actually playing fair.

But then something had changed. Christophe was attacked, and maybe Gregory was no longer satisfied with a jail sentence after seeing him in traction, jaws wired shut. Heartrending as it was, did that make any sense against their patient record of waiting and planning?

Did they really have a relationship worth committing murder over?

“Tell me how Gregory and Christophe knew each other,” I said.

Kyle stared at me, wary of the implications behind this question. “They were childhood friends. I don’t know how they met.”

“Childhood friends? That’s all Christophe told you about Gregory?”

“If you’re asking about how intense their relationship is, I have no more of an idea than you do. Chris rarely wrote to me about anyone. He told me once that he knew someone in law enforcement, and I assume that it was Gregory, because he’s the one here now. They were collaborators in La Resistance. Partners. Besides that, I’ve never heard anything about their interaction. I don’t know that Chris even had any other friends. There was a cousin, Chloe, and some guy he went barhopping with twice a year.”

Wait. “Barhopping?” I repeated.

“Yeah, it was one of very few things Chris ever asked me about. I remember it because it--well, it wasn’t like Chris at all; he never worried about people. But he wanted to know what it meant that he and this friend of his were only comfortable when they were…you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” I said.

Kyle blushed. “Having drunken sex,” he said, defiant.

My eyebrows shot up. Gregory and Christophe--involved in a physical relationship. What they lacked in frequency they made up for in intensity, if Christophe’s uncharacteristic preoccupation with their meetings had anything to do with it. Gregory had certainly omitted that detail last night while we were drinking--or had he? The color in his face that I’d taken for the effects of the alcohol…the undeniable sensitivity of the discussion. The way his eyes had dimmed with longing.

I didn’t know why I hadn’t guessed it before. Simple business partners didn’t fly across oceans for defense, and they definitely didn’t put their lives on each other’s shoulders so blindly. A friend was worth fighting for. That was noble enough. But a lover was worth killing for.

I had Gregory’s motive.

“This is too good,” said Token dryly, reading my expression. “It explains so much. I knew that straight men didn’t iron their shirt sleeves like that every morning.”

“What are you talking about?” Kyle demanded.

“Gregory said something to you before you spoke to Stan, didn’t he?” I said. This was the trump card I needed. “The day after your arrest, by the holding cells, he wasn’t just reviewing your Mirandas. Tell me what he said.”

Kyle closed his eyes. His strength had finally fled him. “Please, Kenny, please don’t make me do this to him,” he whispered. “He was the only one who actually tried to help me.”

“I could have him tell me, instead,” I said. “While I arrest him.”

What was behind Kyle now was pure grief. Without anyone to look to for comfort, he dropped his gaze to his own hands and rubbed circles around his wrists, too used to shackles. “Gregory…he…told me not to worry. He said that he was going to take care of it. And something in his face told me to trust him.”

We had all been impressed by Kyle’s calmness, but he had never even digested his danger, had he? He’d never had a reason to. Gregory had diffused the situation with a few neat words.

Typical.

“Hey, Detective McCormick,” said Kyle suddenly, sharp enough to cut. “Why don’t you give me a fucking clue?”

I looked at Kyle. He hated me now, and he was justified in that hatred. This was what professionals did: they stepped on people. They used up them up. Harris had tried to warn me the night he assigned me the case, tried to hint that it hadn’t been benevolence on his part--only now, thinking about the body count behind me, was I finally able to see what it had cost me to uphold the law. But this was what I had now. I had once believed in it enough to make a pledge to it. It carried no value if even I couldn’t believe in it long enough to make it right.

“Kyle, it’s almost over,” I said quietly. “If things go right, you’ll be out of here in an hour. I would never abandon you. Ever.”

I didn’t even wait to see his reaction. I drove the door open hard enough to strike the wall, swinging it shut so Token couldn’t catch it on the rebound. No more speaking to friends. No more allowing myself that comfort. Harris had restored my arrest privileges, and by now I was an old pro at snapping the cuffs and throwing away the keys.

- - - - - - - - -

Gregory was standing outside when I left the holding cells, his dark coat rustling in the gentle wind. He was staring at Christophe’s crime scene again. My knowledge of his situation gave his scrutiny a darker meaning--his expression was angry, determined, so transparent that I didn’t know how I had missed it before. I felt the ache of his betrayal in sick waves, but I approached him anyway, careful to retain a cold distance. He turned to me, started to speak, then stopped. I could see him measuring the six good feet between us. More of his calculations.

“Good morning,” he said at last. “Are you okay?”

I shrugged. “As well as can be expected. Feeling pretty foolish right now, but I guess you had Kyle fooled, too. So at least I was in good company.”

He’d been scribbling away in that damn notepad of his. He paused with the pen poised in mid-stroke. What was he doing? Forging signatures? Scripting Kyle’s courtroom scene? His face gave nothing away but mild uncertainty. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Is this about my letting Mr. Marsh visit Mr. Broflovski? I just assumed you would approve. I apologize.”

“Cut the fucking act,” I said.

Now there was something in his eyes. They flashed dangerously. “Pardon me?”

“I should never have trusted you,” I told him, emboldened by my fury. I clenched my hands in my pockets to keep myself from lashing out. “God--I was so stupid. I knew there was something wrong the second you shook my hand. No wonder you needed me on this case! I was the only officer stupid enough to ignore my instincts in lieu of a phony friendship.”

“Phony friendship,” Gregory repeated, his mouth twisting. “This is news to me. I thank you again for your exemplary skills of perception.”

“Want to know what else I’ve found out?”

“Pray tell.”

I dared to step forward. He did not match the gesture with any movement of his own, a very strange sign. It meant he was either very confident or very confused. “You and Christophe were friends,” I said. “Except for me, everyone knew it--Token, Stan, Kyle, even Eric. That’s fine, because that knowledge itself wasn’t damning. Harris likes connections. You were just another link in the South Park network. What he didn’t know was how serious your adult relationship with Christophe became during those lonely nights in Rutland.”

Gregory’s cheeks reddened. It took him a long moment to find his voice. “I told you that in confidence! How dare you use it against me! That’s what last night was, wasn’t it? I was only research?”

I laughed out loud. “You’re kidding, right? That’s all I’ve ever been to you!”

“Not last night, you weren’t. Nor on the phone, or at Mr. Cartman’s funeral, or whenever we exchanged more than two words after our drive home from the Denver headquarters.”

“Really, just stop,” I said, losing my temper. “Fucking stop.”

“I stopped a long time ago, when I decided I could trust you,” he said.

“Oh, and when was that?”

“When I realized you were a better person than me. There. What else would you like to hear?”

The compliment was such an unwarranted strategy that I could conceive of no way to combat it. I tightened my lips and swallowed. He just stared at me with his usual affected steadiness, the hard line of his mouth giving lie to the sudden slump of misery in his shoulders.

“Right. This is a problem with me, I realize that. Christophe is one of very few people who will speak to me on a semi-regular basis. Certainly he’s the only person I can get close enough to touch. I promise I would have explained our relationship if I thought we actually had one--but a tryst a year is not a romance. I thought…misguidedly…that I’d be demonstrating something to him by taking Mr. Broflovski’s case. Of course, I can throw all of that out, now. I was too obvious when I went to visit him in the hospital and saw Cartman leaning over him with a syringe. This is why I hate sentiment: you put everything on the table for someone else to see, you eviscerate yourself, and they’re never interested in any of it. It’s just…a lot of blood for nothing.”

I’d seen him upset before, but never like this. Never on a personal level. He wouldn’t even look at me; it was all I could do not to fling my arms around him and tell him how deeply I related. For the second time in the last week, I had to force myself not to embrace a murderer. I didn’t know why I was so drawn to this type of damage.

“I bled for you, too,” I said finally. “Maybe that much evens out.”

Gregory looked away, squeezing his eyes shut. I knew he believed me without actually trusting the philosophy. This was not a fair world.

“But it doesn’t mean that you can get away with what you did,” I said.

Harris and Dawson were talking inside the station, in earshot for my verbal go-ahead. I could see them from my angle, but Gregory couldn’t. He looked at Cartman’s tire treads on the pavement. A lot of the photo evidence markers had blown over or been obscured by the snow: one good storm and the final evidence of Christophe’s near-death experience would be gone. But the weather couldn’t erase the paperwork or Christophe’s scars…or Gregory’s, for that matter. He let out a soft breath.

“I’m sorry I withheld information about Chris,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I said shortly.

“Then why are you still angry with me?”

My annoyance returned. “Jesus, Gregory! Are you really that secure in your moral beliefs? I mean, we all know who he was and what he did, but even Kyle didn’t lose enough heart to actually kill him! You don’t think murder merits an apology? Even a small one?”

Gregory’s forehead creased. “This is about Cartman?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s about Cartman! Who else?”

“Chris,” Gregory said, softly.

“Damn it, not everything is about Christophe!” I reached forward and snatched the notepad out of his hands. I was bare inches away from him now. “You murdered Cartman, and you have to answer to it. Isn’t that what you told me? ‘Justice ensures that someone pays for it.’ Well, pay up, constable. You’re not above the law; no one is. Not even a person who writes his own lie-filled book about it.”

Gregory looked at me for a long time before his eyes widened with disbelief. “Wait,” he said. “Wait.”

“I’m done waiting,” I said.

“So that’s what you were talking about? You--no. Harris had his suspicions, but you weren’t supposed to know…Ken. Oh, Ken.” His voice cracked a little on my name. “‘No one is above the law.’ You are going to be very sorry you said that.”

I shoved him a little. “Is that a threat?” I demanded, shaking the notepad at him for emphasis.

Then I stopped short.

My gaze had fallen on the sheets of paper. Gregory’s cluttered script marched across the page in uneven lines, a rough draft of some sort of letter, maybe. I saw a capital K. The sharp curve of a G. I had never seen his writing before. It was as unfamiliar and distinctive as the way he spoke and dressed and acted--there was no way I could ever mistake it for something else.

My other hand was still in my jacket pocket. It closed around an old memo.

I couldn’t move.

“Ken, I’m sorry,” Gregory said, struggling hard to speak. “You have no idea how sorry I am. It only just occurred to me--that look on your face--”

That was bad, that I was giving so much away with my expression, but I couldn’t will myself back into professionalism this time. Never again. I was through with this shift, this town, this horrible tired life. I felt myself shaking and knew my hands weren’t stable enough even to wipe my eyes. Tears spilled down my cheeks, burning hot against the winter chill. Gregory tugged off his black gloves and swiped the moisture firmly off my face with his thumbs. He held on, his grip too tight. At least I knew that this was hurting him, too.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said quietly. “You could get in your car now. Drive away from here and never come back.”

I tried to laugh and only choked. “And then who would take care of it?”

“This is different. No one would—no one needs to--”

“Then it’s all worthless. All of it. Everything we’ve been through. Everything Kyle’s been through. This entire investigation, Eric’s death, all the things that he will never have to pay for…it was all for nothing!”

“Why?” Gregory demanded. “Because it’s a type of justice that didn’t go through a court?”

I pushed his hands away from me and grabbed his shoulders. “Don’t you see, Gregory? Eric won! He won the second he put on that uniform! He made sure there was no way for anyone to speak against him even after his death! Yes, there will be rumors, and yes, people will ask questions--but what is our case? What we have amounts to nothing but he-said-she-said bullshit! Without someone else on the stand, Kyle is a murderer.”

“But he loses no credibility as a witness,” said Gregory.

“Are you kidding? Of course he does! For every one of his scars, Sergeant Cartman has a medal of commendation. For every Craig, there’s a cop. Token can’t take on a full precinct! No one will even hear it! And do you know why?”

Gregory merely swallowed hard.

“This,” I said. I took out my badge and shook it hard in front of him. “This fucking piece of metal that says nothing about a person’s morals. You said it yourself: Kyle’s not a police officer. He has the weight of testimony, but not of status. The only person who could take Eric on is someone on the right side of the law--the real right side--and Eric kept it all within South Park because he knew Harris and I could never throw one of our own to the dogs.”

“Therein lies your only alternative,” said Gregory.

“I see,” I said. “Finally, I see.”

I shoved my badge at him. He grabbed for it on pure reflex, barely catching it. I yanked my cuffs free from their pouch and dropped them into his arms, following with my flashlight, my notepad, and all of my spare magazines. I checked the safeties on my gun before setting it on the top of the pile. I unknotted my tie, folded it, and handed it over. Gregory merely watched this whole process in silent shock, unable even to find the words to argue.

“This is where I draw the line,” I said. “You can pick this up if you like, tell Harris what we know. But I’m not going to be the person to do it.”

“You’re the only one who should,” said Gregory.

“No. This is what I should do. This is what I should’ve done a long time ago.”

And so I did the bravest and most cowardly thing of my life. I did the only thing I could do. I turned on heel, Eric’s laughter echoing in my mind, and walked away.

- - - - - - - - -

I dropped off the keys to the squad car to take my own, a three-year-old red Volvo that had been sitting in the parking lot since I took the case. I scraped off just enough ice to see through the front and back windows before tearing out of there, wondering how I was going to respond when Harris called me up and demanded to know where I was going. Crazy, I decided finally. And that was a good enough descriptor for the last week of my life. Crazy, tired, over. I drove to the edge of the town with my eyes on the safety rails, and if there were suicidal thoughts in my mind, they were purely speculative: it wasn’t about flinging my car off the side of a mountain. It was about that action being a welcome alternative to waking up in the morning and facing myself.

Kyle would understand. Kyle, who had really felt this dilemma, and triumphed over it.

But I wasn’t Kyle. No one was.

I urged the car up the incline. My graduation tassel swayed on the rearview mirror. Before Eric and Kyle reappeared in my life, I’d been at peace with our falling out…as vivid as my childhood memories were, we hadn’t been friends for nearly ten years, and the mementos of our shared experiences evoked that same quiet nostalgia. It was a default ending, a neutral ending. Not happy, but not upsetting, either. I never underestimated the power of Stan and Kyle’s relationship, but I thought it had disappeared in the only way it could--gently, a layer at a time, like a Polaroid fading in the sun. After all, the other option was remembrance…and that hurt so much more than forgetting.

The parked car rose into my line of sight without warning. My lack of surprise startled me. Somehow, I had been expecting it. I eased down on my brakes and coasted onto the shoulder of road, turning on my emergency lights and exiting through the passenger door to a gust of mountain wind. The altitude made my whole body feel too heavy.

I walked past the city limits sign toward the man standing at the overlook railing, his back to me.

“Stan,” I said.

He didn’t turn, but he offered a hand. I grabbed it when it was in reach and trudged through the last few steps of snow, wrapping my arm around his shoulders when I reached the handrail. He clung back. Despite the weather, he was still warm.

“Kenny,” he said. “Hey.”

It was snowing in soft, unobtrusive expanses. I could still see South Park from here, all of it: Stark’s Pond, the elementary school, rows of houses for our 1500 residents, the theatre, the isolated shape of Yes Foods Grocery, the steepled church shining bright as a lodestar a few blocks away from Main Street. The developed part of town occupied only a tiny ring between two sloped valleys, but the breadth of it was still magnificent--I had lived my entire life down there. This tiny settlement contained everything and everyone I’d ever known. I’d never consolidated my world in such a way before, but if I’d tried, it wouldn’t have been as beautiful as this tiny collection of lights on a clean white map…a space that couldn’t even be contained by a horizon. It carried the impression of eternity. I had never felt so young before, or so old.

“Jesus,” I said, my voice small. “Wow.”

“Yeah, it’s really something,” said Stan, pulling me closer. “I think sometimes that Kyle and I saw all of this too early. We were too hopeful to digest the magnitude. We were too…sixteen.”

I glanced at him sideways. His eyes were reflecting the sky, muted gray. “Being young once isn’t your fault,” I said.

“Being blind is,” he said.

He meant Kyle. I finally understood how little weight my consolations held for him--I was Kyle’s friend too, easily his second closest, but Stan was galaxies ahead of me, able to see a light in Kyle that didn’t even reach me from where I was standing. If anyone could’ve seen what Eric had done, it should’ve been him. But he hadn’t. And he was the only one who didn’t understand that none of us were holding him accountable.

Stan pulled away to look at me, then gazed over my shoulder at my car. “Why do you have the Volvo?” he asked.

I watched my breath dissipate in front of me. “What do you think? I’m running away.” As if saying it would make it less disgraceful. “Consider this my goodbye, Stan. I’m going to get out of here, job be damned. South Park be damned. I’m just…not cut out for this.”

“You were doing fine a day ago,” he said.

“Things have changed a bit since then,” I said, holding his gaze to convey my meaning.

He took in a breath, held it, and nodded.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hide my expression before he could see it. “God. Stan.”

A hush fell around us again. I hated the isolation of this overlook, hated that there was nothing to fill the space between us. Stan started to reach for me, swore, then pulled back and dropped his hands to his sides instead. He was upset, but steady. Steadier, in fact, than he had been since high school. “What happens now?” he asked. “Be honest.”

I laughed, fighting my hysteria. “Stan, I’m giving up! I lose! I’m not going to serve an organization that forces me to arrest the people I care about. Harris isn’t a fucking moron. He knows Kyle didn’t do it. You wait around until they have to release him for lack of evidence or something, then you pick him up and drive away and never let them hear from either of you again. That’s the happiest way that this could end, right? Just forget everything else and get the fuck out of here. You should’ve done it a long time ago. Everyone should’ve. Clyde, Pip, Butters, Thomas, Craig--I don’t know why anyone is still here.”

“They’re all waiting to see someone pay for it,” said Stan.

“You think they give a fuck who killed Eric?” I yelled. “You think they’re sticking around to celebrate a martyr for a dead cause?”

“I know they are. I’m not stupid, and neither are you. The law failed them, and if they don’t have a face for this trial, then everything Denver did just gets swept under the rug. You may have stopped believing in the system, Kenny, but I haven’t. It’s not Harris or Montgomery or Gregory; it’s right versus wrong. It’s justice, and it’s useless if you don’t answer to it.”

“Eric didn’t answer to it!” I shouted. “I was toting that shit philosophy half an hour ago; don’t even try!”

Stan’s face was serene. “Cartman didn’t face a judge, but he paid for what he did.”

“Oh, did he, now?”

“Yes,” said Stan. “I made sure of that.”

I couldn’t even look at him anymore. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the memo he had left on my bulletin board after I had taken Kyle’s case: Ken, you are great. “Your fatal mistake. I recognized your handwriting from the note you slipped to Kyle, but that wasn’t what tipped Harris and them off. Kyle wouldn’t have let him bleed out.”

Stan closed his eyes, ignoring my derision. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not Kyle. And I was never going to let him go to jail for this. This was all about his freedom.”

“Except the part where you slashed Eric’s throat open,” I said.

His lips curled up in a humorless smile. “You’re right,” he said, his voice cold. “That was for me.”

I shook my head. “You knew it was Kyle the second you saw him, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. I’m furious I didn’t recognize him the second I heard him. But…it’s like that sometimes. In college, I’d hear this one voice in lecture hall that sounded like his. Or there in town, I’d be standing on the sidewalk on Main Street, and suddenly I’ll catch a scent that reminds me of him…it’s enough to bring me to my knees. To know that he was here the whole time…does that make a better lover, or a worse one? Would I have forgotten him years ago if I didn’t feel him subliminally around South Park?”

The question was absurd. “No,” I said.

Stan opened his eyes. “No,” he agreed. “No.”

I never wanted to have to think about this, but now I had to understand before I could move on. “So who else knew?” I asked. “You had Kyle in on this? Gregory? Token?”

“I think they knew. Not explicitly, because they would’ve been under obligation of the law to forward the information--but they didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell. They trusted me. I asked Gregory to pick Kyle up and take him back to Christophe’s room after interrogation. Then I called you to see if we had cause to arrest Cartman. You said we didn’t…but I couldn’t wait, and neither could Kyle. So I went to Kyle’s house. Cartman’s house.”

“He was there?”

“He wouldn’t answer the door, but he heard me climb through the bedroom window.”

“Was he armed? Were you armed?”

Stan’s eyes flashed. “Neither of us had a weapon. Kenny, I wasn’t planning to kill him; I just wanted to talk.”

I wanted to believe him. “What changed in that amount of time?”

“I saw the chains on Kyle’s side of bed,” said Stan, his jaw tightening. “Then I saw the knife under the pillow on Cartman’s. Imagine what was done to Kyle with that weapon, in that bed. If that wasn’t a sign, tell me what is.”

“It was a sign that said, ‘Let Harris handle this,’” I said.

“Look me in the eyes, Kenny, and tell me you believe that.”

I couldn’t. Murder wasn’t the answer, but neither was sitting back and waiting for Harris to take down Eric, Montgomery, and the rest of the Denver headquarters. In that time, Eric would’ve had another hotel rendezvous or two with Thomas, a month’s income from Craig, more time to terrorize Pip and Clyde, more time to do god knew what to Kyle. Christophe would probably be dead and the South Park station would be dying. Lawful reckonings took time, causalities. Would we have survived it intact? I wanted to say yes. Yet here I was, running away after a single week.

“Justice exists beyond the police,” Stan said into the silence. “Even it makes someone take a life. Even when it’s not sanctioned. I always planned to serve my time, and, as it happens, I’ve got one hell of a lawyer to back me up.”

“So that’s where Token comes into this,” I whispered.

Stan shook his head and reached into his coat. “No,” he said, pulling out a folded bundle of papers. “Token was working with me on this.”

I flipped through the pages. Immediately my eyes began to sting and the text blurred together. All the legal work was sound--it contained everything. Transfers of assets, joint bank account forms, vehicular signing-off and registration documents, even a modest private health care package. Finally, the deed to a house…a tiny single-bedroom ranch that Stan had been paying mortgage on, but without outrageous taxes, without chains on the walls. A quiet place for Kyle to stay until Stan came back.

Until Stan completed his term.

“Just need his signatures now,” said Stan. He sighed. The snow spiraled in front of him. “My whole life in one packet of paper.”

“Your life for Cartman’s,” I said.

“My life for Kyle’s,” he said, smiling. “Fair trade.”

I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him as hard as I could. He held me tight, his face buried in my shoulder, no more ghosts left between us to keep us apart. Stan Marsh. Kyle Broflovski’s savior, Eric’s executor, the uniformed witness for a voiceless town of victims. Most importantly, my best friend. The greatest man I would ever be privileged enough to know.

“Read ‘em, detective,” Stan said, kidding lightly despite his solemnity.

I laughed. “You’re hilarious. That would take forty years off my life.”

“Do it,” he said. “I want you to. And let’s go already.”

I pulled back and stared into his eyes to see if he was joking. He wasn’t. “Stan,” I said quietly, stalling for time, and was shocked by my own realization: there was nothing left for me to say to him. Nothing at all that he didn’t already know. I touched his face, his hands, everything so familiar and yet so unfathomable. He’d left me with nothing but that one syllable hanging on my lips, the only one that mattered. “Stan.”

“Kenny,” said Stan, grinned past the tears in his eyes.

Slowly, I took his arm and began to lead him back through the snow to my car. “Stanley Marsh, you are under arrest,” I said. The attitude swallowed my words, left no echoes. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you at government expense. Do you understand these rights?”

“I understand,” Stan said.

He slid into the front seat and closed the door. I walked around the hood, sat down, and drew the belt over my lap. My hands trembled on the wheel for a moment. Then I turned the key and let the engine sputter to life. When I’d backed out and gotten my car oriented in the right direction--that slender treacherous road back to South Park--I had to pause. Something flickered in my recent memory. Something that was only just now starting to make sense.

Stan touched my elbow. His voice was soft. “What are you thinking about?”

“Craig Tucker got a new tattoo the other day,” I said haltingly. “‘Lex talionis. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth for a tooth, an arm for an arm…’”

“‘A life for a life,’” Stan finished.

I released a slow breath. “I thought it was bullshit, but that’s how it all turned out, didn’t it? Eric took Kyle’s…so you took Eric’s.”

“Who took mine?” asked Stan.

I had to think about it for a long time. “Justice,” I said finally. “That’s where it all ends.”

“No,” Stan said. “No.” He leaned forward in his seat and looked me straight in the eyes. “That’s where it all begins.”

- - - - - - - - -

I paged ahead to tell Harris that I was driving Stan back to the station. By the time we got there, a crowd had assembled outside the front doors, no doubt drawn to the Cañon City squad car that had arrived to transport our detainee to the Fremont Correctional Facility. I didn’t know if word had gotten out yet that the transfer would be Stan, not Kyle--Randy and Sharon Marsh were conspicuously absent from the spectators. I hoped that Dawson or Murphy had managed to contact them before the rumor mill had reached them. I wanted to keep the damage to a minimum, whatever that counted for in a situation like this.

Stan saw the faces through my car’s tinted windows: Clyde, Craig and Thomas, Butters, who’d had nothing to go home for, and Pip and Damien. I don’t know how much Stan knew, but there was too much going on in his eyes for me to believe he didn’t have some knowledge of their situations. Token and Gregory had probably kept him informed. They might not have been communicating with each other, but they were doing what they could to twist this case without hurting the law…or me. This whole time, they had been cushioning my falls, bracing me for the inevitable. Friends of justice. Friends I could trust. There was no bitterness in Stan’s expression--only sympathy, gratitude, and quiet fear.

Such brave fear.

Barbrady had cordoned off the perimeter, but a dozen reporters had made it past the barricades--not just from the South Park Herald; the major local networks were there, too. This case had garnered statewide attention. Murphy waited at the curb until I had parked before moving to open my passenger door, keeping his body expertly aligned between Stan and the spectators. They moved towards the station. Flashbulbs lit the air. Dawson dispatched the most aggressive anchors with few firm gestures, then reached down to help me out of my seat.

“Are you okay?” he asked under the crowd’s noise.

“No,” I said.

Dawson nodded. His hand tightened around mine. “Will you be okay eventually?”

The commotion soared abruptly to unparalleled decibels as something changed by the station doors, cutting off my reply. But that clamor was only filler, insubstantial, as meaningless as static. I heard his voice before I saw him. We all did.

“Stan! Stan!”

Kyle had thrown open the doors to the station. He was wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, his white sneakers. His wrists were free of cuffs. He only had to search the sea of viewers for half a second before his gaze found the man he’d been seeking in fantasy for ten captive years, but this--this was solid. This couldn’t dissolve behind his waking eyelids. Eric couldn’t dash this on the floor and leave him to pick up the pieces. Kyle flung himself into Stan’s ready arms, and Stan clutched him back as hard as he could, lifting him to the tips of his toes. Their lips met for the flashbulbs, but they’d already achieved immortality outside of their criminal celebrity. Kyle swiped tears off Stan’s face with his free hands. Stan just kept kissing him, sustaining his delicate weight like a gentleman, the cadence of their mouths broken only his soft mantra: “I’m sorry. I love you, Kyle. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll be okay,” I said to Dawson, and moved past them into the station, leaving them in the world’s uncertain hands.

I went straight to my office and stood there for a long time. A few days ago, Stan had sat at this very desk, Kyle and Eric hiding nameless in our file. With Stan’s presence and Kyle’s anonymity, I could afford to imagine them in peace. I didn’t know what was going to happen to them now. I only knew that I was going to be there every step of the way, for both of them, serving my truest friends to the best of my abilities.

I had my hand ready on the phone when it began to buzz.

“Hello,” I said into the receiver, after a few rings that allowed me time to steady my breathing.

“Hi.”

My anonymous tipper was strangely reticent today. I unpinned everything from my bulletin board as I waited, tucking the photographs into my pocket, extracting the final thumbtack just in time to hear his choked apology.

“I--I’m so sorry. I never meant to implicate Stan, you know. I just…wanted Cartman to pay for what he did to me. To all of us.”

“I understand,” I said. “Thank you for your help. We might not have gotten him without you.”

“Yeah, right. Is a warning still useful if it comes six years too late?”

“It was in this case. I promise.”

More silence. Then, just barely in my earshot, “Kenny--where are you right now? Can you see them?”

I leaned back in my chair and peeked through the blinds, past the glare of activity, where my star witnesses had stepped out onto empty the pavement. Butters stood bravely upright, ignoring the crowd. Clyde was praying. Pip wasn’t. Damien stood well out of Pip’s personal space, the extent of his contact one platonic palm on his back. But to their right, Craig and Thomas were kissing without inhibitions, Craig’s arms wrapped around Thomas’ waist, Thomas clinging to Craig with one hand and holding his cell phone with the other.

I could guess who he had just finished speaking with.

“Yeah, I see them,” I said, sitting back.

“Do they look happy?”

“Yeah. They really do.”

“Good. Okay.” A pause, the calm kind, the sound of letting go. “I think I’m going to hang up now. Thank you for listening to me when no one else would. I mean--just, thank you. For everything.”

“Hey—wait!” I couldn’t let him disconnect on that note of desperation. I needed to know.

He paused. “Yeah?”

“Are you happy?”

He laughed. “Am I happy? Jesus, no. Of course I’m not happy. But for the first time in years--I have a feeling that I could be. And that’s enough for me. You have a good life, Kenny.”

I let the tears stay in my eyes for a moment before I blinked them away. “And you, Tweek. I mean it.”

There was one last deliberate lull before the line went quiet.

From the hall, I heard no click of the recording software stopping. Johnson hadn’t replaced the tape. I would probably never hear that voice again. It was fine, though--what else could we say? If it was enough for Tweek, it was enough for me. I reached back and respectfully closed my blinds on the culmination of Thomas and Craig’s lifelong romance.

In the reflection of the window, I saw Gregory hesitate in the doorway, then start to pass by.

“Gregory, wait,” I called.

He turned back. His expression was full of honest concern. He was as capable of kindness as the rest of us, even if he didn’t want to admit it--there was a subtle new warmth to the way he looked at me now, something that was more of a friend and less of an opponent. The willingness in his stance left all of his weak points exposed. He still trusted me not to attack them.

“You dropped something,” he said finally. He crossed the room and put my badge back in my palm. I closed my hand around it, feeling its cold heaviness.

“Anything from Hell’s Pass?” I asked, forcing myself to speak.

“Yes, the head of security found a misplaced tape of footage,” said Gregory. “Mr. Broflovski stopping in one last time after leaving the police station and staying for a few moments. The time frame is narrow, but it clears him of the crime. He had an alibi. He was telling the truth.”

I shook my head. “Oh--no. I mean--that's good news, but I was asking about Christophe.”

It caught Gregory off guard, and I was moved to see the surprise in his face before he broke into an irrepressible smile. “As a matter of fact--yes. An attendant called me just a few moments ago. Aside from his damaged pride, it looks like he’ll make almost a full recovery.”

I grinned back. “Really? And…?”

Gregory’s cheeks reddened. “And he asked to see me,” he said, his voice soft. “I plan to…give him a letter.”

A letter? I laughed. Against the terrifying prospect of a love interest, even Gregory was reduced to writing. “That’s great,” I said. On impulse, I reached to take his hand. He squeezed mine back and held it for a moment longer than was necessary, his smile fading a little as the outside noise seeped into the station for a few seconds before quieting again. I didn’t need to look over Gregory’s shoulder to see Harris behind him, moving Stan to his office for booking. Stan was wordless, at peace. At least there was that.

“Detective,” Gregory began.

“I’m sorry,” I said, cutting him off. “I am so fucking sorry. What I accused you of--it was absolutely unforgivable. I had no right to--”

“You had every right,” said Gregory.

Now I had to stop and stare at him. “You were being kind to me, and I twisted it all around on you.”

“No,” he said simply. “I tried very hard to share nothing of myself with you. I’m not surprised that you misinterpreted my actions-- I gave you nothing to work with, did I? Please know that I meant everything I said about you, that every clumsy social gesture was genuine. Forgive me for not being clear about where we stand. I’m just…a little new at this friendship thing.”

It wasn’t right of him to take the blame for this one. I’d gotten away clean too many times already--I would not let this one sit. I had earned my guilt.

“Be reasonable,” I begged him quietly.

He was already putting on his gloves again, ready to go outside. “The most reasonable thing a true human being could’ve done here is believe in the truth,” said Gregory, his gaze level. “The truth of honesty. The truth of love. The truth of justice, in all its backhanded forms. You were just watching out for your friend. I thank you, Kenny, for watching over mine.”

In preparation for the media bloodbath, Christophe’s crime scene had finally been process and dismantled. Gregory pulled on his coat and left the station, his silhouette dignified against the swarm of paparazzi, stray tendrils of police tape gleaming behind him like wings.

I didn’t have much in my office that I needed to take with me. My cases were finished, all the paperwork complete from the quiet month before South Park had become the country’s biggest scandal. I had spent so much of my life here. It frightened me to realize that the only personality I had ever imposed on it was a few memos on my bulletin board, a coffee mug pencil holder, a few stray articles of clothing to compensate for the temperamental heating ducts. I pulled the jackets off the coat rack one by one. Stan had a sweater on the bottom. I clutched the well-worn fabric to my face and breathed in his scent one last time. I wanted to remember him like this forever. Familiar. Free.

Stan was being jostled along to the Cañon City squad car now. I could hear it in the reporters’ growing urgency, Kyle’s desperate voice. Only two walls away, they were losing each other again.

In just a few days, I had learned so much from the people around me. I had learned about the infinite cruelty of a sociopath’s psyche. I learned what it meant to trust and suspect, how easy it was to fall, how hard you could cling to someone without regard for time, distance, law, logic. Most importantly, I had seen a triumph of love--not over captivity or injustice or even crime. Love, in and of itself. The way Stan had swept Kyle off of the sidewalk and into his arms. The way Kyle’s mouth moved against Stan’s, all the words he didn’t have to say.

I knew now where I was needed. With Stan’s sweater in my arms, I left the office, turned out the lights, and locked the door behind me. I placed my keys at the front desk. I walked down a stretch of hallway that I had traveled a thousand times before, a path I could walk blindfolded…but this time each step was like some small taste of flight.

My whole body felt lighter without the weight of my badge over my heart.

I left it gleaming by the door, where Harris would see it.

And I never looked back.

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End of part four

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Still an epilogue left, which means if there are any loose ends I need to tie up, you would be awesome to tell me now. Thank you so, so much for reading. Please tell me what you think--if you could keep spoilers to a minimum, I would be grateful, but I'M SO NOT PICKY.