He wondered about it, sitting at the kitchen table with Joyce, thinking of something she’d said a minute ago. He’d told her about apprehending the fugitive and she asked if he’d shot him. Serious, wanting to know.

She asked now if he wanted another beer.

Raylan said, “Did you think I had shot that guy today?”

“I wondered, that’s all.”

“Really? A guy lying in bed asleep?”

“I saw you shoot and kill a man,” Joyce said. Not twenty feet from the table when he shot Tommy Bucks three times, Joyce watching it happen.

She said, “But we’ve never talked about it, have we? How you felt?”

He wasn’t sure how he felt. Relieved? It was hard to explain. He said, “It scares you, after, thinking about it. I don’t feel sorry for him or wish I hadn’t done it. I didn’t see any other way to stop him.”

“It was a personal matter?”

“In a way.”

“Man to man. You have an image of yourself, the lawman.”

“It’s what I am.”

She said, “You want to know what I wonder about? What if he wasn’t armed?”

“But he was.”

“You know that?”

“He wouldn’t have been there without a gun.”

She said, “Let me put it another way. If you knew he didn’t have a gun, would you have shot him anyway?”

“But he did. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

She said, “Well, then think about it.”

“I’d like to know what you think,” Raylan said. “Would I have shot him knowing he was unarmed?”

Joyce said, “I don’t know.” She waited a few moments and said, “You want another beer or not?”

Harry got to the restaurant in Delray Beach at ten to one, a little early. He wasn’t going to have a drink, had made up his mind driving here; but as soon as he was seated he ordered a vodka and tonic and paid the waiter.