“It’s OK,” Clara said. “I appreciate that you’re listening to me. When I told the police about Steve usually visiting my family for the holidays, their eyes glazed over. I think cops blank out when they hear things like that. I think they think you’re painting a rosy picture for their benefit. Or just forgetting a disagreement.” She shrugged. “It’s understandable, I guess. Steve’s forty. An adult. There was no sign of a crime. And the cable company confirmed he showed up for the cruise. He has every right to ignore his relatives.”

“Except you don’t believe he would.”

“No, I don’t.”

Musil stood thinking a minute. The house was quiet. A musty, vacant silence. Anyone who walked in the door would sense it hadn’t been lived in for months.

“Clara, do you recall when you and Steve last spoke?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “To the day.”

“How is that?”

“When his father was alive, Steve always had Thanksgiving dinner at his place on Long Island. After Uncle Bob died three years ago, he spent the holiday on a ship somewhere around Australia. I think he just wanted to get away for a while. Then the next year, I talked him into coming over, and it was fun. So I called to invite him again last November. It was the first Thursday of the month. Exactly three weeks before the holiday. I wanted him to have time to decide.”

“And he declined?”

She nodded. “Steve can be solitary. But he’s not unsociable. He told me once that he spends so much time crammed into a hold with other sailors he kind of likes staying home. Reading, watching television. With the Stalwart cruise around the corner, he said he’d take a rain check, fix himself Thanksgiving dinner and conference us.”

“And he never did.”

Clara shook her head. “That’s what I mean when I say none of this is like Steve.”

Musil smoothed his beard between his thumb and forefinger. “Would you mind if I have a look around the premises? I won’t take long.”

She smiled a weary smile.

“I’m glad you’re actually here checking things out,” she said. “Please, go ahead. Take all the time you need.”

New York

John Gordon, Esq., was about fifty-five, a chubby, agreeable-looking man with thick brown hair, a neatly trimmed brown mustache and very white teeth. Seated behind a huge wooden executive desk, he was wearing a short-sleeved pin-striped shirt, no tie, and had draped his sport coat over the back of his chair.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Harris,” he said, rising as Harris entered the room. “Have I taken you away from something important?”

Harris was thinking that seemed to be the question of the day. “No,” he said. “Why?”

“Well, you’re, ah, very dressed up.”