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Getting me put in solitary rescued me from becoming a murderer, and then later, when I couldn’t raise enough money for rent and child support, he came up with enough cash for me to start the King Detective Service. He even guided the first few clients my way.

But the best thing Gladstone Palmer ever did for me was to broker my severance with the NYPD. I lost my retirement and benefits except for medical insurance for Monica and my daughter. Magically, there was no blemish on my record either.

For the past week or so I’d been reading the nearly hundred-year-old novel All Quiet on the Western Front. There was a character in there who reminded me of Glad; Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky. Kat could find a banquet in a graveyard, a beautiful woman in a bombed-out building. When the rest of the German army was starving, Kat would show up to his squad with a cooked goose, ripe cheese, and a few bottles of red wine.

You couldn’t question a friend like Kat or Glad.

“I told him you were on a job,” Aja said.

“You’re my angel.”

“He said he’d try to stop by before you left.”

The letter from the heartland intrigued me, but I decided to put off reading it.

“How’s your mother?” I asked.

“Fine. She’s writing you to give money for her and Tesserat to send me to Italy for this youth physics conference they’re having in Milan.”

“That sounds nice; like an honor.”

“There’s a hundred kids and only four from the U.S., but I don’t want to go. So you could tell her you’ll help but you won’t ever have to pay.”

“Why don’t you want to go?”

“Reverend Hall is having a special school in this Bronx church where good science students teach at-risk kids how scientists do experiments.”

“You know you really have to start doing some bad things,” I said with a little too much gravitas in my tone.

“Why?” Aja asked. She was really worried.

“Because as a father I have to be able to help you at least some of the time. With great grades, a good heart, and the way you bully me over the mail I feel like I have nothing to offer.”

“But you did do something for me, Daddy.”

“What? Buy you a Happy Meal or a hot dog?”

“You taught me to love reading.”

“But you never read except for homework, and you complain about that.”

“But I remember spending those weekends with you when I was little. Sometimes you’d read to me all morning, and I just know that I’ll do that when I have a little girl.”

“There you go again,” I said, mostly covering the tears in my voice. “Being so good that it makes me feel useless. Maybe I should start punishing you every time you get something right.”

Aja knew when the conversation was over. She shook her head at me and turned. She walked from the room and I was, for a brief moment, relieved of the fall from grace foisted upon me by somebody in the NYPD.

Before I could turn to the pink envelope from the Midwest, Aja returned with a big brown envelope in her hands.

“I almost forgot,” she said. “Uncle Glad left this for you.”

She handed me the package and turned away before I could tease her more about her perfections.

3.

After Aja returned to the outer office desk, I was at sea there for a while. My life since those ninety-odd days in Rikers had been what I can only call vacant. I didn’t feel comfortable in the company of most people, and the momentary connection with my daughter, or the few friends I had, left an aftermath of isolation. Human connection only reminded me of what I could lose.

Being an investigative private detective worked out perfectly because my interactions with people were mostly through listening devices and long-distance camera lenses. The few times I had to actually talk with people I was either playing a role or asking cut-and-dried questions like “Was so-and-so here on Friday night after nine?” or “How long has Mr. Smith worked for you?”