"At the peak I was putting in fifteen hours a week. I still can't believe she's gone." Franck's eyes drifted to the ceiling. Gray stains marred the plaster, as if a greasy-haired giant had butted his head.

"Seven fifty a week," said Milo.

"Well earned, Lieutenant."

"You don't have time for it anymore."

"I need to concentrate on my research," said Franck, slapping hair from his brow.

"What are you researching?"

"Catalysis and response engineering."

"Oh, yeah," said Milo. "Saw a TV Guide special on that."

Franck didn't react.

Milo edged an inch closer. "You're into color, huh?"

"Pardon?"

"Your hair, you dye it."

Franck licked his lips. "You take your fun where you find it."

"What's the next step, a catalysis tattoo?"

Reluctant smile. "I don't think so, Lieutenant."

"Were you Elise's only employee?"

"I was."

"When you went off to Harvard, she didn't hire anyone else?"

"No. When I was back for summers, I resumed. It beat flipping burgers."

"Guy with your talents," said Milo, "I don't see you in fast food."

"Guess what, Lieutenant, that's exactly what I did for two high school summers. McDonald's, Burger King. Then I promoted myself to busboy at Shecky's Deli. You want corned beef sliced thin, I'm your man."

"No summer fellowships available for smart kids?"

"There's no shortage of unpaid internships," said Franck. "And the best summer programs, like Oxbridge, you pay for. My father teaches math and my mother's a nurse. Ergo a funny hat and playing solo deep-fryer."

"So it was a match made in heaven," said Milo. "You and Elise."

"It worked out for both of us."

"How come you're wearing a Yale T-shirt?"

Franck blinked. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Why advertise the opposition?"

The young man's smile was wide and toothy. "It's an Ivy thing. Flaunting your own school is pretentious."

"So when some jerk cuts me off in traffic and he's got a YooHoo University decal on the rear window of his Mercedes he probably didn't go to YooHoo?"

"If he's a jerk, he probably did," said Franck. "Can I assume you have no idea who killed Elise?"

"I never said she was killed, Trey."

"You're homicide detectives."

"Sometimes we investigate suicides."

"You think that's what it was?"

"You see that as possible, Trey?"

"What do you mean?"

"Any signs of depression on Elise's part?"

"No."

"Just like that," said Milo, snapping his fingers. "No hemming and hawing."

"I never saw any depression. Not in the clinical sense."

"Meaning?"

"She had her moods," said Franck. "Like anyone. Mostly when I saw her, she was in fine spirits." He picked at a cuticle. "I probably shouldn't get into this, but I feel duty-bound. Not that I think it's necessarily relevant. But..."

Pick pick.

"There's a kid named Martin Mendoza. He's a senior at Prep and Elise tutored him. But he didn't come to her in the usual way, Prep assigned him to Elise."

"And?"

"And there were problems."

"What kinds of problems?"