Boston, Massachusetts, Monday…

Chris Tanner looked up as a visitor, blocking the overhead light, cast a shadow over his desk. He iconized the file on Frank Sweeney, not knowing who the person was.

"Detective Tanner?" The voice was a woman's but it was hard to see her features against the harsh glare of the light.

"I'm about to go off duty," he replied.

"Mary Beth Grogan, DHS." A badge was offered. He could see her picture on the badge better than he could see her face. Unlike a lot of pictures on badges, hers was not a bad picture. "I'd like a word with you." Chris waved to his guest chair. He thought the chair had been purposely designed to keep interviews short, yet it was the best he had. "In private."

"How about an interrogation room?"

"That's fine. Lead the way."

He did so.

They sat down face-to-face at the old, scarred wood table, which dated from the previous century. The precinct was that old. Initials and other graffiti had been etched into the table's surface, not by prisoners, but by generations of cops who also used the interrogation room as a conference room when working up a case.

The walls of the room had places where the paint had been knocked off, exposing plasterboard underneath. The old fluorescent fixtures cast a harsh light and the air was heavy with the moldy odors of an old building. In the old days an interrogation would get so heated that a prisoner would vomit or lose bladder control, especially if he was stoned or drunk, thus adding just the right police station finish to the spectrum of odors. At one end of the room, above the old steam radiators that were no longer functioning, there was a one-way mirror. Behind it observers could watch the interrogation without being seen.