“I don’t know,” she snapped. “There aren’t rules for this kind of thing. I was trying the best I could under very trying circumstances. You try being a mother.”

“All right, I will,” he said. He crossed his arms and gave her a look so serenely confident that she was, for the thousandth time in her life, chilled by the resemblance. Here was a young man whose ideas were good because they were his own, tempered, God help her, by a dash of her own stubbornness.

There was a familiar form peering around the open door. It was Andy Pike, her hands tight on the doorframe. Lee inclined his head in pleasure.

“Mom, this is—”

“You bastard!” Andy cried, throwing herself at Lee, all fingernails and then, as he protected himself, surprisingly able fists. It took two beat cops to pull her away.

Then the doorway was empty again. Lee was standing amazed and speechless. Emily was, again, shaking her head.

“I tell you, Leland, I know what you inherited from him.”

A red-haired detective entered, introducing himself as Collins, followed by Officer McKinney, whom Lee recognized immediately from outside the jewelry store. Both of the policemen shook Emily’s hand, but not Lee’s.

The interview was recorded by a young, fastidiously groomed subaltern who used a red pen on long, ruled paper whose every line was numbered. The detective adjusted his already excellently knotted heritage-silk tie, smoothed his Irish-wool jacket, and laid out the case against Lee, sentence by sentence, beginning with his seduction of Andy, continuing with the feint by his associate the rabbi, his deceptive distraction of Officer McKinney, and ending with the robbery of Pike & Sons by person or persons unknown.

“That’s not—that’s not—no,” Lee sputtered.

“Are you disputing the facts in the case?” The detective looked at his thumbnail, turning it so the light carried across its well-buffed surface.

“Yes!”

“Did you or did you not spend the evening and early morning with Andrea Pike of 522 Sutter Street?”

“Well … yes,” he said, attempting to avoid seeing his mother put her hand over her eyes.

“Lee,” she said.

“Sergeant Wheeler.” This was not just glad-handing. “You can wait in the lobby, if you’d like.”

“No, thank you,” she said.

Detective Collins swallowed. “Officer McKinney, would you escort Sergeant Wheeler outside?”

McKinney hesitated. He had planned to be present at a key moment. “Maybe she should stay. She’s his mother.”

Collins nodded. He had a photograph of his mother in his wallet, and one on his desk, and another which he kept in the glove box of his automobile, in which, on Sundays, he and his mother would take rides. “All right. Mr. Wheeler—”

“Duncan.”

“Did you or did you not talk to Officer McKinney for the same five minutes in which Pike & Sons was robbed?”