Trapped, Kat started toward them. She kissed her mother on the cheek and said hello to Flo and Tessie.

“What?” Flo said. “No kiss for your aunt Flo and Tessie?”

Neither woman was an aunt, just close family friends, but Kat kissed them anyway. Flo had a bad red dye job that sometimes leaned toward purple. Tessie kept her hair a gray that also had a tendency toward purple. Both smelled a little like potpourri on an old couch. The two “aunts” grabbed Kat’s face before kissing her cheek. Flo wore heavy ruby-red lipstick. Kat wondered how to discreetly wipe it away.

All three widows openly inspected her.

“You’re too skinny,” Flo said.

“Leave her alone,” Tessie said. “You look fine, dear.”

“What? I’m just saying. Men like a woman with a little meat on her bones.” To emphasize her point, Flo hoisted up her substantial bosom without the slightest sense of embarrassment. Flo was always doing that—adjusting her bosoms as though they were unruly children.

Mom continued to study Kat with not-so-subtle disapproval. “Do you think that hair flatters your face?”

Kat just stared at her.

“I mean, you have such a pretty face.”

“You’re beautiful,” Tessie said, as always the defiant albeit normal one. “And I love your hair.”

“Thank you, Aunt Tessie.”

“Did you come for Tim’s son the doctor?” Flo asked.

“No.”

“He’s not here yet. But he will be.”

“You’ll like him,” Tessie added. “He’s very handsome.”

“He looks like that guy on The Price Is Right,” Flo added. “Am I right?”

Mom and Tessie nodded enthusiastically.

Kat asked, “Which guy?”

“What?”

“You mean the guy who hosts it now or the one who used to host it?”

“Which guy,” Flo repeated. “Never you mind which guy, Miss Picky. What, one of them isn’t handsome enough for you?” Flo hoisted up the bosom again. “Which guy?”

“Stop that,” Tessie said.

“What?”

“With the booby play. You’re going to put someone’s eyes out with one of those.”

Flo winked. “Only if he’s lucky.”

Flo was big and bouncy and still wanted to a catch a man. She caught their eyes far too often—but it never lasted. Despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary, Flo was still a hopeless romantic. She fell in love hard and fast, and everyone but Flo could see the oncoming wreck. She and Mom had been best friends since elementary school at St. Mary’s. There was a brief period, when Kat was in high school, when the two women didn’t talk for maybe six months or a year—a fight over a houseguest or something—but other than that, they were inseparable.

Flo had six grown kids and sixteen grandchildren. Tessie had eight kids and nine grandkids. They had lived hard lives, these women—raising tons of children under the thumbs of uninvolved husbands and an overly involved church. When Kat was nine years old, she came home from school early and saw Tessie crying in their kitchen. Mom sat with her, in the stillness of that midday kitchen, holding Tessie’s hand and telling her how sorry she was and how it would all be okay. Tessie just sobbed and shook her head. Nine-year-old Kat wondered what tragedy had befallen Tessie’s family—if maybe something had happened to her daughter Mary, who had lupus, or if her husband, Uncle Ed, lost his job, or if Tessie’s hoodlum son Pat had failed out of school.

But it wasn’t any of that.

Tessie was sobbing because she’d just learned she was pregnant yet again. She cried and clutched tissues and repeated over and over that she couldn’t handle it, and Mom listened and held her hand and then Flo came over and Flo listened and eventually they all cried.

Tessie’s children were grown now. After Ed died six years ago, Tessie, who had never gone any farther than an Atlantic City casino, started traveling extensively. Her first trip had been to Paris three months after Ed’s death. For years, Tessie had been taking out language tapes from the Queens Library and teaching herself French. Now she put it to use. Tessie kept her personal travel diaries in leather binders in the den. Tessie never pushed them on anyone—rarely admitted what they were—but Kat loved to read them.

Kat’s father had seen it early. “This life,” Dad had told her, eying Kat’s mom standing over an oven. “It’s a trap for a girl.” The only girls Kat grew up with who stayed in the neighborhood had been knocked up young. The rest, for better or worse, had fled.

Kat turned around, her gaze heading back toward Suggs’s table. He was staring straight at her. He didn’t look away when she spotted him. Instead, he brought the bottle up toward her in a distant, sad toast. She nodded in return. Suggs took a deep long swig, his head back, his throat sliding up and down.

“I’ll be right back,” Kat said, starting toward him.

Suggs rose and met her halfway. He was a short, burly man who walked as though he’d just gotten off a horse. The room was warm now, the weak air-conditioning no match for the crowded hall. Everyone, including both Suggs and Kat, had a thin sheen of sweat on them. They hugged, no words exchanged.

“I guess you heard,” Suggs said, releasing her.

“About Leburne? Yeah.”

“Not sure what to say here, Kat. ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t seem appropriate.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I just wanted to know I was thinking of you. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Thanks.”

Suggs raised his bottle. “You need a beer.”

“That I do,” Kat agreed.

There was no bar, just a bunch of coolers and kegs in the corner. Ever the gentleman, Suggs opened the bottle with his wedding band. They clinked bottles and drank. With all due respect to the Bob Barker or Drew Carey look-alike, Kat had traveled here to talk to Suggs. She just wasn’t sure how to begin.

Suggs helped her out. “I heard you visited Leburne before he died.”

“Yeah.”

“What was that like?”

“He said he didn’t do it.”

Suggs smiled as though she’d just told him a joke that he was pretending he found amusing. “Did he, now?”

“He was on a mess of drugs.”

“So I guess he was telling one last lie.”

“Just the opposite. They were more like a truth serum. He admitted killing others. But he said that he just took the blame for Dad’s murder because he was serving life anyway.”

Suggs took a long sip of beer. He was probably in his early sixties. He still had a full head of gray hair, but what always struck her about him—what struck most people about him—was that he had the kindest face. Not handsome or even striking. Just kind. You couldn’t help but like a man with that face. Some people look like jack-offs, even though they may be the sweetest person in the world. Suggs was the opposite—you couldn’t imagine a man with this face could be anything but trustworthy.

You had to remind yourself that it was just a face.

“I found the gun, Kat.”

“I know.”

“It was hidden in his house. In a false panel under his bed.”

“I know that too. But didn’t you ever find that odd? The guy was always so careful. He’d use his weapon and dump it. But suddenly, you find the murder weapon stashed with his unused guns.”

The quasi amused smile stayed on his lips. “You look like your old man, you know that?”

“Yeah, so I hear.”

“We had no other suspects or even theories.”

“Doesn’t mean there weren’t any.”

“Cozone put out a hit. We had a murder weapon. We had a confession. Leburne had means and opportunity. It was a righteous bust.”

“I’m not saying you guys didn’t do good work.”

“Sure sounds like it.”

“There are just some pieces that don’t fit.”

“Come on, Kat. You know how these things go. It is never a perfect fit. That’s why we have trials and defense lawyers who keep telling us, even when the case is completely solid, that there are holes or inconsistencies or that the prosecution’s case doesn’t”—he made quote marks with his fingers—“fit.”