Free The Ways of the Dead by Neely Tucker

to materalize at the right of the copyediting desk, prim lips pursed. Sully walked over, this little summoning to the principal’s office. Copy editors, leaning back in their chairs, trying to glance over without looking like they were glancing over.
    “What’s it about?” Edward’s voice a harsh whisper, the blue eyes hard, that whole Princeton and Martha’s Vineyard thing. In his sixties, lifetime of privilege. Twits like this running things, nothing you could do.
    “Reese. The Judge Foy thing. You remember. You suspended me a week.”
    “What’s that got to do with this?”
    “Melissa wants me to babysit his presser tomorrow in his front yard.”
    “So do it.”
    “It’s wasting my time,” and here was where he should play his ace. “I’m working something, Eddie. The three suspects? They’re not connected. It’s a wrong turn.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “From a source. It’s developing. I need—”
    “No, what
you
need?
You
need to realize you’re not still working in a war zone.
You
cover that presser at one. This is the next Supreme Court justice we’re talking about. We
need
to own this story, and you—you
need
to get over your beef with Reese. You fucked up. There were repercussions. End of story.”
    Sully held his gaze for a beat, then two.
    “Sure thing, boss.”
    He went back over to Melissa, who was running with it now. She was leaning forward, elbows on the desk, eyebrows pulling down and together.
    “Let’s get this straight,” she said. “I am. Your boss. I. Am. Your. Boss’s. Boss. You pop off like that to me again? I’ll slap a memo to HR. You’ll be covering high school soccer until you quit. That bit Eddie just told you about the war being over, that’s exactly—”
    “What war are we talking about? I remember about six. Depending on your definition of open conflict.”
    “Then all of them, Sullivan. You’re back home. Look at a map. The rules are different here.”
    He kept his face flat, but felt the fury boiling from his throat into his head, the humiliation. Times like this, since the shell, maybe before, his mental wires crossed. The doctors, they had talked to him about the rage and how to contain it, and all that was washed away in a flood.
    “Just you try busting me,” he said, leaning closer to her, whispering back, smiling, pure malice now. “Go the fuck ahead. Walk into
your
boss’s office, good old Eddie back there, and explain assigning your best reporter to babysit a presser ’cause you thought it brilliant to have a twenty-seven-year-old newbie on the cop beat get bitchslapped by the
New York Times
.”
    She broke her gaze and leaned back, to defuse at least the appearance of a scene. “Okay, Sully. Look, it’s late. Everybody’s tired. Let’s just cool off and—”
    “You’ll get your presser,” he cut in, his voice ragged. “And in the next twenty-four to forty-eight? You’ll be eating this. Be a sweetheart when you do.”
    He managed to make his feet turn and walk, the walls seemed to vibrate, and the thundering in his ears was so loud that he had to blink it back.
    When he got to the hallway and reached for the elevator button, his thumb was trembling.

nine
    When he blew in the door, Dusty had called, and that was just fucking great. He listened to the voice mail—
Call me, it’s been too long, what’s the deal?
—and decided to ignore it. The blackness, the bile—she wouldn’t understand and he couldn’t explain. He poured Basil’s over ice, skipped the splash, and opened the Dutch door to the backyard, sitting on the steps.
    He blinked and looked at the cherry tree, trying to slow his breathing the way the doctors had taught him: Focus, focus on something small. The tree, the tree. It would be shedding leaves in a matter of weeks. The chill in the air would stay. The ghosts in his head would leave. Winter would descend. He listened to the traffic passing on Constitution and his chest slowed. He held out his hand. The