“I learned to drive from Mom,” Anne said, taking the citation from him. Frank Farman had written the ticket because she had turned around on his lawn after he parked behind her and blocked her in. Jerk. “You must be thinking about some other daughter you had with some other woman.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means. It means you don’t get to reinvent my history.”

“You don’t have to worry about it, anyway,” he said, waving at the ticket. “I give to the sheriff’s charity every year. They know me. They’ll look the other way.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Dad.”

Fine: $150!

“Of course that’s how it works. What were you doing behind the wheel? Drinking and driving?”

“No, but I’m thinking about taking that up.”

He didn’t react because he never listened to her. The other person’s role in a conversation with Dick Navarre was to kill time while he was deciding what to say next.

In all their years of marriage he had probably heard about 3 percent of what her mother ever had to say. Her opinion had meant nothing to him, nor had Anne’s. She remembered when she was nine years old her mother telling her to go into the living room and talk to her father before dinner. Even then Anne had seen the futility of that exercise.

“Really, honey,” her mother had said. “Daddy wants to hear about your day at school.”

Anne had looked up at her mother, perfectly coiffed, perfectly made up, all for her husband who treated her like a servant, and said, “Mom, he doesn’t even know what grade I’m in.”

She regretted saying it instantly only because her honesty had hurt her mother. Her father probably couldn’t say what grade she taught now because what she did was of no interest to him, even though he had been a teacher himself. The ultimate narcissist, it only mattered to him that she took care of the things he needed taken care of.

“You’re late,” he said. “Again. What’s your excuse tonight?”

“I’ve been recruited by the FBI to work undercover in this murder investigation.”

He looked annoyed. “The FBI doesn’t hire women.”

“Yes, they do. It’s 1985, Dad. We have the right to vote and everything.”

“Ha. Very funny,” he grumbled, walking away. “The right to vote.”

Anne dropped the citation on the dining room table and headed for the kitchen, calling, “Did you take your meds?”

“Of course I did. I’m not senile. I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”

“Good. In that case, I’ll be moving out next week.”