“Really, just more of what I’ve been doing, looking for attacks on Brian, seeing what’s out there, but getting more focused, you know?” She gulped down her Spumante. “That’s enough of the boring old campaign. Did you go see any more snake charmers today?”

“Snake? Oh, Anacondas! Very good, little cousin. I’ll call Johnny Merton that the next time I visit and see what kind of reaction that gets me. No, just burrowing around in the past. Even more boring than the campaign, I assure you.”

“Why would you want to do that? Are you, like, trying to get on America’s Most Wanted, find some criminal who’s been on the run for forty years or something?”

“If Vic ever went after one of them old crimes, she’d only be doing it to prove the FBI or the cops or someone had arrested the wrong person. Nothing gets done right if she ain’t done it herself.” My neighbor’s tone did not make his words a compliment.

“So do they have the wrong man in prison for murder or something?” Petra asked, eyes so wide that her long mascaraed lashes were flat against her brows.

“I don’t know if the guy I’m looking for is guilty or innocent. He’s disappeared.”

“So leave him lay,” Mr. Contreras said roughly.

“I would,” I answered slowly, “but … I read the trial transcript … and my dad was the person who arrested him. And … and I want to know what went on when he picked up the guy.”

Mr. Contreras insisted that that was all the more reason for me to leave it alone. “Who knows what your pa faced when he was on the job. With your cockeyed way of looking at things, you’d put the worst interpretation on it.”

“What if he beat up a helpless man? What good interpretation could I put on that?” I cried.

“I’m saying, what if he did? People look all helpless and defenseless in a courtroom, but, you don’t know, did he pull a gun, did he attack your pa, maybe threaten his life? You can’t go by only the end of the story, cookie, you got to know the beginning and the middle, too.”

“Uncle Sal is right,” Petra chimed in. “I never knew Uncle Tony, but Daddy talks about him a lot. He was a good person, Vic. You can’t go around making up stories to say he wasn’t.”

“I’m not. I know better than either of you what a good man he was. I grew up with him.” I rubbed my eyes wearily. “Was Peter still here in 1967, Petra? I can’t remember when he moved to Kansas City.”