Iona slid a look at us before she started work on her mother's index finger. If she was sixteen when she married Frankie, she'd be close to thirty-five now, roughly my age. Oh, hey, I was a little older, but who, was keeping track? I tried to put myself in her place, wondering what might persuade me to live here and make my living nipping someone else's cuticles and massaging their toes. She was just shy of pretty. I watched her with interest through the softening haze of the screen door, trying to figure out where her looks fell short. Her hair was a lustrous brown, wavy, shoulder-length, and in need of a trim. She kept it parted in the center, which made her face look too long. She had full lips, a strong nose, brown eyes, and dark brows that were a shade too thick. She had a mole on her upper lip and one on her left cheek. In many ways, she still looked sixteen-lanky and round-shouldered. Her feet were bare, and she wore faded knee-ripped jeans and an India-print tunic in shades of rust and brown.

Annette leaned toward her daughter and said, "Baby, if you're not going to ask the man I will." When Iona made no response, she looked back at Dolan. "Hon, I wish you'd tell us why you're here because you're scaring me to death." Iona's mother, surely in her fifties, looked closer to thirty-five than Iona did. She had the same strong nose, but she'd had hers surgically reduced to something thinner and more sunken. Her hair, which she wore pulled up in a pony tail, was the same shade of brown, but of a uniformly intense hue that suggested she was dyeing it to cover gray. A sleeveless white knit top emphasized her big boobs, cantilevered over a thick waist and slightly rounded tummy. She wore red shorts and red canvas wedgies. Her toenails had been polished in the same red Iona was using on her fingernails. I thought she'd have been wise to cover more of herself than she had.

Dolan said, "We have a few questions about Iona's ex. You mind if we come in?"

"Door's open," Annette said.