He let his breath out in a long whoosh. He’d hoped that, as a newcomer this summer, Gina might have been immune to Riverview gossip. But why should she be? Her job on the Pike would make her privy to more secrets than he knew himself. “It was,” he said at last.

“Do you miss it?”

“I do. Very much so.”

He gazed at Gina curiously. How odd that she didn’t ask, Do you miss her? The truth was he didn’t miss Maura, not really. She was an ache that flared up sometimes, after too much drink or not enough sleep, then subsided with sunrise. But his detective work had been so deeply ingrained that its loss felt like losing a part of his body, like the strange pains that amputees were said to experience after an arm or a leg was removed in surgery.

“What sort of policeman were you?”

“A detective sergeant. An investigator.”

“You were the man who investigated the Black Hand. That was why you lost your position. That’s what I heard.”

He shrugged, avoiding her gaze. For an instant her fingers tightened around his, and then she withdrew her hand. “We lived in Little Hell before we came here, me and Pin. Those men do the work of the devil. I wish you had been able to murder them all.”

“I wish they’d been brought to trial. And that I’d kept my position.”

“It must have hardened you, that work.”

He looked at her in surprise. “I would hope not. Why would you think that?”

“You’re here…” She opened her hands to indicate the room around them, the half-dozen drunken couples on the dance floor, swaying to the melancholic strains of “Solace.” “Not a day after that girl’s murder.”

Francis gave another awkward laugh. “It does sound hard, when you put it like that,” he admitted. “I guess I just don’t give much thought to things when I get off duty.”

Gina laughed. “I’m flattered.”

He downed the rest of his drink, flustered. “That wasn’t what I meant to say. I just—I thought you might enjoy doing something sociable. As a distraction after last night. I’m very sorry your son was the one who had to see that.”

Gina said nothing. Francis finally asked, “Would you like another beer?”

“That would be very sociable,” she said, and smiled.

He signaled the waiter. They sat without speaking until he returned with their beers, listening as the pianist played another wistful tune. Francis raised his glass to Gina. He tried to think of what to say. “Have you—have any of your predictions ever come true?”

“No. I’ve never done anything like this before. I was a frock-hitcher, but girls don’t want fussy plumes and silk peonies anymore, not unless it’s for a garden party. A friend worked here last summer and said I could make money pretty easy.”