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public ceremony covered by local TV, newspapers. Dromoor was credited with saving the life of his partner in a shooting and such events, though not rare in the sprawling city of Buffalo close by, were rare enough in the depopulated city of Niagara Falls to draw media interest. Yet Dromoor refused to talk much about what he’d done. You did not perceive him as a modest man, rather a man largely indifferent to others’ opinions of him as he was indifferent to others’ opinions of all things. When Teena Maguire congratulated him on the citation, Dromoor said, without irony, “That was back in August.” It was mid-September now.
    The Horseshoe had once been a Falls supper club, glitzy, glamorous. In the economic recessions of the waning twentieth century it had devolved into a neighborhood tavern, favored by cops and courthouse staff. Martine Maguire—Teena to her friends—was known there. She was a widow with a young daughter. Many of the regular customers at the Horseshoe had known her husband, Ross Maguire. He had worked at Goodyear Tire, he’d died of a quickly spreading melanoma cancer several years before. A few of the men at the Horseshoe had dated Teena. Possibly there’d been some emotional entanglements. But no lingering resentments. Teena was well liked, admired. She was flirtatious without being aggressive. She got along with women as easily as she got along with men, single women like herself, dropping by the Horseshoe on a Friday evening after work.
    By chance she’d met Dromoor that evening. He was new to the NFPD and to Niagara Falls. She would recall afterward that he’d said very little to her, but he had listened. She’d had the impression he was moved by hearing she was a widow, and so young. And she had a daughter to raise alone. When Dromoor offered to buy her a drink and Teena declined, he didn’t insist. Though they remained together at the bar. There was no one else there who so interested them as they interested each other. Dromoor drank ale. Dark ale from the tap. His eyes were lighter than his face, which appeared mask-like, like baked clay. Near the end of the evening, as Teena was about to leave, she told Dromoor he should call her sometime, if he had the time. Dromoor frowned and told her in a lowered voice so that no one else at the bar could hear that he’dlike that, except he was married and his wife was having their first baby in about twenty days.
    Teena laughed, and said she appreciated that. Being told.
    â€œJohn Dromoor. You’re my friend.”
    She leaned upward to kiss his cheek. Brush her lips across his baked-clay cheek. Just a touch, a gesture. She’d really liked this guy, and she guessed he liked her, to a degree. But this was it. No more than this. The next time Teena Maguire and John Dromoor were in such close proximity to each other it would be nearly two years later in the boathouse at Rocky Point Park and Teena Maguire would be unconscious.

Luck
    H OW A LIFE IS decided. How a life is ended.
    Good luck, bad luck. Purely luck.
    When your mother leaned over you to blow into your ear. “Bethie-baby! Let’s go.”
    It was a few minutes before midnight, Fourth of July 1996. You’d fallen asleep on the creaky outdoor sofa on Casey’s front porch. After the fireworks ended on the river. Waiting for your mother to leave but the party wasn’t showing signs of winding down.
    Your face smarted from sunburn. Eyes burned in their sockets. It had been a long giddy day: like a roller-coaster ride. Momma was laughing at you saying she’d better get you home to bed, it was almost midnight.
    You objected you were okay. You weren’t a little kid. You didn’t want to go home yet.
    Casey said, sliding his arm around your mother’s shoulders in a fierce-playful hug, “Bethie can sleep upstairs if she wants to. There’s room. Stay a while longer, Teena? C’mon.”
    Momma was tempted.