“I hate to be the ant at your picnic, but it looks like the cops are a step ahead of you on this one,” James said.
They were seated in a booth at the diner, where James was ending his lunch with black coffee, while Isobel nursed a large chocolate shake. She had started with Judge Harrison’s murder and painstakingly led him through all she’d discovered since, right up to the events of the past hour. To her surprise, he listened patiently—she supposed this was part of his penance—and in return for his undiluted attention, she had done her best to be succinct.
“So he changed his name,” she concluded. “Who knew?”
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Don’t you actors all take stage names?” James asked. “I thought that was pretty much par for the course.”
“These days people tend to hang on to their birth names, even if they’re unpronounceably ethnic. Usually you only change it if there’s already someone in Actors’ Equity with your name. Then you have no choice.” She drew a cold mouthful of chocolate up through her straw. “Andrew probably wanted to distance himself from his father and carve out a fresh identity for himself. I know I would.”
“And nobody recognized him?” James asked.
“Well, obviously his father did. Andrew must have been the person he spotted across the room. I know Bethany and Maggie saw him for the few minutes he deigned to rehearse.” She chewed her straw. “Bethany might not have recognized him if he’s changed a lot since he was younger. Besides, she was too busy browbeating the busboys. Maggie was new, so she wouldn’t have known him from Adam.”
“You gotta wonder if Andrew knew what the gig was before he showed up,” James said thoughtfully.
Isobel frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, either he didn’t know it was a celebration for his father and he freaked out once he got there, or he did know and came prepared to kill him.”
“Of course he came prepared to kill him! Motive, means, opportunity.” Isobel ticked them off on her fingers. “He had all three.”
“But what if he didn’t know?” James held up his hand to stem her imminent objection. “Just think it through for a second. You show up for a gig, and suddenly you find yourself in a situation you’re completely unequipped to deal with emotionally. What do you do?” James sat back. “Exactly what he did: disappear to get stoned and run off when your father gets shot. Plus, didn’t you say there was that clause in the will about drug testing?”
“Yes, but—”
“From what you’re telling me, he’d have been in hot water if his father had seen him stoned. All I’m saying is that there’s a logical explanation for his behavior that doesn’t involve patricide.”
“But you said it yourself: the cops must have something on him, or they wouldn’t have brought him in.”
“That’s not quite what I said. I said the cops were ahead of you, but believe me, they don’t need evidence to haul him in. Just the fact that he’s the victim’s son and he fled the scene of the crime is enough.”
“He’s still the most likely person to have pulled the trigger,” Isobel insisted. “He hated his father for sending him to juvie. He knew his father was the guest of honor, and he came prepared.”
“You said there were two sons. Are you sure he’s the one who went to juvie?” James asked.
Isobel opened her mouth, then closed it. “No. Actually, I have no idea. I just assumed.” She held up a warning finger. “And don’t throw that stupid old adage at me.”
James took a sip of coffee. “Well, considering he’s the only son in the picture at the moment, let’s say he is. What about Angelina Rivington? How likely is it that Andrew knew she was involved in the youth camp? Sounded like Percival had to dig pretty deep for that intel.”
Isobel looked over James’s head at a series of black-and-white photographs of old New York. She squinted at a Depression-era image of a breadline, maybe not the best choice for a diner wall. “Andrew could have been angry that Angelina was getting part of his inheritance—”
“But it wasn’t the part that was potentially available to him,” James reminded her. “If that were the case, Candy is the one he’d have wanted dead. And this is all assuming he knew what was in his father’s will. And that doesn’t make sense, because if he knew, he’d never have popped off pop when he was stoned. That would be the worst possible time for the old man to kick the bucket. It could completely blow his chance at an inheritance.”
“You really pay attention, don’t you?” Isobel said, admiration showing in her voice.
He shrugged. “I love this stuff. That’s why I want to be a lawyer.”
Isobel shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t get it. I mean, you helped me work through these things before, but it was always against your will.”
He let out a hearty laugh. “Well, yeah! Because our jobs were on the line.”
“And now?”
“This is my job, or it’s going to be anyway. Now we just gotta find you one.”
Isobel felt her cheeks grow warm, and she drew on her straw for more milk shake. The glass was empty, so she spooned a few cubes of ice from her water into her mouth.
“Delphi’s trying to get me a job at her restaurant.”
“I thought you couldn’t wait tables,” James was indignant. “That’s the whole reason you strong-armed me into sending you on a temp job. Were you bullshitting me?”
“No!” She worked the ice into one cheek and talked around it. “And I told her all about the lobsters. But they need a temporary hostess. How can I mess that up?”
“Don’t you know never to ask questions like that?”
She crunched her ice and swallowed it. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
“I do have faith in you.”
“Faith in me to mess up?”
They regarded each other warily across the table. Isobel knew they were skirting the porous border between teasing and arguing.
She let out a long, slow breath. “Acting on the evidence at hand, counselor, your concern is justified.”
He reached out and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
Isobel was hyperaware of the surprising softness of James’s skin against hers. She felt him pull away, but she gripped his fingers harder and her eyes met his.
“Thank you for calling. I need your help more than ever. I can’t do this one without you.” She squinted at him. “Are you blushing? I can’t tell.”
James burst out laughing and withdrew his hand. “That was so obliviously racist it was almost cute. Yeah, whatever, I’m blushing. Now that I think of it, you never did tell me why you were calling in the first place. What is it you think I can help with?”
Isobel sat back against the banquette. “I wanted the names of kids the judge sent to the camp. But now with Andrew arrested, I guess it’s not really necessary.”
James rattled his coffee cup in the saucer. “If they can’t pin it on him, those names would be worth having.”
“Percival tried, but juvenile court records are sealed, so I figured I needed someone with connections in the legal field, like, oh, I don’t know…you.”
James interlaced his fingers and leaned his chin against them. “Well, I’m just a lowly sophomore, but I’m taking a class on juvenile corrections. It meets this afternoon, in fact. Maybe my professor can steer me in the right direction.”
“What do I have to do to convince you to ask?” Isobel batted her eyelashes.
“Stop doing that thing with your eyes, for one thing.”
“Okay, fine. Will you help?”
“Of course. That’s what making amends is all about. I owe you.”
Now it was her turn to blush. “I owe you, too.”
“For what?”
Isobel stared at the drawings of festive cocktails on the paper place mat and traced the Pink Lady with her fingertip. “For giving me my start when I first came to New York, and for always being there when I need you.”
“But I’m not,” he said with a touch of sadness. “Not always.”
She looked up and gave him her sweetest, most sincere smile. “Maybe not right away, but in the end, you usually come around.”