Page 31 of The Instruments of Darkness

“Getting by,” she said. “They allowed Colleen a phone call. She didn’t sleep well last night, but otherwise, she’s okay.”

“Nobody sleeps well on their first night in jail.”

“Let’s make sure she doesn’t have to experience a second. I have money ready to cover her bail. I disposed of some shares and consolidated accounts. I also have a line of credit open with my bank.” She stared hard at me. “She will be granted bail, right?”

“There are no guarantees,” I told her, “but Moxie is quietly confident. I only worry when he’s loudly so.”

I suggested that Tony get some air, or take the opportunity to go listen to Harry Potter with his brother. I wanted a few minutes alone with Evelyn Miller. Tony didn’t mind. Among the Fulcis’ many finer qualities was their ability to take a hint without taking offense as well.

“How are you finding the company?” I asked.

“Remarkably polite, and very attentive. Not excessively bright, perhaps, but I’ll take kind over clever anytime.”

“You do speak your mind, don’t you?”

“I can keep my mouth shut, too, when the situation requires, but I don’t see any merit in being diplomatic right now.”

Or ever, I thought.

“And what have you been doing today?” she continued, in the tone of the schoolmistress she had once been. I had to resist the urge to check that my shirt wasn’t untucked.

“Interviewing your daughter’s neighbors and friends, or as many of them as I could get to. I also talked with her husband.”

“I hope you showered after.”

“I cleaned my hands. Like everyone else, I keep sanitizer in the car—but then, I always have.”

“For dirty work?”

“It’s the nature of the business.”

“Yours more than most. I’ve been reading up on you, Mr. Parker. You have violent tendencies.”

She didn’t say it to wound. If anything, she sounded amused.

“It’s more that trouble finds me.”

“It will if you leave a welcome mat out for it.”

“Are you having second thoughts about my involvement?”

“Not at all. I’d rather have you on our side than theirs.” She allowed some of the tension to leech from her. “Sorry—not for the first time. That was blunt, even for me. I’m more fractious than usual. I didn’t sleep well either.”

Now that we were done with the preliminaries, I took a seat across from her. I found a piece of a dancer’s ballet slipper on the table and added it to the emerging picture. “I have some questions for you, if you’re up to trying to answer.”

“I’d welcome the mental exercise.”

“How much do you dislike your son-in-law?”

“Now, or how much did I dislike him before all this happened?”

“Let’s accept ‘now’ as a given.”

“I never took to him. Once, after too many glasses of wine, I even advised my daughter against marrying him. I sometimes wonder if she went ahead and did it out of spite. Colleen may act like a shrinking violet, but given the choice between doing the right thing at someone else’s instigation, and the wrong thing of her own volition, she has a habit of picking the second option. She was always a headstrong child, in her disassociated way.”

“What about your late husband? Did he share your view of Stephen?”

“Tom was a poor judge of character,” she said. “No, that’s not fair: my husband was simply better with numbers than people. He was more comfortable working in the abstract, but he doted on Colleen. He was happy she’d found someone she wanted to be with, and who wanted to be with her, too, insofar as Tom understood the concept. He was never more at home with anyone than he was with himself.