Jack begins digging into Judge Irwin’s past by thinking of what could drive the judge to corruption. He decides that the most likely cause is a need for money, though he cannot remember Judge Irwin ever being broke. He decides to ask Ellis Burden, Irwin’s former friend and Jack’s own father. Jack’s father lives above a Mexican Restaurant, and Jack goes there to wait for him to return. When his father arrives, the bartender gives them bread and they walk upstairs. In his apartment, Jack meets his father’s unfortunate friend, a man whose wife played an acrobatic angel in the circus but fell and died. The man is so traumatized, he only eats chocolate and makes angel sculptures out of chewed bread. Jack bluntly asks his father if Judge Irwin ever needed money because Willie is asking. His father refuses to answer, saying he has left his foul sins in the past.

Jack’s digging continues when he goes home to Burden’s Landing and spends a night with Adam and Anne in their old house. It is just Jack and Anne at first, and he asks her about whether Judge Irwin was ever desperate for money, hoping to surprise an answer out of her.