"How are Joel and Diane?" I asked, another stupid thing to say. I was trying to divert him, since I had no idea what to do.

"Bless them, they're fine," he said. "Diane is such a good girl. It was hard to see him marry again, see someone take Whitney's place. Diane should never have married him. I never should have let Whitney marry him. Out of her league, and I knew it."

"What do you mean? Was he mean to Whitney?"

"Oh, no, he loved her! He was good to her, and he adores Victor, though he doesn't understand him at all. That happens a lot with fathers and sons, though… and fathers and daughters, too."

"You mean Joel didn't understand Tabitha?"

He looked at me with a face that was still wet, but now impatient, too. "No, of course not. No one 'understands' a girl that age, especially the girl herself. No, what I mean is… it doesn't make any difference what I mean."

My heart was pounding fast with anxiety. I felt we were close, so close, to understanding what had happened at the Morgenstern house that spring morning.

"Are you saying Joel molested Tabitha?"

I knew I'd made a terrible mistake the minute his face shut down.

"What a dreadful suggestion. Abominable. I'm sure you see a lot of that kind of thing in your work, but it's not something that's happened in our family, young lady."

I'm not sure what he was referring to when he said "my work," and I'm not sure Fred did, either, but the point was, he now felt entitled to be angry with me, and he was taking full license.

"Something awful did happen in your family, though," I said, as quietly and gently as a snowflake falling.

His face crumpled for a minute, like tissue paper. "Yes," he agreed. "Yes, it did." He heaved himself to his feet. "I have to go."

"You sure you're okay to drive?" Tolliver asked, in the most neutral voice possible.

"Actually, I don't believe I am," Fred admitted, much to my surprise. I don't think I'd ever heard a man admit he was incapable of driving, and I have watched scores of men in many states of being high. They all thought they could manage a car, or a truck, or a boat.

"I'll get him home in his car, you follow us," Tolliver said.

I nodded. I wasn't especially pleased at the prospect of getting the car back out of the hotel garage, but I didn't see anything else we could do. I stored the check in Tolliver's laptop case for safekeeping while Tolliver called downstairs about the cars. We got Mr. Hart up between us, and we went to the elevator. He kept telling us over and over how much he appreciated our help, and how sorry he was he'd spoken to me in an angry way.