“Your girls are pretty athletic, aren’t they?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I seem to recall pictures in your office—outdoor sports?”
“My, what a memory,” she said. “Yes, Ali and Becky like to sail and ski and they’re trim now, but both of them have a tendency to pudge. Lousy genetics: Bob and I were both lumpy kids. I stay on them. It’s easier now that they’ve discovered boys.” She sat back. “They both have, thank goodness. Does that sound terrible? Perfectionistic mom?”
“I’m sure you care about them.”
“That was shamelessly nonjudgmental, Alex. We’re diametric opposites, aren’t we? I get paid to do precisely what you avoid.”
The waiter approached and asked if she wanted a refill.
“Not at this point,” she said. “The doctor here will have a look at the menu, but I know what I want. The Tender Greens Salad, everything chopped very fine, no dried apricots or olives or nuts, dressing on the side.”
“I’ll have the same,” I said, “but leave in the nuts.”
The waiter glanced at his list of specials and walked away looking miffed. Judy said, “Leave in the nuts? Funny…. So—you have no idea how Eric and Stacy are coping?”
“I’m sure it’s rough for them. Any further thoughts about Richard?”
“Do I think he’s capable of soliciting murder? Alex, you know as well as I do that no one can ever really fathom what goes on in someone’s head. So yes, I suppose it’s theoretically possible that Richard tried to have Mate killed. But the way they said he did it sounds so damn stupid, and Richard’s anything but.”
“Joanne was brilliant, too.”
Her face tightened. Tiny lines, softened by makeup and indirect lighting, appeared all over the surface of her skin. A woman cracking.
“Yes, she was. I won’t profess to understand why she did the things she did.”
I waited for the stress lines to fade. They didn’t. She was gazing into her gin and tonic, playing with the stirrer.
“I guess we never really understand anyone, do we?”
I said, “Let’s assume—for argument’s sake—that Richard did pay Quentin Goad. Why would he hate Mate that much?”
She touched a finger to her upper lip, massaged, looked up at the ceiling. “Perhaps he saw Mate as taking away something that belonged to him. Richard likes his possessions.”
“Was he especially possessive when it came to Joanne?”
“More than any other alpha male? He’s a middle-aged man, Alex. He’s from a certain generation.”
“So he saw Joanne as his.”
“Bob sees me as his. If you’re asking was Richard pathologically jealous, I never saw it.”
“And Joanne chose to exclude him from the most important decision of her life.”
She swiped her lips with her napkin. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t understand much about this family, Judy.”
“Neither do I,” she said, very softly. “Neither do I.” The restaurant din nearly blocked out the sound and I realized I was reading her lips.
“Have you ever met Richard’s parents?”
“No,” she said. “They never visited, as far as I know, and Richard never talked about them. Why?”
“Grabbing any fact I can. Eric told me he’s Greek-Sicilian.”
“I suppose I was aware of that—Joanne must’ve said something, or one of the kids did. But I can’t recall Richard ever making a thing about it. I never saw grape leaves in the house, or anything like that.”
She looked and sounded tired, as if talking about the Doss family drained her.
I said, “As friends and neighbors, they must have been a challenge.”
“What do you mean?” she said, in the same sharp tone I’d heard her use on an errant lawyer.
“They’re the kind of people to whom things happen. When I spoke to Bob about Joanne’s diagnosis, he sounded pretty frustrated about Joanne’s condition—”
“Did he?” she said absently. She gazed around the room. A few more tables had filled. “That’s just Bob being Bob. He prides himself on being analytic: identify the problem, cut it out.”
“Which he couldn’t do with Joanne.”
“No, he couldn’t.” She stirred the drink. Eyes down again. Stress lines deeper.
“Bob seems to feel her illness was all emotional depression,” I said.
She looked over at a table to the right. Two couples seated a few minutes ago, laughing, drinking. She summoned the waiter over, ordered another gin and tonic.