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“No.”
    Neither man said anything.
    Christina kept watching the clouds, waiting for them to thank her and leave.
    But they did not.
    McManus then sat, watching her, his eyes a grayer shade of blue than they had been earlier. It seemed to Christina they had changed colors somehow, to a shade resembling the dark centers of the storm clouds overhead.
    Nobody said anything for a while.
    “Well,” Christina said, when she couldn’t stand it any longer. “One of the housekeepers, Marisol, was having an affair with the head gardener, Roberto.” She waited, relieved to have come up with some tidbit that might satisfy them.
    McManus, the older one who had done most of the talking, merely continued to watch her. He did not so much as nod.
    Ben Jackson gave a small nod but did not, she noticed, bother to write this information down in his pad.
    McManus finally blinked. “And you are basing this statement on, what observation?”
    Marisol and her beady eyes that lingered on things just long enough to let Christina know she’d seen things she hadn’t been meant to see. Once, after she wiped vomit that had splashed up against the edge of the toilet seat, she said something in rapid-fire Spanish to her aunt with a cackling sort of laugh when she didn’t know Christina was there.
    Christina drew in a deep breath now, letting it out through her mouth. “Just a lot of little things. Robertodrives her to work sometimes. They sit together at lunch and talk. She has a kid, you know, somewhere in Costa Rica, so she must be married.”
    Neither man reacted.
    Christina shrugged again. “I just thought you should know.”
    “Thank you.” McManus gave a tiny nod.
    Christina never felt good when Marisol was in the house; she’d tried on several occasions to convince Jason to get rid of her.
    “You can’t get rid of her unless you fire the aunt as well,” he’d said. “And there’s nothing wrong with their work.”
    And that was it. End of discussion.
    “I just thought it was worth mentioning,” Christina said.
    Ben Jackson tapped his pen once on his writing pad. “This guy, Roberto, you know his last name?”
    Christina shook her head. She didn’t know much about anyone who worked for them. Jason handled all that.
    “Thanks for the information,” Ben Jackson said. “You remember anything else, you give us a call.” He removed a business card from the back of his notepad and handed it to her. “You take it easy, Mrs. Cardiff.”
    Frank McManus fished one of his cards out of his breast pocket and did the same.
    A wave of pure relief washed over Christina. At last, they were going to leave.
    “Try to get some rest,” McManus said. “Is there someone you can call? You want us to wait?”
    There was, and she didn’t. Shaking her head, Christina looked at the gate. Hint, hint.
    Ben Jackson cleared his throat. “I guess we’ll head out.”
    Christina nodded. She hated cops.
    “You just take it easy now,” Frank McManus said, and at last they were gone.
     
    “So?” McManus hunched out of his jacket as Jackson eased the cruiser down the winding drive of pea gravel.
    Jackson let out a low whistle. “Some spread.”
    A starling swooped from the boughs of an ornamental pear tree.
    The wrought-iron gate swung open at their approach.
    As they nosed through, a man straightened from his slouch against the side of a black Escalade and trained his camera lens on them.
    “Smile and say cheese,” Jackson muttered, pulling onto the road.
    Seeing the county plates, the paparazzo snapped away but maintained a respectful distance.
    “You low-life, scum-sucking moron,” McManus murmured in a low voice as they passed.
    Jackson nodded, giving the car some gas but staying well inside the speed limit.
    Twilight was prime time for the weekend warriors to jog or roller-blade or take a spin on their titanium-framed bikes to get in an aerobic workout in the rarefied air that blew across their oceanfront estates.
    McManus reached for a