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what?”
     
     
    Pulling her hands away from his, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Now you’re cross-examining me? I think I’ve had enough of that for today.”
     
     
    Hardy kept his voice in tight control. “I’m not doing that.” He brought it down to a whisper. “I don’t know why you’re here. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s going on. You want to help me out with this? I’m on your side.”
     
     
    Closing her eyes, she let out a breath. “Okay,” she said. She reached again for his hand. “I know I should have told you. I mean, I know that now. It’s just we’ve had such different lives lately. I didn’t want you to misunderstand, I guess, to have to deal with it at all.”
     
     
    “Deal with what?”
     
     
    She met his eyes, took a long moment before answering. “Ron.”
     
     
    “Ron,” Hardy repeated, his voice hardening in spite of himself. “I don’t believe we know a Ron.”
     
     
    “Ron Beaumont,” she said. “Max and Cassandra’s dad.”
     
     
    Hardy knew the children a bit from their visits with his kids, from sleepovers. The older one, Cassandra, had become one of Rebecca’s good friends, maybe even her best friend, although he wasn’t sure of that. Hardy had some vague sense, a dim memory, of a charming, vivacious child, although the “kid thing,” as he called it, had been pushed off—banished from?—the front burner of his life. But he had never met the father. “Max and Cassandra’s dad,” he repeated, his voice flat. “Ron.”
     
     
    Frannie looked at him and he saw desperation, even despair, in her expression. And, behind that, maybe a disturbing hint of defiance. “He’s a friend of mine. Like you with the women in your life.”
     
     
    This was a sore point. Hardy often went to lunch, or sometimes even dinner, with other women, colleagues that he worked with, got along with. Even his ex-wife, Jane, too, once in a while. He and Frannie finally had to put a moratorium on questions about who they all were, the various personal and professional relationships. They were all just friends. They’d leave it at that.
     
     
    But on the other foot, Hardy discovered, the shoe cramped him up.
     
     
    He suddenly had to get away from what he thought he might be hearing. Walking across the room to its doorway, he stood looking out through the wired glass opening into the hallway of the jail. Finally, he turned. “Okay, we’ll leave it where you want. But I’ve got to remind you that you brought all this up. I never heard of Ron Beaumont until two minutes ago and you’re in jail because of some subpoena involving you and him. I don’t think a little curiosity is out of the question.”
     
     
    “His wife was murdered. He’s a suspect.”
     
     
    By the door, Hardy stood stock-still. “And the grand jury decided it had to talk to you about him?”
     
     
    She shrugged. “I was with him—drinking coffee.” She added quickly, “On the morning she died. In public.”
     
     
    He waited.
     
     
    “So they wanted to see if my alibi matched his.” Hardy was still trying to figure out the logistics. “Did you ever talk to the police about this, before today?”
     
     
    “No.”
     
     
    This wasn’t making sense. If Frannie was the alibi of one of the main suspects in a murder case, the police would have interrogated her as a matter of course, if for no other reason than to have her words on the record. He’d have to remember to ask Abe why they hadn’t, if Abe knew. And if it was true.
     
     
    But first, he was here. “Okay, so you got the subpoena you didn’t tell me about . . .”
     
     
    “I thought it would be a quick hour in the middle of the morning, Dismas. There was no need to bother you with it.”
     
     
    Hardy didn’t want to start down that road again. There were lots of facts he wanted to know. When they got home and out of this environment, things would seem different. They’d be able to talk until they got