Jimmy Markum grew up in Boston, where, as a boy, his best friends were Sean Devine and Dave Boyle. Jimmy was the leader of the three and was inclined to get into trouble. One afternoon, when they are playing hockey in the street, they lose their ball down a street gutter drain, so Jimmy suggests they steal a car, just to drive around the block. Dave refuses, so Jimmy spots some wet cement on the sidewalk and jeers that at least they can carve their names in it. Each of them does so, but Dave, who is last, is interrupted when a car pulls up and an apparently angry man gets out. The man has a badge and handcuffs, so they believe he is a police officer. The man and his friend in the passenger seat take Dave away, and Jimmy and Sean run home to tell their dads. Their fathers realize that the set-up was phony, and when Dave returns home four days later, he is spoken of as damaged goods. In other words, the fathers understand, if the boys do not, that Dave was abducted and raped.Twenty-five years later, Jimmy is an ex-convict running a neighborhood store, helped out sometimes by his beloved 19-year-old daughter, Katie. Dave is still in the neighborhood, but Jimmy hasn't seen him nor Sean since they were all kids. Jimmy is married to a lovely woman named Annabeth, and they also have younger daughters, Nadine and Sara.Jimmy isn't too alarmed one morning when a store helper tells him that Katie hasn't shown up for work, because Sara is going for her Confirmation that morning. But he does check with a friend, Drew Pigeon, whether Katie had stayed over night with her girl friend, and Drew replies that Katie isn't there at his house. Jimmy and Annabeth go to the Confirmation, but Jimmy is worried, especially when - as everyone exits the church - a stream of cop cars passes with their sirens blazing.When Jimmy gets to the crime scene, he realizes, That's my daughter's car! That Jimmy still isn't too far from the criminal life is shown when we see that he's with the Savage brothers, who unhestitatingly follow his orders to go to the Pigeon household and ask questions about Katie. He also tells another flunkie to get bolt cutters, and gets the reply, I'll get us right through that Sidney Street fence. When Jimmy realizes what has happened, he goes crazy. It takes several police officers to hold him as he screams to Sean, who is now a police officer and in charge of the murder case, Is that my daughter in there? Is that my daughter? Later, when Sean brings him to the morgue, Jimmy looks at Katie's face and says quietly, That's her. That's Katie. That's my daughter. Sean is silent and respectfully ushers Jimmy out of the room.A little later, when Sean questions Jimmy and Annabeth about Katie's last day, Jimmy brings up Dave's abduction. What if you or I had gotten into that car, instead of Dave Boyle? If I had gotten into that car, that day, my life would have been a different thing. My first wife, Marita, Katie's mother - she was a beautiful woman. Regal. A lot of Latin women are, and she knew it. ... And here's the thing, Sean. If I'd gotten into that car that day, I would have been a basket case. I never would have had the juice to go near her. And Katie would have never been born. And she never would have been murdered. Show less «