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            They turned onto a twisting road that wound through an older neighborhood of split levels and ranches with big, sloping yards.  Anthony indicated the house nearing on the left. 

            It was a brick ranch that had seen better days.  Peeling white trim.  Rain gutters clogged with leaves.  A sheet of plywood covering one of the front windows like a pirate’s eye patch.    Two old, rusty cars were parked in the muddy driveway, one of them sitting on cinder blocks, and random pieces of junk—old tires, hubcaps, and other assorted auto parts—littered the weed-choked lawn. 

            Danielle’s Ford Explorer was parked at the end of the driveway.  Lisa inched in behind the vehicle. 

            “This boyfriend of hers must be a real winner,” she said.  “This place reminds me of Sanford and Son.”

            “Please, no smart-ass comments to her.  She’s going to be pissed that you’re here at all.”      

            “I promise to keep my mouth shut.”           

            He reached over Lisa and tapped the horn three times. 

            “If she’s high like usual, she won’t bother to come to the door,” Lisa said. 

            “She’s expecting me.”

            Lisa looked doubtful.  After about five minutes and several more honks, Danielle still hadn’t come out. 

            “She must be puffing on some good stuff,” Lisa said. 

            “I’ll be back.”  Grabbing the bishop’s book, Anthony got out of the car and approached the house, weaving around the discarded auto parts.

            The door bell was broken.  He rapped on the scarred front door with his fist. 

            “Danielle!  It’s your brother!  Open up!”

            Another minute passed, and the door finally opened.  Danielle stood on the threshold, blinking sleepily and rubbing her puffy eyes.

            Anthony’s physical features were a balanced blend of traits he’d inherited from his mom and dad, but Danielle had taken almost entirely after their father.  She had his mocha complexion, thick eyebrows, penny-brown eyes, high cheekbones.  She was slim like Dad, too, and stood only a couple inches shorter than their father’s five-ten. 

            She wore her normal everyday gear of long, wrinkled t-shirt, and faded loose-fitting jeans.   Her dry hair was tied up in a blue scarf.

            The familiar scents of marijuana and cigarettes wafted from inside.

            “Damn, it ain’t been an hour yet, Junior,” she said in her raspy smoker’s voice.  “I was sleepin’.  Shit.”

            Although she was only twenty-nine, she looked and sounded older.  Her eyes were smudged with dark circles.  Her complexion had a bleached-out quality, like wood left out too long in the sun.

            For a long time, he’d wondered where the sister he remembered from his childhood had gone.  The adorable, bright-eyed girl who’d race on bicycles with him up and down the street, who’d had the guts to ride all the roller coasters with him at amusement parks, who’d liked to capture butterflies.  That happy girl had grown up into this bitter woman who rarely had anything nice to say about anyone, who cared only about satisfying her own pathetic addictions.

            But he thought he finally knew what had happened.        

            “I said I’d be here within an hour,” he said.  “Anyway, let’s go.  You’re riding with us.”

            “Where we going?”

            “I’m taking you to get some breakfast.  How’s Waffle House sound?”

            At the mention of breakfast, her eyes brightened.  “What you wanna talk about?”

            “I’ll tell you when we get to the restaurant.”

            “Nah, Junior.  I wanna know what you wanna talk about right now—or else I might not go to the damn restaurant.”

            He paused.  “I want to talk about the people who killed Dad.”

            A shadow passed over her eyes.                 

            “I ain’t all that hungry,” she said.  “I’m taking my ass back to bed.  Later.”

            She tried to close the door.  He stuck his foot between the door and the jamb.

            Her lips tightened.  “Step back.”

            “I know who was behind it, Danny,” he said.

            “You don’t know shit, Junior, and you need to let it go.  Now step back, I mean it.”     

            “Does this man look familiar?”  He showed her the cover of Bishop Prince’s book. 

            She gaped at the bishop’s photo, lips parted. 

            His gut clenched.  He knew, then, that his theory was right. 

            “I finally figured out what’s been bothering me about this guy,” he said.  “Isn’t there a strong resemblance between this man and Reuben?  A father and son resemblance?”

            She pulled her gaze away from the photograph, looked at him.  And then, she started to cry.