Page 84 of The Instruments of Darkness

“Yes, Tony,” I said, in the manner of Francis Pharcellus Church informing Virginia O’Hanlon that there was indeed a Santa Claus, “they’re coming. They’ll be here by evening.”

Tony grinned.

“I like it better when they’re around,” he said. “They make everything more colorful.”

I doubted Bobby Ocean or Antoine Pinette would view this development in quite the same light, but that was the point.

“?‘Colorful’ is one term for it,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Tony. He frowned for a moment as he thought. “Wait, is ‘fucked up’ the other?”

INSIDE THE HOUSE, EVELYN Miller was reading a copy of the Boston Globe at the breakfast table. After the firebomb, her nerves were likely to be on edge, not helped by police looking for her grandson’s body in the yard.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “With Colleen, I mean.”

“She might be going stir-crazy,” I said, “but she’s safe.”

“I just spoke to her and she sounded so down. She says she keeps waiting for her phone to ring with news of Henry. She knows he’s dead, she said, but she doesn’t want him to be lost anymore.”

She put her hand to her mouth. I waited for her to compose herself.

“I’m sorry about what happened last night,” I said.

“The fire? There was nothing more that Paulie could have done, but if he hadn’t been on watch, the whole house might have gone up.”

“We may have some idea of who was responsible. They’ll be spoken to.”

“Will that be enough?”

“It depends on who’s doing the talking.”

“I have confidence in your ability to select appropriate candidates.” She turned the newspaper toward me. “Have you seen this?”

The story detailed the deaths of four men in a crash on I-91, all executives from the same company, DavMatt-Hunter.

“Your son-in-law’s firm,” I said.

“I’d prefer not to hear him referred to in that way any longer,” she said, “but yes.”

“What does this mean for him?”

“The last I heard, the company was poised to sign two or three big deals. If they’ve just lost four people, they’ll have to consolidate, and present the best face possible. That could work out well for Stephen. He’s good at what he does, but others at DavMatt-Hunter are better.”

“Any of them among the dead?”

“At least two.”

“So it’s good news for him, once he gets over the shock.”

“I don’t think shock will be much of a problem,” she said. “Stephen always viewed those immediately above him as obstacles to what should have been his progress. I fear that was one of the reasons he chose my daughter: because she represented a means of ascension. Perhaps it was less a case of marrying her than her father and his influence.”

“And did your late husband oblige?”

“He put in a word or two where it mattered, and wasn’t averse to introducing Stephen to the right people. Had he not, I don’t believe DavMatt-Hunter would have hired him.” She reconsidered. “No, that makes Stephen sound less competent than he is. It might be more accurate to say that his status as the son-in-law of Thomas Miller was enough to tip the scales in his favor. Once Stephen got a foot on the ladder, he became hard to dislodge, but I didn’t think he’d rise much higher than his current position, for all his aspirations, not unless something changed dramatically. This accident means that an opportunity for advancement has presented itself, and you can be sure Stephen will grasp it.”

It wasn’t an unfamiliar situation, and didn’t necessarily make Stephen Clark a terrible person. Much depended on his level of self-awareness and his understanding of his strengths and weaknesses. In life, I often thought it was better to have 20 percent talent and 80 percent application than the opposite, because you’d get a lot more done. Ambition wasn’t a vice: as Browning wrote, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what’s a heaven for?”, but the trick was to measure the gap and act accordingly. If someone didn’t learn that lesson, they were likely to end up bitter, disappointed, or dead.

“How long will this go on?” she asked, as another pair of searchers joined the first set. We could see them through the kitchen window.