Tom raised his. “Perfect, right down to the chips. Cheers.”

“You were talking about your granddaughter. Do you see her often?”

Tom shook his head. “Not since Daisy died.”

“Her mother?”

“Her name was actually Drucilla but she hated it and insisted we call her Daisy. She was in her early forties.” Tom paused. “Suicide, according to the medical report.”

Jury rocked back in his chair. “My God, Tom. How terrible. But you said ‘according to’—which sounds as if—”

“I’m still finding it hard to believe. Though all of the evidence pointed that way.”

The waitress chose that moment to put down plates of eggs and sausage that had Tom looking at the food as if he’d never eaten it before. Then he said, “Sydney has grown far more introverted and far less trusting. At least of me. She doesn’t really want to talk to me in any real sense.” He set down the fork he’d just loaded up with sausage and egg without eating.

“Why is that, Tom?”

“She’s disappointed that I couldn’t sort out what happened to Daisy.”

“That’s expecting an awful lot, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but that’s what grief often does: turns something impossible into something possible. Turns something unpreventable into the preventable. And who knows but what she’s right? I was very close to my daughter, after all. Sydney has some idea that I should have known something was wrong, being such a hell of a good detective.”

“But your daughter supposedly committed suicide.” Jury frowned.

“That’s what I should have sorted.” Now he put down the piece of toast, untasted. “The thing is, Daisy just wasn’t the—” He stopped and shrugged.

“The type? That what you were going to say?”

Tom nodded. “Which we know is absurd. There is no type.”

“Not necessarily absurd. There’s no ‘type.’ Anyone could be driven to kill himself given certain circumstances. Of course, some people would be more likely to do it than others.” Jury knew he wasn’t saying anything at all, just chewing air, and stopped.

One of the kids moved to the jukebox and shoved in a coin.

The quivery nasal of Roy Orbison was replaced by the silky tones of Nat King Cole.

Tom went on. “The thing is, as I said, we were really close. Always had been. And Sydney couldn’t seem to understand why I didn’t pick up on her mother’s obvious distress.”

“For one thing, it wouldn’t have been obvious.”

“Sydney would have thought, maybe not to others, only—” He reached for his pack of Silk Cuts, pulled one out, and looked at it like a man trying to decide whether to quit smoking. “Only I’m Tom Brownell. The great success. The one with the perfect clear-up rate. But I couldn’t detect my own daughter’s mental anguish. I couldn’t see the signs; I couldn’t read the evidence.”