Both men grew oblivious to the couple. They looked around the house.

Emma’s husband continued, “Look, you can have whatever you want. We’ve got a Mercedes outside. I’ll get the keys. You-”

“Just, don’t talk,” the taller man said, gesturing with the pistol.

“We have money. And credit cards. Debit card too. I’ll give you the PIN.”

“What do you want?” Emma asked, crying.

“Shhh.”

Somewhere, in its ancient heart, the house creaked once more.

“A WHAT?”

“Kinda a hang-up.”

“To nine-one-one?”

“Right. Just, somebody called and said, ‘This-’ and then hung up.”

“Said what?”

“‘This.’ The word ‘this.’”

“T-H-I-S?” Sheriff Tom Dahl asked. He was fifty-three years old, his skin smooth and freckled as an adolescent’s. Hair red. He wore a tan uniform shirt that had fit much better when his wife bought it two years ago.

“Yessir,” Todd Jackson answered, scratching his eyelid. “And then it was hung up.”

“Was hung up or he hung it up? There’s a difference.”

“I don’t know. Oh, I see what you mean.”

Five twenty-two P.M., Friday, April 17. This was one of the more peaceful hours of the day in Kennesha County, Wisconsin. People tended to kill themselves and their fellow citizens, intentionally or by accident, either earlier in the day or later. Dahl knew the schedule as if it’d been printed; if you can’t recognize the habits of your jurisdiction after fourteen years running a law enforcement agency, you have no business at the job.

Eight deputies were on duty in the Sheriff’s Department, which was next to the courthouse and city hall. The department was in an old building attached to a new one. The old being from the 1870s, the new from exactly one century later. The area of the building where Dahl and the others worked was mostly open-plan and filled with cubicles and desks. This was the new part. The officers here at the moment-six men and two women-wore uniforms that ranged from starched as wood to old bedsheet, reflecting the tour starting hours.