“Listen to the women in your life, Gabriel. You might just learn something.”

This at least gets a smile out of him. “Did Lauren ever mention to you she wasn’t happily married?”

“No, but . . . well, I’m not sure she would have. But if you’re looking for motive, there’s always one when it’s the husband. Especially a husband like Richard Trofino.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what I said. You know the guy’s capable of it.”

Gabriel nods that he agrees. “What about Drake McKenney?”

“What about him?”

“Like I said at the funeral, everyone always says he’d kill to keep his job. Do you think that’s a legit motive?”

Drake McKenney’s even higher on Gabriel’s shit list than Richard Trofino. Maybe at the very top, in fact. McKenney has focused on prosecuting cops as a way of burnishing his image with the political left, and cops don’t forgive that kind of thing. Perhaps that’s why Gabriel doesn’t want to focus on Richard Trofino. He’d rather bring down the DA.

I shrug. “I’ve heard better.”

Gabriel gets up from the table and heads for the cupboard. The Cap’n Crunch comes back off the shelf. I’m tempted to tell him that the box is supposed to have ten or fifteen servings, but I don’t. I’ve never been that type of girlfriend, and I don’t see any reason to start now.

When he rejoins me at the table, I ask for a taste. He holds his hand underneath the spoon to catch any dripping milk and guides it into my mouth.

I had forgotten just how sickly sweet children’s cereal tastes. I didn’t even like it much when I was a kid.

“Mmmm,” I say.

He knows I’m mocking him. “You don’t have to eat it; I only ask that you stock it.”

“And that I do.”

He takes another spoonful. “Delish.”

I listen to him chomp. He’s enjoying his Cap’n Crunch as if it were manna from heaven. I like this side of Gabriel. Jeffrey was always so serious. Not just about work, which on some level I understood—even though I didn’t know how anyone could get so worked up about litigation between two giant corporations—but about everything. He found no pleasure in life other than his own success, and that’s a tough row to hoe. Gabriel, on the other hand, understands that it’s the small joys that make life worth living.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about how the minister ended the funeral. The biblical quote,” I say.

“I don’t remember it. What was it?”

“I googled it. It was from First Corinthians. The part I wanted to understand better was the line about how sin was the law.”

“Was that really what it said?”