"Oh, that was awful, wasn't it?" Annette said. "I still get the shivers when I stop and think of it. He'd only known her a week before the incident."

"Is that what you call it, an incident?" Dolan asked. I could tell he was trying to suppress the outrage in his voice.

Iona put the brush back in the polish bottle and screwed the top shut.

"You don't have to take that tone. For your information, Cathy Lee came onto him. She was a gold digger, pure and simple. All moody and temperamental. Frankie said she was violent, especially when she drank, which she'd been doing that night. She turned on him just like that." Iona snapped her fingers. "Came at him with a pair of scissors, so what was he supposed to do, let her jam the blades through his throat?"

Dolan's expression was bland. "He could have grabbed her wrist. It seems somewhat excessive to stab her fourteen times. You'd think once or twice would have done the job."

Iona began to tidy up her work space. "I don't know anything about that."

"Did you know Cathy Lee yourself?" Dolan was clearly working to maintain the contact now that she'd decided to talk.

"Sure. Frankie'd picked up a job painting this house for a friend of his so we'd moved in next door to her the week before. She was a tease, hanging out in her bikini, shaking her tits at him when he was out in the yard. Frankie felt terrible about what happened. He said he wished he could undo it, but by then it was too late."

"I heard you went back to him when the case went to trial. What was that about?"

"He needed me, that's what. Everybody else turned their backs on him."

"Iona's just like me. Can't resist a wounded bird. Lars was the pits. Had to count everything. He was great for chopping onions-one, two, three, four, five..."

"Is that it, Iona? You see Frankie as a wounded bird?"

"He's a good person when he's sober and off drugs."

"Did he ever talk to you about what happened after Cathy Lee was killed?"

"Like what?"

"I'm wondering what he did between the time he killed Cathy Lee and the time the cops picked him up. There's a two-day gap when we don't know where he was."

Iona shrugged. "Beats me. Frankie and I were busted up by then." Annette said, "Shortest marriage on record. Divorce took six times longer, didn't it?"

Iona declined a response, speaking to Dolan instead. "I don't know what he did or where he went after I moved out."

"Baby, I thought you said he ended up at your place. 'Member that? You'd moved into that studio apartment in Santa Teresa..."

"Mom."