He found Anya outside on her front lawn, cigarette in one hand, wineglass in the other, reclining face up on a chaise lounge next to a big liter-and-a-half bottle of red wine chilling in an ice bucket. She wore huge sunglasses with turquoise frames. Her flat breasts were encased in a pink halter top over skimpy black shorts. She’d coated the exposed areas of her wrinkled, leathery brown skin with some sort of sun-tanning oil and lay marinating in the sun.

Oyv was curled up next to her. He barked once when Jack stepped across the line of dry brown grass onto Anya’s lush green lawn, then settled down again.

“I started without you, hon,” she said. “Pull up a chair and pour yourself a glass.”

“Chilled red wine,” Jack said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a wine snob.”

Jack shook his head. “A bit of a beer snob, maybe, but I wouldn’t know a cabernet from a merlot without the label.”

“Glad to hear it. You’ve probably had people tell you that the only wine you should drink cold is white or blush or rosé. Trust me, kiddo, they’re talking out their tuchuses. This is a Côtes du Rhone. That’s French, by the way.”

“Really?”

“You probably expect an old broad like me to be a whiskey sour or Manhattan drinker, but as far as I’m concerned, on a hot summer day like this, a glass of chilled Côtes du Rhone or Beaujolais hits the spot. Try it and see if you like it. If you don’t, sorry, but that’s what we serve at Casa Mundy. You want beer, you’ll have to bring your own. I’m not into that fizzy hops-and-malt drek.”

So Jack poured himself a glass and damn if it didn’t, as Anya had said, hit the spot.

“Not bad.”

He pulled up a chaise lounge on the other side of the table with the ice bucket.

“How come you’re the only one visiting my father? Doesn’t he have any other friends?”

“He has lots. But they probably don’t know. I think I’m the only one who knows, and I don’t talk to many people.”

“How did you find out?”

“When I saw his car was missing Tuesday morning, I called the police and asked if there’d been any serious accidents. They sounded pretty suspicious until I told them why I was calling. They told me about your father so I went right over to the hospital to see.”

“Shouldn’t you let people know?”

“Why? So they can send dead flowers and come in and stare at him? Tom wouldn’t want that.”

No, he wouldn’t. Jack guessed she did know his father after all.

Together they sat and sipped and watched the sun settle in the west.