Coleman did. He looked at his partner. ‘Anybody else would be, like, a teeny tiny embarrassment, don’t you think?’

Glitsky watched his inspectors, making sure they both got it. As Batavia’s face broke into a smile of comprehension, he pointed a finger. ‘Go,’ he said.

‘But I’ve got to find Ron,’ Hardy said. ‘How about your guys find Ron first, then they start on everybody else?’

It was a long-standing tradition in homicide that the lieutenant’s desk held a stash of peanuts. Glitsky was taking advantage of this naturally occurring phenomenon, eating a hearty breakfast of donuts, peanuts, and tea. He broke a shell thoughtfully. ‘You got any ideas where we look to find Ron?’

‘No. But he’s got to have some family. Maybe somebody at the school, who he’d want them to notify in case of emergency…’

A reluctant sigh. ‘OK, that’s not bad. We can try that. I’ll send a squad car back to his place, too. Couldn’t hurt. But I wouldn’t hold my breath, Diz. If he took his car and he’s gone - what did you say, three days already? – then he could be in Chicago by now. If he flew, it could be anywhere.’

‘OK, but if he flew, especially with the two kids, there’s a record of it.’

Glitsky was shaking his head slowly, sadly. His friend hadn’t gotten much sleep and it was showing. ‘Diz, you know I’m feeling for Frannie. I just went a few rounds with Pratt over it. But we can’t go large on Ron. We don’t have the personnel and if we did they’d have better things to do.’

‘Abe, the guy’s a murder suspect-’

‘Maybe, maybe. But he came in and talked to the grand jury when they asked him, and answered all their questions. They were done with him. Nobody gave him a thought as a suspect until Frannie mentioned their little secret.’ He threw a peanut into his mouth and grabbed for his tea. ‘Randall didn’t even tell him not to leave town. Maybe they went camping, or to Disneyland. Who knows? The mom just died, Diz. They feel squirrely where she lived. It’s weird there. This stuff happens. What’s up with Frannie?’

Hardy shook his head. ‘She’s not talking.’

Glitsky did his still-life imitation. After a few seconds, he cracked another peanut. ‘Braun cut her any slack?’

‘Nope.’

Another long moment of nothing. Finally Glitsky spread his hands. ‘Well…’

Hardy stood up. ‘This can’t be happening,’ he said.

Glitsky had lost his own wife to cancer a few years before. That couldn’t be happening either. He nodded. There wasn’t anything left to say.

Hardy finally got finished at the Hall and the jail – his latest frustrating and unproductive visit with Frannie. After that, he had stopped by his office to check on Freeman’s progress, if any, and then, waiting for Freeman to return from court, had nodded off. When he awoke from the two-hour nap on the couch in his office, nothing had changed.

He couldn’t sit still any longer. He had to make something happen.

Glitsky had promised him that he’d send a squad car over to Merryvale to try to get an indication of Ron Beaumont’s whereabouts, but that wasn’t going to be good enough. It would fall under the category of ordinary business – Hardy doubted whether Glitsky would even send homicide inspectors. Some uniforms could take the information and pass it along upstairs. Well, Hardy decided, why should he wait when he could do the same thing himself?

Merryvale’s principal, Theresa Wilson, was a no-nonsense, handsome woman in her mid-forties. She was standing as Hardy was shown into her office. Her handshake would have been impressive in a linebacker and her smile under a close-cropped henna mop appeared at the same time to be both genuine and professional, also impressive. She didn’t hide behind her desk, either, but met him by the door, leading him to a small corner grouping of upholstered chairs. ‘Mr Hardy. I hope your being here doesn’t mean bad news for your wife? Please, sit down.’

The bare-bones explanation took less than a minute. It was a misunderstanding about some point of Ron Beaumont’s alibi on the morning of his wife’s death, and somehow Frannie had gotten in the middle of it.

‘But that’s terrible! She’s not under any kind of suspicion herself I hope?’

‘There’s no sign of that so far.’

Mrs Wilson read between the lines of that. ‘So how long might this continue? Until they let Frannie out of jail?’

A shrug, downplaying the drama of it. ‘Best case, it might only be a couple of days. She thinks Ron Beaumont’s gone camping or something with his kids and when he gets back and finds out what’s going on with her, he’ll come in and straighten out the whole mess.’

‘But you don’t think that?’

‘No.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know if Ron killed his wife, but my guess is he started to feel some heat from the police investigation and decided to take his kids and run.’

‘But I thought…’ She paused.

Hardy read her mind. ‘The alibi with Frannie was solid, but evidently the time of death opened another door. He thought he was going to be arrested. At least that’s my opinion.’ He leaned back into the chair’s cushion. ‘And it’s why I’ve come here to you.’

She looked him a question.

‘I realize you’re probably not allowed to give out any information about your students, but I was hoping you might be able to tell me if you know I’m wrong.’

‘How would I?’

‘Well, say, if the Beaumont kids have been in school the last couple of days, if Ron’s given some kind of excuse…’ Hardy gave her a weary smile. ‘It looks like he’s moved out of his home, probably Tuesday afternoon. I’d like to know if you’ve heard anything from him since then.’

As he expected, she was torn between his dilemma and her duties as principal. ‘Ron Beaumont is a wonderful man, Mr Hardy. He volunteered here all the time. Really. I don’t believe he’s any part of this either.’

But that wasn’t Hardy’s dilemma. He had to give it more urgency. ‘Please, Mrs Wilson. I want to be clear that I’m not asking you to tell me where he is, if you know. Also, if you’re protecting the children, OK, I understand. They must be having a rough go of it no matter what’s happening. But if you’ve heard nothing, then I think that increases the chances that Ron is on the run, either that or’ – a sudden, new possibility – ‘or something’s happened to him.’ He stopped, elbows on knees, hands spread. ‘Please,’ he repeated. ‘If I don’t find him, Frannie stays in jail.’

After an excruciating minute, Mrs Wilson stood up and crossed to her desk, where she reached over, grabbed at a folder, opened it, and withdrew a sheet of paper. Another beat of hesitation. She turned around, crossed back to Hardy, and handed him the paper.

‘I’m really not allowed to discuss any details of the children’s lives without the parents’ consent, as I know you understand.’

It was a list of about twenty names under the heading ‘Absentees’ and the day’s date. There were asterisks next to four of the names, and two of them were Beaumont. There was also the number three in parentheses, which Hardy took to mean number of days running. At the bottom of the page, an asterisk indicated that the absence was unexcused.

Mrs Wilson hadn’t heard a thing. The children were gone without a trace.

‘You don’t think something’s happened to Mr Beaumont and his children, too, do you? Maybe the person who murdered his wife…?’ A startled expression at the unthinkable that had just surfaced. ‘You don’t think it could have been him after all, do you?’

‘I sure hope not, Mrs Wilson. Let’s not think that, OK?’

Hardy was waiting by the curb outside Merryvale when the bell rang to end the school day. Vincent was in the car almost before Hardy saw him. Ginger-haired after his mother and freckly, he was the all-American ten-year-old boy. ‘Where’s Mom now? Why are you here?’