That's right. Deputy Mark Reid Tucker, the former U.S. marshal, a barrel-chested cop often photographed astride his Harley, was better known as Poochy in his childhood home. Actually, make that Poochy Poo.

"I was the one who started it," Mark's mama Virginia told me, with a sheepish smile.

"He was just such a round baby, with those dimples, and that smile, I started calling him Poochy Poo, and it stuck."

I heard a lot about Mark Tucker, the son and brother, on Thursday night -- one night after Matthew Grant began serving a life sentence for Mark's fatal shooting last spring.

I heard about a boy who grew up the mischievous one in the family, who got into plenty of trouble and watched his brothers' antics, too. On Thursday night, I better understood how Mark didn't pull a gun on Grant, his killer, but told him, "Put the gun down, son."

In the living room of his parents' small ranch home in downtown Cary, Mark's siblings and parents gathered in a circle to do something they haven't felt free to do. To laugh.

"We've grieved," Mark's sister, Robbie, explained. "Oh, we've done lots of grieving."

"But we've also spent the last nine months waiting for this trial, knowing that we'd have to relive the whole thing again. It's like we were holding our breath. We couldn't celebrate Mark, and Mark's life."

So, finally, on Thursday, the Tuckers dug out the old photographs, told the old family stories -- and yes, they laughed.

The recurring theme was mischief -- whether sparkling from his brilliant blue eyes or beaming out from his dimpled grin. He was always up to something, brother Dan said -- from the time he was in a restaurant high chair, throwing carrots across the room to get someone to let him out, until the time he showed up at Dan's new home in a fancy subdivision -- driving his patrol car with lights flashing and sirens wailing.

It was Dan's first night in the house, and there was Mark, screeching into the driveway as if to bust a drug dealer, or worse. Nothing like making an impression on the new neighbors.

"Howdy, brother," Mark said when Dan came to the door. Dan added, "If anybody had driven by, I know he would have thrown me against the wall and frisked me."

Sister Robbie recalled trying to deliver Mark for his first day of school at Cary Elementary. Mark was clinging to her leg, and she finally just had to escape. She ducked out a door and walked around the building.

When she got to her car, she found first-grader Mark sitting inside, with all the doors locked.

Brothers Tommy and Buddy described how Mark, though shy, loved to be the center of attention in the family. So he'd sneak away, and everyone would start looking for him.

That's when he was happiest.

But his parents finally grew weary of the routine and had a fence built around the yard.

"I'll bet it wasn't up an hour, and he was gone again," Virginia said. Once again, everyone was looking for Mark.

At first they thought he'd scaled the fence. Later they found him under a bed in the house.

Grinning ear to ear.

"That's the Tucker smile," his daddy, Dallas said, with a hint of pride.

It occurred to me at some point Thursday night that this meeting I'd expected to be brimming with tears was really just the opposite. And for everyone, I think, it was a relief.

In place of those grim crime-scene photos from the trial, I had an image of Mark mowing his lawn in a Speedo swimming suit, and nothing else.

In addition to the cruiser that couldn't shield Mark from that fatal gun blast, I heard about Mark's very first vehicle, a big white truck he painted blue.

"He was a redneck," Dan said. "He had shag carpet in that thing."

Still, through all the banter, the sharp edges of pain were there, too. There is anger at Grant. Anger at the life sentence. Anger at the senselessness of a fine man's death.

All of the family members except Virginia wore black T-shirts honoring "Deputy M. Tucker's ... final tour of duty." She wore a black sweater adorned by the baby blue ribbon reminiscent of her son's blue eyes.

Virginia and Dallas, both in their 80s and in poor health, were unable to attend the trial and sentencing. Sitting in their side-by-side recliners, they received daily updates by phone and watched what they could stand on the TV news.

Dallas said he wished he could have been in the courtroom every day, with his kids. Virginia said she didn't think her heart could stand it.

Dallas told me that everywhere he looks, he sees his lost son. From the fan Mark installed overhead in the living room to the motion-sensitive light outside.

Buddy said that every time he leaves the family home he feels that light shine a greeting from Mark.

Robbie said she felt her little brother again on Nov. 7, when her terrier back in Asheville gave birth to a new litter of pups.

It would have been Mark's 50th birthday.

"There were three males in the litter," Robbie said. "I thought, 'Well, that's easy. We'll name them Mark, Reid and Poochy.' "

Short for Poochy Poo.