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I said. “I guess we know everything we need to about each other.”
    He smiled. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
    “Have you learned anything about Buddy Bollen’s security people?” I said.
    “Not much,” the chief said. “Big agency in Los Angeles. Dignitary Protection. They’re all bonded.”
    “Which doesn’t mean one of them couldn’t have killed her.”
    The chief didn’t say anything.
    “Fingerprints?” I said.
    “Kind of soon,” he said. “So far she hasn’t shown up in the system.”
    “Anything surface talking to the rest of the staff?” I said.
    “No.”
    “Nobody has a record,” I said.
    “Nope.”
    “Nobody caught in a lie,” I said.
    “Nope.”
    I might have caught Erin in a lie, but I wasn’t sure yet, and she was my client, and I thought I’d sit on that for a while.
    “You know her movements prior to the crime?” I said.
    “Far as anyone can tell us she was in her rooms at the mansion, and then apparently went to the gym to work out. Apparently, she worked out every afternoon about four o’clock.”
    “Who found her,” I said.
    “Head security guy,” the chief said. “Randy Wilkins. He went in to lift some weights.”
    “Alibis?” I said.
    “Not really. Buddy and Erin were with each other, they say. Everyone else was alone.”
    “Buddy and Erin could have done it together and been each other’s alibi,” I said.
    Jesse nodded.
    “Too soon, I suppose, for a motive to surface,” I said.
    “None has,” Jesse said.
    We ate our donuts and drank our coffee for a little while. There were no pictures of women or children in the office. On top of a file cabinet, near the coffeemaker, was a baseball glove that didn’t look new. On his desk was a short-barreled .38 in a clip on a holster. His chief’s badge was beside it.
    “Erin feels that it is an antifeminist conspiracy to prevent her from playing baseball,” I said. “She thinks Misty was mistaken for her.”
    “I know,” Jesse said. “Bollen tells me she’s going to play for the Nutmegs next year.”
    “That appears to be the plan.”
    Jesse nodded.
    “You think there’s anything to the conspiracy theory?”
    “I don’t care if she plays baseball,” Jesse said. “Hard to say about everyone else.”
    “I don’t know what you got from the people at SeaChase, Chief, but all I got from Erin and Buddy was that they knew nothing at all about Misty Tyler.”
    “Real name was Melissa,” the chief said. “Had a California driver’s license. Santa Monica address…and don’t call me Chief. ”
    “Jesse?” I said.
    He nodded.
    “Sunny?” he said.
    I nodded.
    “New best friends,” I said.

10
    M Y FATHER and I had breakfast together every Tuesday morning at the same table, in the bay window that looked out onto Newbury Street. At breakfast time it was my father’s table. I was having a toasted English muffin. My father was having hash and eggs. He didn’t worry much about nutrition. In fact, he didn’t, as far as I could tell, worry much about anything. Phil Randall was the calmest human being I had ever met. It was not self-control, it was an abiding calm at the center of his being. He cared about things. He loved his wife and daughters. But he looked at everything that came before him with clear and unflinching repose.
    “How’s Elizabeth?” I said.
    I didn’t like my older sister much, and Daddy knew that. But I knew it would please him if I asked.
    “She brought home her latest husband candidate,” he said, “to meet your mother.”
    “She brought him home to meet you,” I said. “You’re the one we both answer to.”
    My father pushed some hash onto his fork with a piece of toast.
    “I’ve met a number since she got divorced,” he said.
    “What did Mother say?”
    My father chewed his forkful of hash thoughtfully and swallowed.
    “She warned Elizabeth that he might take advantage of her,” my father said.
    “Daddy, she warns both of us that anytime we have a date.”
    He