Inside the bedroom of a grime-stained apartment hangs pictures of a man who had an illustrious career as a Navy Seal, fought in the Persian Gulf and in Iran. He was a decorated, almost natural, policeman who was promoted even when he didn’t want to be. He moved to the Swat Team unit after nine years as a detective and was the third person to enter the apartment the night that Gabriel was killed. Truthfully he was ready to retire but hadn’t, instead he quietly waited between apartment numbers fifteen and sixteen for the signal. Once he got it he busted into the foyer, full of robust and vinegar to arrest the gun runners living in the expensive apartment above ours, just one flight up.

Morris Jones said in court, “as a reaction to something strange moving around my peripheral vision I shot at the grey costume.” He said, “I called out, then, I shot the boy, Gabriel Christian Waterman.” He was asked to resign and did so willingly deciding, instead, to dedicate his life to Campbell and me. He vowed to be around doing what he could, speaking to us in a sorrowful tone, apologizing every time he’d meet our gaze. Eventually Campbell gave in and shook his hand, but I could never be that together with my emotions to stare his forgiveness down that clearly.

He lived a long life too, alone, in Manhattan, letting the dishes pile up, eating out of cans something that smelled like cat food and begging the gang member’s fighting in the hall not to bust down his door. It was the only door he had and he needed it, he’d cry out.

He received the registered letter containing the banker’s check with six zeros from me years before and thumb tacked it to the wall above the news articles he’d carefully cut and saved. One tired cold day, he went to the bathroom mirror, studied his face, his eyes searching for what he knew to find, but could not, choosing then to go to the living room and shoot himself in the head. One week later the hippopotamus costume arrived announcing my death and my forgiveness.