He was sure that his son didn’t mean it to sound so accusatory, so unwelcoming, but there it was. He’d better deal with it, since he had a feeling it was going to get worse after his daughter arrived. Rebecca had developed an impressive knack of late, pushing his buttons, not letting anything go.

Driving down on his way to the school, he’d decided how he’d break the news, on his precise phrasing. ‘Your mother’s down at the jail.’ This had a decidedly familiar ring in the family – since Hardy himself was often visiting clients who were behind bars, his children were accustomed to hearing the words. They wouldn’t, by themselves, produce trauma. He hoped.

And when he tried them on Vincent, they seemed to go down well enough. ‘What for?’ he asked, still calm.

Hardy went for the noble spin. ‘They wanted her to tell a secret that she’d promised not to, and now-’

‘Where’s Mom?’ Rebecca had the back door open, throwing backpack and lunch pail into the car in front of her. ‘She promised she’d be helping paint our class’s Hallowe’en booth – she promised - and it was today and-’

‘Beck, hold it! Hold it.’

‘She’s at the jail,’ Vincent piped into the silence. He appeared to be delighted with the news, and definitely happy to be the one to break it. Finally he got to tell his sister something she didn’t know.

Although for a moment it didn’t register. ‘Well, she promised me first. There were two other moms waiting and waiting and she didn’t even call and so here I am with my friends and their moms showed up, and I’m all embarrassed-’

Hardy snapped his fingers and pointed directly at her. ‘Stop it! Right now!’ His daughter glared sullenly back at him. ‘Did you hear what your brother just said?’

She turned to Vincent, easier pickings. ‘What?’ she snapped.

‘Never mind anyway.’ Power play of the fourth graders.

Hardy thought he’d better get driving so he wasn’t tempted to thrash his children right there in front of the school where everybody would see.

The Beck’s teasing, na-na-na voice. ‘I don’t care. I heard you anyway.’

‘Oh yeah? So what did I say, braceface?’

‘Vincent!’

‘You said she was in jail, stupid.’

This brought the wail. ‘Da-ad! You heard that. The Beck just called me stupid.’

‘He called me braceface first.’

‘Tin grin!’

In the back seat, something was thrown, something connected. Vincent was screaming and swinging.

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Hardy knew his face had gone crimson. Somehow he’d pulled over to the curb again and turned around in his seat, at the top of his voice. ‘Stop this stupid, stupid bickering and fighting. Stop it right now!’ Another finger pointed, this time at Vincent. ‘And don’t tell me I’m not supposed to say “stupid.” This is stupid! Don’t you two ever think about anything but yourselves? I said your mother’s in jail, and you’re screaming at each other about nothing, just to hear yourselves scream.’

‘You’re the one screaming.’ The Beck had self-righteous indignation down to a fine art. She was right and that was just too bad for the rest of humanity.

‘You didn’t say “in jail,” ’ Vincent wailed as hysteria mounted. More tears broke. ‘You said she was down at the jail, not in jail.’

So much for Plan A.

At last, Rebecca seemed to hear. ‘Mom’s in jail? What do you mean, in jail? How could Mom be in jail?’

Vincent: ‘When does she get out? What did she do? Are we ever going to see her again?’

Now they were both crying.

‘Daddy,’ Beck asked, anguish through her tears. ‘How could you let this happen?’

Finally, finally, after they got home, he and Erin and Ed succeeded in convincing the kids that Frannie was going to be OK. This was a funny glitch in the legal system, which they were always hearing Dad talk about anyway, right? This time it had just happened to their family.

Mom was sticking up for a friend of hers and Uncle Abe was there, working right across the way, taking care of her. And sure, she might be gone for a few days, but she was all right, in a really nice cell – ‘a country club,’ in fact. It was kind of like a vacation for Mom, and the Beck and Vincent got to stay with Grandma and Papa Ed for the weekend. It would be fun, an adventure. There wasn’t anything to worry about.

Hardy, alone on Friday evening, pacing his home front to back, was trying to come to some – any – conclusions and develop a plan. All he knew for sure was that he would go back and see Frannie again tonight, freshly armed with the news that Ron hadn’t simply gone fishing or something. If that had been the case, he would have told Mrs Wilson and there would have been no asterisk.

But he knew that this information wasn’t going to sway his wife. She would tell Hardy that of course Ron had had to disappear. Because of his children, he couldn’t let the law get involved with him. He would have had no choice.

And, fool that he was, Hardy had promised Frannie that he wouldn’t reveal what she had told him, whether or not he believed a word of it. Never mind that he’d lost his claim to attorney-client privilege; he realized that he’d done something that was potentially far more debilitating. He couldn’t talk to anybody about this – not Glitsky, Freeman, Moses, Erin, nobody. He shouldn’t ever have promised Frannie, but now that he had, if he wanted to keep faith with her, he was stuck.

The telephone jarred him from these thoughts. Sometime before he must have stopped pacing because he was sitting at his kitchen table, a cup of coffee untouched and cold in front of him. The light had changed as another afternoon’s load of fog had settled outside. He stood and picked up on the second ring.

‘It’s going to be on the five o’clock news.’ Freeman wasn’t much of a preamble kind of guy. He heard Hardy’s voice and he was talking. ‘I called a press conference and it must be a slow news day. Everybody came. You should have been here. This is where the action is. What are you doing home anyway?’

‘I’m picking out new curtains for the bedroom,’ he said. ‘What’s going to be on the news? Frannie?’

‘And Braun. And Randall. They loved it, they ate it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hit the national wires. If I were you, I’d expect some calls myself pretty soon. Play up the wife and mother torn from her family part.’

‘What other part is there?’

Freeman hesitated. ‘Well, there’s probably going to be some reporters with dirty minds, too. You might take this as a heads up, not blow off on them.’ Then, back to strategy. ‘I really think this might get to Pratt, persuade her to pull the rug out from Randall, and get him to reconsider. What do you hear about Bree’s husband?’

‘He left town.’ Hardy told him about checking at Merryvale. The kids being gone.

‘Do the cops know this?’

Hardy realized with a shock that they probably didn’t. He hadn’t thought to call Glitsky because the lieutenant had told him he wasn’t really interested in Ron Beaumont as a suspect. But Freeman was right. His running changed that. ‘I’ll call as soon as I get off with you.’

‘You ought to get to Frannie, too. She discovers that he’s really run, he looks like a murder suspect, she might want to change her mind about protecting him.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ he said, biting his tongue. ‘I’ll do that.’

‘Check the news first,’ Freeman said. ‘Starts in about five minutes, channel four.’

‘I’m on it. And David, thanks.’

Freeman laughed. ‘Are you kidding? This is what I live for.’

He thought the idea of calling Glitsky was a good one. Although his inspectors would be happy if they found a suspect other than Ron for the murder of Bree, the fact that Ron had apparently fled the jurisdiction would have an impact on Abe. He’d have to do something.