“We don’t have Coke,” Iris said.

“Okay, Pepsi, then.”

“No Pepsi. We only serve Millie Cola.”

“Millie Cola? Lou, what is this place?”

“A place that only serves Millie Cola,” he said. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

“Okay, one Millie Cola and one glass of ice water on the side,” Dennis said.

Iris scowled and wrote on her pad. “And how would you like your cheeseburger?”

“With cheese,” Dennis said.

Another scowl.

Lou went for the Cobb salad and an iced tea.

“So … how ya you doing?” Dennis asked once their cadaverous server had moved on.

“You mean about John Meacham?” Lou asked, as usual having no problems reading the man.

“Your brother called. He said he suspected you might have had something to do with Meacham through your work. Apparently, the papers said he was an alcoholic and had been involved with a group like yours in D.C.”

“Graham could have called and just asked me. I’m in his speed dial.”

“Have they mentioned your name?”

“Not yet.”

“But you did.”

“I did what?”

“Have something to do with the guy, like Graham said.”

“I did, yes.”

“And are you in trouble?”

“Speak softer, Dad.”

“Are you in any trouble? Graham said you might be.”

If Graham, a successful money manager, worked as hard at keeping Dennis away from recurrent fiscal ruin as he did pointing out the mistakes Lou was forever making in his life, there might have been significantly less red ink in the family.

“I’ll give him a call later on so maybe he’ll stop speculating,” Lou said.

He wondered if the younger Welcome had reasoned out that Lou’s job might be on the line as well … or worse.

“Your brother’s smart,” Dennis understated. “He figures things out.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t know. I’m still trying to piece it all together.”

Lou could sense the old man to his right straining to listen in. He turned his back a few more inches and lowered his voice even further. If he had known Dennis was going to be in a chatty mood, he would have insisted on a booth. He should have been able to predict it. The violence surrounding the Meacham case was the sort of thing that utterly fascinated his father—and most other people, for that matter.

“He fall off the wagon?” Dennis asked.

“Nope. That much I’m sure of.”

“Drugs?”

“You know I consider drugs and alcohol flip sides of the same coin.”

“In that case, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“I agree with you there, Pop.”

“No warning?”

“Not that I can find.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Dennis reiterated. “Usually a guy goes ballistic and kills a bunch of people, then folks start coming out of the woodwork to say how they knew he was unstable, a loner, distant, that sort of thing.”

“So far none of that,” Lou said.

“Or else, if it’s a serial killer, they all say how he was just the nicest guy in the world, and always had a cheerful word for everyone, and that they can’t figure out how two dozen bodies got buried in his backyard without anyone suspecting a thing.”