He had run out of things to say. He sighed and tried not to fidget. Anne looked up at his father, handsome and relaxed, a pleasant smile curving his mouth. “Dr. Crane, I want to thank you for making this possible.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “I appreciate your concern for setting the record straight. Why don’t we go inside? The smell of that pizza is too much to resist.”

They went into the restaurant and found a booth. The place was booming with Saturday night customers—college kids, families, teenagers traveling in packs. Video games bleeped and growled in their own alcove at the rear of the place. Tommy was wide-eyed, taking it all in.

“We don’t get to come here very often, do we, Tommy?” Peter Crane said.

Tommy shook his head.

“Tommy’s mom is a member of the food police,” Crane explained. “All healthy, all the time.”

“And as a dentist, you must agree with that,” Anne said.

“I don’t think the occasional pizza is such a bad thing. Tommy and I sneak in some fun stuff every once in a while, don’t we, Sport?”

Tongue-tied, Tommy nodded.

“What do you like on your pizza, Tommy?” Anne asked.

“Cheese.”

“Me too. What about pepperoni?”

The shy smile tucked up one corner of his mouth as he nodded again.

“What about Brussels sprouts?”

“No!” he said emphatically, shaking his head so hard his whole body swung from side to side.

Anne laughed. “All right. No Brussels sprouts.”

A waitress came and took their order for pizza with no Brussels sprouts. When she had gone, Anne looked across the table at Tommy, growing serious.

“Tommy, after seeing your mom last night, I just want to make sure you don’t have the wrong idea about something,” she began. “When I asked you those questions I never meant for you to think that your father might be involved in what happened, or that I might think that. Do you understand?”

“I guess,” he said in a tone of voice that was less than convincing.

“You know the detectives have to ask a lot of questions when they’re investigating a crime,” Anne said. “They ask questions of a lot of people. That doesn’t necessarily mean they believe everyone they talk to might be guilty. But they have to ask a lot of questions to try to get a clear idea of where people were when a crime was being committed. They want to know who couldn’t have committed the crime as well as who might have.

“Detective Leone asked me to find out from you if your dad was home that night. And you told me he was. That’s all they wanted to know.”

Tommy’s brow furrowed. “But why didn’t they just ask my dad?”