Bill said, “Just ’cause she didn’t say doesn’t mean nothing. She never said nothing.”

“Oh, please, Bill.”

“Be honest. If she had a problem, would she a told us?”

Silence.

Clara said, “Frankie was a good girl. She needed her freedom, is all.”

“Which we gave her. We gave all three kids freedom but the others respected it.” Bill DiMargio’s face crumpled. He swung his head toward us, drifted from Milo to me, settled on me. Tears oozed down his weathered skin. “Lord Jesus, what happened to my baby?”

Milo said, “Someone murdered her in her home.”

“How? What’d they do to her?”

“We don’t have details yet.”

“You were there. You don’t know?”

Milo said, “The autopsy will clear that up.”

“I don’t understand,” said DiMargio. “You can’t just look at—what they poisoned her, you can’t tell from the outside? Some crazy drug?”

Clara said, “I don’t want to hear this.” Her turn to escape. She walked down the hallway at the far side of the living room and turned right.

The sound of retching. A toilet flushed.

Bill DiMargio said, “That’s what happened? They poisoned her with some crazy dope?”

Milo rubbed his face. “I’m afraid the body was there for a while, sir, and that makes it hard to—”

“Ohhh!” DiMargio cupped both hands over his face.

Clara returned, wiping her mouth, several shades paler.

Her husband said, “Don’t ask them any questions, you won’t like the answers.”

Both of them finished their water. I got more, took time to check out the photos on the fridge door.

Again, everyone but Frankie.

When I got back, Milo was saying, “… terrible to go through this. But we never know what’s going to solve a case, so whatever you can tell us—like who Frankie’s friends were—”

“She had no friends,” said Bill.

“We don’t know that,” said Clara.

“We don’t? Name one.”

Silence.

When Clara started crying again, Bill left for the second time, came back toting a framed photo larger than the ones on the table and thrust it at us.

Formal portrait of Frankie DiMargio around fourteen, wearing a white dress, her hair long, brown, luxuriant. Clear skin, clear eyes. The only metal in her face, orthodontic.

The same tentative, beleaguered smile.

“She was a good-looking girl,” said Bill. “Until she started to mess with herself. Got her first tattoo at fifteen. But we never knew. On her back, down at the bottom, she hid it from us for a year, if I’d a found out who gave it to her, he’d be sorry. But she wouldn’t say even after I grounded and re-grounded her, took away her CDs. She was always difficult. Contrary. Wouldn’t go to parties she got invited to. Wouldn’t answer when you talked to her, like you weren’t there.”

“Bill,” pleaded Clara.