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“Shoes?”

“You’ve been doing it for several days. I want to know why—”

“Officer, honestly, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“The shoes I saw you throw onto the road.”

“Believe me, whatever you saw happen, it wasn’t me doing it. Why would I throw shoes on the road?”

The young man’s blue eyes were direct, his candid look disarming. Damn it, Romero thought, I went after the wrong car.

Inwardly, he sighed.

He gave back the license and registration. “Sorry to bother you.”

“No problem, Officer. I know you have to do your job.”

“Going all the way back to Dillon tonight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As I said, it’s a long way to travel to sell moss rocks.”

“Well, we do what we have to do.”

“That’s for sure,” Romero said. “Drive safely.”

“I always do, Officer. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Romero drove back to the top of the hill, picked up the hiking shoes, and put them in the trunk of his car. It was about that time, a little before ten, that his son was killed.

He passed the crash site on the way home to Pecos. Seeing the flashing lights and the silhouettes of two ambulances and three police cars on the opposite section of the Interstate, grimacing at the twisted wrecks of two vehicles, he couldn’t help thinking, Poor bastards. God help them. But God didn’t, and by the time Romero got home, the medical examiner was showing the state police the wallet that he had taken from the mutilated body of what seemed to be a young Hispanic male.

Romero and his wife were arguing about his late hours when the phone rang.

“Answer it!” she yelled. “It’s probably your damned girlfriend.”

“I keep telling you I don’t have a—” The phone rang again. “Yeah, hello.”

“Gabe? This is Ray Becker with the state police. Sit down, would you?”

As Romero listened, he felt a cold ball grow inside him. He had never felt so numb, not even when he’d been told about the deaths of his parents.

His wife saw his stunned look. “What is it?”

Trembling, he managed to overcome his numbness enough to tell her. She screamed. She never stopped screaming until she collapsed.

* * *

Two weeks later, after the funeral, after Romero’s wife went to visit her sister in Denver, after Romero tried going back to work (his sergeant advised against it, but Romero knew he’d go crazy just sitting around home), the dispatcher sent him on a call that forced him to drive up Old Pecos Trail by the Baptist church. Bitterly, he remembered how fixated he had been on this spot not long ago. Instead of screwing around wondering about those shoes, I should have stayed home and paid attention to my son, he thought. Maybe I could have prevented what happened.

There weren’t any shoes on the road.

There weren’t any shoes on the road the next day or the day after that.

Romero’s wife never came back from Denver.

“You have to get out more,” his sergeant told him.

It was three months later, the middle Saturday of August. As a part of the impending divorce settlement and as a way of trying to stifle memories, Romero had sold the house in Pecos. With his share of the proceeds, he had moved to Santa Fe and risked a down payment on a modest house in the El Dorado subdivision. It didn’t make a difference. He still had the sense of carrying a weight on his back.

“I hope you’re not talking about dating.”

“I’m just saying you can’t stay holed up in this house all the time. You have to get out and do something. Distract yourself. While I think of it, you ought to be eating better. Look at the crap in this fridge. Stale milk, a twelve-pack of beer, and some leftover Chicken McNuggets.”

“Most of the time I’m not hungry.”

“With a fridge like this, I don’t doubt it.”

“I don’t like cooking for myself.”

“It’s too much effort to make a salad? I tell you what. Saturdays, Maria and I go to the Farmers’ Market. Tomorrow morning, you come with us. The vegetables don’t come any fresher. Maybe if you had some decent food in this fridge, you’d—”

“What’s wrong with me the Farmers’ Market isn’t going to cure.”

“Hey, I