Chapter 4 third chapter

Alex Morrow stood in the icy morning rain, holding the fringed end of a gold cord, before a freshly dug grave. They lowered my father's coffin to the bottom of the grave, eight feet down, but on motorized belts instead of the traditional tasseled gold rope.She was uncomfortable and thought it was cheating.The undertaker whispered orders for everyone to hold one end of the rope, she and Danny, two cousins, a grizzled man who had been his father's cellmate for many years, a childhood friend, and an undertaker people.They stood in a circle by her father's grave, making the appearance of laying down the coffin, while in reality another undertaker was manning the machine.

When the coffin fell to the ground, they all looked up and waited for the next order.The undertaker, standing by the grave, mournfully tossed the rope into the grave and waited for it to slither away like a snake, with a muffled sound, before sinking to the bottom of the coffin.He nodded solemnly toward the grave, as if finally accepting the death of a man he didn't even know existed until he got the funeral job.He looked at the people next to him, saw their confused faces, and didn't know what to do, so he waved his hand towards the grave and told them to do the same as him. A cousin straightened his arm so that the tassel would fall vertically without touching the wall of the hole.He watched the golden rope fall, opened his mouth slightly, and smiled with satisfaction, enjoying the process of falling very much.The inmate dutifully dropped the rope in his hand, turned and left before he could touch the coffin.Danny flicked his wrist and threw the rope like a candy wrapper. Although he knew it was wrong to litter, he didn't care.Moreau tried to keep her gesture neutral, she just let go of her finger and let it sink into the grave.She was well aware that her deliberate sloppiness summed up her feelings for her father very convincingly.

Behind Moreau, Crystal sobbed loudly.She was wearing a huge black top hat, with a whole circle of black silk roses sewn on the edge of the hat. When her slender and high heels accidentally stepped into the muddy ground, the hat on top of her head would stagger along with it. The steps trembled.Danny was embarrassed to see her like this.In fact, she had never seen the dead man. Morrow turned and walked away. The long mound was covered with vigorous artificial turf, and the soft soil became muddy under the washing of rain.Moreau was struggling. It was a very modest funeral, and sad as it was, he only deserved so much.The person who saw him off did not come for him.Most of them were men, and they came basically out of loyalty to Danny.Moreau despised these pug-like people.They dress and even have the same hairstyle as Danny, and they support Danny's team.Their loyalty stems from a shared greed and selfish ambition.The animosity between her and them was mutual: they knew she was a cop.

Moreau walked cautiously across the muddy grass toward the path.Danny catches up to her. "Thank you for coming," Danny said politely.Moreau briskly jumped over the puddles, trying to get to the clear sidewalk quickly.Danny followed her closely. Morola zipped up his coat, "He's also my dad." "I know, but I still have to say—thank you." "Then I thank you, too, for organizing the funeral." "Ah, it's really nothing." He walked side by side on the steep sidewalk toward her car, as if they were going the same way.In order to prevent slipping, the ramp at the corner is paved with granite gravel. Walking on this kind of road should have slowed down, but Danny followed quickly.what he wants.

"What else is there?" He gave her a meaningful look, his eyelids drooping, as if to give her a warning, "Brian didn't come?" Danny had never met Brian, and she never wanted them to meet, "too busy with work to find time." Danny nodded, looked at the ground and smiled.She had the feeling that he knew Brian was still out of work and that she had told Brian not to come.She does this because Brian is a good guy, not strong enough to resist Danny's insidious spells, even if it's just two minutes with him; They came to her car.It was an old Honda that Brian had bought on impulse to commemorate their romantic past.Moreau fumbled for the key in the bag.

Behind them, at the grave downhill, Crystal was still wailing, and one of Danny's henchmen stood an arm's length from her, handing her a pack of Kleenex. "Crystal is sad," Moreau said sarcastically. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Danny's jaw muscle contracting. "Alex, a woman will call you, a psychologist, about John." Moreau took out his keys, stopped, and looked at him.John, not Johnny, not JJ, not Little John, is a formal name, John, very serious. "You told my name to someone connected with John?" Danny sucked his teeth, his eyes fixed on the granite rubble at his feet.John was the son Danny got when he was 14 years old, and the child's mother was 18 years old at the time, and she was a sex icon in the South Side.Alex remembers being in school at the time, and when she heard about it, she was genuinely proud of Danny.She was also 14 at the time, and to her it was a big deal for someone her age to have a child.However, John's life was not a bright one for the too-young parents.He grows up fast and is ruthless.

"Is he having a hard time in there?" She tried to show due concern. "Hmm." Danny's jaw trembled and he was speechless. He looked into the distance and tried to open his mouth, "That matter... and that woman—" "You can't be a woman at 15, Danny." He looked straight at her, and she saw hatred in his eyes.His breath was short and urgent, as if he would punch her if he could, "Are you fucking finished?" She looked at the car keys. "That's my son! Why do we both hate him," he pointed at the filthy grave in the mud behind him, "isn't it because he never cared about us? John is my son and I'm doing my best s hard work!"

His neck was flushed.Moreau looked into the distance and begged him not to cry. Danny cleared his throat and whispered, "I'm trying." Trying to care for a rapist's son who used a Stanley dagger to slit the creamy white thigh of a 15-year-old girl at a party!Here's the part that the newspapers couldn't convey: the party outside the door was in full swing when John raped her in the girl's parents' private bathroom.This is a girl from a middle-class family who attends a private school, a bright girl.She drank too much and put the bad boys in the house.This incident caused a series of scares in the society: teenage drinking, gang formation, knife violence, teenage sex.People talked about it endlessly, until John was arrested, and suddenly all the reports were extremely bad for him.

Danny tries to help John, but Danny himself is the problem: everyone in the city knows John is guilty because Danny is his father.If Danny had even the slightest suspicion of John's culpability, the boys who identified him to the police would be unaccounted for.A guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion. "Will he get help in prison?" Danny shrugged. "Then why did they contact me? I'm not going to lie about him, and his previous convictions will be listed on the trial materials anyway." "It's not because you're a police officer, it's because you're family. They want to know the past, they just want to know more facts."

Morrow put the key in the car door, smacked his lips, and said impatiently, "Danny, we're hardly a family." He nodded in agreement, "But I only have you as my relative." "Can't they talk to John's mother?" Danny shook his head, "She's in the hospital, crazy." "Where's his grandmother? She's still alive, isn't she?" "She's not keen." "Yeah." Morrow didn't say it out loud either: JJ kicked Grandma and was charged for it.It's not a good thing to have her for an interview. Together they looked down the hill again at Crystal, who was being helped away from the cemetery, still crying.Those around her who knew a little bit looked away sheepishly, thinking that maybe the dead psychopath deserved a more dignified funeral.

"If I go and tell her," Danny said, "it's going to be all about me, and I want to get away from it all, to put some distance away, or he'll be stabbed to death in jail with a knife made of his own bones. The situation was so confusing, the woman just wanted some background." "What does she want to talk about?" "John's life background, information related to his life, where he lives, who he is with, etc." Danny turned his heels, turned his face away, looked into the distance, breathless, hesitating, "I Not trying to run away, Alex, I'm trying to do the right thing, you know, it's actually harder for me to ask you to help me." She'd give Danny a bad rap, that's what he wanted, and it would help John.But in any case, most of the information she could provide was recorded on his juvenile delinquent record.They must have done a social report over the years when he was charged.She looked down at her hand, the key was on the door, her hand was on the key, she just needed to twist the key to open the door, get in the car and leave, "I don't know much about his background." "It's not about psychotherapy, it's about his sentencing, is there any possibility he could do the same thing to another girl again? If... we don't want him to be released." Moreau took a deep breath.Danny does know how to communicate with her: save those girls, don't kill JJ, be better than our father.He knew where her buttons were and how many times to press them.For a moment it occurred to her that perhaps this time their interests were aligned and it made sense to do so.She thought about it, until a strange feeling of maternal warmth came over her and sounded her alarm.If it was going to make sense, there was no way she could break free from that mess and go the police way; if she always did what Danny wanted, there was no way she would stay away from it all, or marry someone like Brian good man. She turned the key, opened the door leading to her own world, and stepped into the car with one foot. "No, I'm not going to do that, Danny, from now on—" She opened her hands, repeating the way she'd casually dropped the gold rope by the grave, and got in, closing the car door. Danny watched her through the windshield, just for a moment.He was broad-shouldered, muscular, and had a shaved head, which was designed to be more intimidating, but now, he stood there, baring his teeth, glaring at her. She had never seen such an expression on his face before, and suddenly a great sense of fear flowed through her whole body like an electric current, flowed through the twins in her stomach, and flowed into this beautiful old car.Danny bit his lower lip and slammed his fists on the car door with a bang.Danny once stabbed a man in the face with a wine bottle.He does it when he feels that someone owes him something, or wants something.Moreau felt strongly that this would be the last peaceful conversation between the two; she realized that it was only wishful thinking for her to stay away from them. Breathing evenly, she started the engine and drove past Danny, carefully choosing the hilltop path farther from the cemetery, happy to see the mourners disappear from the rearview mirror. As soon as she drove to the gate of the cemetery, her work cell phone rang with a cheerful and vulgar ringtone. It was Bannerman calling.She pressed the speakerphone, and his voice broke into the car: "Where are you now?" No greetings, no pleasantries, just yelling, she hadn't spoken to him yet, and he already sounded very angry with her. "I'm leaving the cemetery." "it is good." "Inspector, you should ask me first." "Really?" It was not a challenging tone, but a sincere inquiry.Bannerman had been promoted above her, and while it wasn't a surprise move, it had a surprising effect on Bannerman.They had worked together in an office for months, and Morrow knew he was insecure.He seems determined to act out a false persona.From his disheveled hair, sun-kissed cheeks, and his eagerness to be popular, Morrow guessed he was insecure.What she did not expect was that suddenly the opinions of those below him were so insignificant.Now, freed from everything, he's acting for a different audience.Now, he is always angry, harsh, harsh, and chattering.His people hated him, and he took a certain pride in the fact that he was.Even stranger was the sudden popularity of Moreau among the police, who probably thought her bad temper was at least sincere. "Why should I ask you?" "Because it's good manners to pretend to care about a family funeral." "Okay, so how was your aunt's funeral?" "very good." "how old is she?" "Well, very old, I think, in the 80s." "Then, it's fair..." "Yeah," she glanced in the mirror and saw an old man, hands deep in his pockets, limping along the road behind her, "I think so." "So..." He paused, as if he couldn't remember the clichés about death for a moment. murder." She looked in the rearview mirror and smiled. "I'm done here, Inspector."