“No one,” she said. “And everyone, implicitly. Lose a child to an accident or an illness, everyone feels sorry for you. Lose a child to suicide and people look at you as if you were the most horrible parent in the world.”

“How did Barnett react to the suicide?”

“I wouldn’t know, we never spoke about it.” Her eyes clenched and opened. “He had Lara cremated, never had the decency to have a service. No funeral, no memorial. He cheated me— the bastard. Can’t you tell me what he’s suspected of? Is it something to do with drugs?”

Milo said, “Barnett used drugs?”

“Both of them smoked pot. Maybe that’s why Lara couldn’t get pregnant— isn’t that supposed to do something to your ovaries or whatever?”

“How do you know about their drug usage?”

“I know the signs, Detective. Lara was a pothead when she was in high school. I never saw any evidence she’d stopped.”

“The bad crowd she fell in with,” I said.

“Bunch of spoiled kids,” she said. “Driving around in their parents BMWs, booming that music and pretending they were ghetto. Neither of my other two went for that nonsense.”

“You figure Lara continued using after she was married.”

“I know she did. The few times I visited their apartment— the few times they let me in— everything was a mess and you could smell it in the air.”

Milo said, “Did they ever use anything stronger than marijuana?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Balquin eyed him. “So this is about drugs. Is Barnett pushing?”

“Have you known him to sell drugs?”

“No, but I’m being logical. Don’t users become pushers to pay for their habit? And all those guns he keeps— Lara wasn’t raised with that, we never had so much as a BB gun in our home. All of a sudden they’ve got rifles, pistols, horrible stuff. He kept them out in the open, in a wooden case— the way sophisticated people display books. If you’re not doing something shady, why do you need all those guns?”

“Ever ask him?”

“I mentioned it to Lara. She told me to mind my own business.”

I looked for bookshelves in her front room. Nothing but pickled oak paneling and the photos on the back wall.

She said, “Lara used one of his guns to shoot herself. I hope he’s happy.” Her hands tightened into fists. “If he is a pusher, I hope you catch him and put him away forever. Because the last thing my daughter needed was another bad influence.”

She scraped an incisor with a fingernail, raised her glass to her lips, and drank slowly but steadily. Finished off the refill without taking a breath.

Milo said, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, ma’am?”