Summary

In Chapter 17, Lincoln meets Joe Coffin in a bar, at Joe’s behest. Over the phone, Joe told Lincoln that Mickey physically beat Jacy’s father in 1974. Joe also claims that Jacy’s father did not press charges. Lincoln has no idea why Mickey did that, nor why Mickey had never mentioned that event. Joe is drunk when he arrives at the bar. Lincoln tries to extract more information from Joe about Mickey, but Joe speaks discursively. He begins to speak about how men often protect other men from facing justice, especially if the crime involved is harming a woman. Joe says that, during his years as a police officer, he often witnessed cases of domestic abuse, but he and the other officers generally did not arrest the offending husband. Joe says, with an air of pain and regret, that his son (who...