“You think this was one of the problems he and your mother had.”
Beth couldn’t see any reason not to be frank with this man. He represented her father. He was here to defend Dad.
“I’m sure it was. Even then, I could see it. It had gotten so she was always exasperated, and that can’t be healthy for a marriage.”
“No,” Phil said somberly. “But you don’t see him as violent.”
“Never. He floats gently through life. I’ve never seen him mad, or, really, even irritated. I can’t picture him ever reacting with a powerful enough emotion to push him into violence.”
“All right.”
They both, at the same time, saw the unmarked police car coming down the street and slowing.
He added, “I will tell you that the detective can’t arrest your father with no proof beyond the body being found here in the house. If they didn’t find DNA evidence with her body, this is a fishing expedition, no more. In fact, even DNA evidence can be explained away, given their relationship. So don’t worry. If it’s okay with your dad, who is legally my client, I’ll tell you how it goes afterward.”
Beth nodded her gratitude. “Thank you.”
Tony Navarro strode up the driveway even as she started toward her car. His gaze swept her from head to foot, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, although she had a suspicion.
He bent his head. “Ms. Marshall.”
“Detective.” She made her tone as scrupulously polite as his had been. Opening her car door, she heard the two men greet each other by first name before they shook hands with apparent cordiality.
How friendly was their relationship? Before she could get alarmed, she remembered how short the list of criminal attorneys had been in the phone book. A detective was bound to know them all, and vice versa. Frenchman Lake wasn’t that big.
Her phone rang as she started the car to take advantage of the air conditioning rather than swelter. Matt. Oh, joy.
Without so much as a Hi, he launched into his complaint. “That detective came to the college this morning to talk to me. Howard saw him and wanted to know what it was about.”
Howard, she knew, was the director of Financial Aid. She couldn’t remember his last name. He was a Very Important Person in her brother’s world.
“Did you tell him?”
“What else could I do?” he complained. “You know this is going to be all over town in no time. If I’d lied, he would have found out.”
“Why would you lie?” she asked reasonably. “It’s not like you’re suspected of a crime.” Or, at least, he was only a secondary suspect. Did he know that?
“That’s what I thought, or I wouldn’t have agreed to talk to the guy. But the way he looked at me at the end, I’m not so sure.”
Detective Navarro did have a gift for hiding his thoughts. Would he really have stared accusingly at her brother? She reminded herself, with some bitterness, that he also seemed to have a gift for projecting false kindness and caring. So who knew?
“He said he hadn’t talked to Dad yet.”
“He’s interviewing him right now.”
“Then where are you?”
“Sitting in my car, outside the house.” Staring through the windshield at the closed garage door. Not even wanting to think about the garage, she shifted in the seat enough to look toward the house instead. “I hired an attorney for Dad. He’s in there with him.”
“What? Why would you do that?”
“Because Dad would never think of it.”
“Why do you keep bailing him out? I’ve never gotten it.”
“That’s what you do,” she said simply, although she knew more lay beneath the surface than she had ever acknowledged. “Your parents take care of you growing up, then later, when they need you, you return the favor.”
“He’s not an old man, Beth. And, anyway, when did he ever take care of any of us?” Anger infused his voice, as it invariably did when they talked about their father. “Do you think he ever changed a diaper? Cleaned up a skinned knee and put on a bandage? Drove you to friends’ houses or picked you up after Spanish Club?”