John Stallings dozed off on the hard wooden bench and instantly started dreaming about falling asleep while on patrol. It was a common dream among cops, but this time it was closer to the truth. He was still on duty even if he hadn’t had a break in more than twenty-four hours. Now he felt the relative quiet of the room and the lack of constant motion catch up to him.

He’d avoided the crush of media, but he could hear the crowd of reporters in the outer room. He could imagine what the line of huge television cameras looked like ready to snatch any possible footage of him as he left. He just hoped none of them had managed to slide by his house and bother his family.

A hand on his back made him sit up straight and turn to see Rita Hester smiling. That wasn’t a sight he was used to, at least not since she’d gone into management. She sat next to him, bumping him over on the bench without a word.

They sat in silence until she said, “You did a great thing, Stall.”

“Woulda been better if we stopped him a few weeks ago.”

“You could look at it like that, but we did the best we could. You need to lighten up on yourself. Not everything is your fault. But you’re the one who stopped the Bag Man. That’s something to be proud of.”

He just nodded then asked, “Is Mazzetti coming?”

The lieutenant shook her head. “Detective Mazzetti has elected to stay at the hospital with Patty.”

Stallings smiled for the first time. “Good for him.”

“If it was Christmas, I’d call it a goddamn miracle.”

“Mazzetti isn’t so bad.”

“Let me tell you something no lieutenant should ever admit about one of her troops.”

“What’s that?”

“I think Tony Mazzetti is a complete asshole.”

“That’s not a secret.”

“He’s also a top-notch detective, so as a boss I need him around. Just like I need you around.”

“I wasn’t planning on leaving.”

“I mean in homicide.”

Now John Stallings stared at his boss. “I don’t know about that, Rita.”

“Maybe in a coposition with missing persons. There are a lot of cases that overlap.” She sat quietly for a minute and added, “Just think about it.”

“All I can think about now is going home.”

“You’ve earned it.”

Someone walked past them. Stallings looked up and saw it was Ronald Bell.

Bell smiled, gave him a thumbs-up, and said, “I knew you’d do it.”

Stallings didn’t even bother with a response.

Rita Hester said, “No, you didn’t, Ron. You told me three days ago he wouldn’t be any help on the case.”

He bowed his head and turned to walk away.

Rita was about to blast him verbally again when the rear door to the room opened. She snapped her head toward the back of the large room and she nudged Stallings, “There’s your man.”

He craned his neck to see William Dremmel, in an orange JSO prisoner jumpsuit, shackled at the ankle and handcuffed through a front waist chain, being led into the crowded courtroom with armed deputies on either side of him. Dremmel had no expression as a murmur rippled through the courtroom audience.

Stallings had made a lot of hard choices lately and figured he’d pay for some of them soon, but the choice to bring Dremmel in alive might pay off in positive karma in the long run. Thank God for Patty and her efforts to reform him.

He stayed just long enough to hear the judge say, “No bond.” A sympathetic bailiff let Stallings slip out through a rear door to avoid the TV cameras.

The Bag Man was all done.