“Only legally.”

“Oh.” She rolled her eyes. “Too bad, but good for you, not that I’m surprised. Wild guess is you’re not here for social reasons, anyway. Am I right?”

“True, but it is nice to see you again.”

She turned at that and beckoned to him to follow her through the back door, into the building, proper. “There’s a line. Always the diplomat.”

He seriously doubted that, recalling his awkward teen years, but he let it go and let her lead him first into a storage area, then a lab of sorts, complete with operating table, surrounded by some scary-looking and invasive equipment, and finally to what appeared to be an employee lounge, with TV, couch, coffee machine, and scattered magazines. It was as informal and lived-in as the front of the building most emphatically was not.

“Sit,” she ordered him. “In one of the armchairs if you’re protecting your virtue. You never know what I might do next.”

He chose the couch, partially as a show of trust. When she joined him after pouring two cups, she sat at the other end, pointing her finger at him and waggling her eyebrows. He’d forgotten what a character she was. Or, how well she and his younger and more adventuresome brother, Leo, had gotten along.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m actually on a tight leash, all kidding aside, and I gotta get cracking soon. What brings you to Claremont?”

“Lucy Shaw,” he said bluntly.

“We got her. She rob a bank we don’t know about?”

“I don’t think so, but I am curious about the company she kept.”

Barb sampled her coffee before replying, “Don’t know. I never heard of her before they wheeled her in. She’s from Gilsum. I met her husband, if that helps.”

Joe played it neutrally. “What’s he like?”

“Thinks he’s cool, but doesn’t carry it off. He also put out some weird feelings about her. I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or sad. It seemed to come and go, depending on whether he was being watched or not.”

“I take it he looked relieved when he thought he was alone?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. I left him with her for a few minutes of quiet time. Standard stuff. They usually cry or talk to the body, maybe touch a hand or something. It can be sweet. Anyhow, I poked my head in when he wasn’t watching, and he was checking his phone. Couldn’t have been less involved with her. I even tested it, for fun, by making a little noise before I walked in. The phone disappeared, and he was pretending to wipe an eye. Pretty slimy, I thought, which didn’t improve when I caught him checking out my boobs. I mean, I’m used to that in the real world. What woman isn’t? But here? You know him?”

“Barely,” Joe said. “Did anyone else come by?”

“The usual friend types, trading stories about high times. All women.”

“Family?”

She paused to consider that. “No. I asked the husband, Lemuel. Funny name. He said she had a sister down south but that they’d been estranged for years.” Barb almost interrupted herself to add, “There was somebody you might ought to talk to. She came in alone. Really nice, but quiet. Dr. Pat Glowa. Another odd name. She was different from the others.”