I noticed we’d hopped right over the fact of his father’s death and I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. At least we were having what passed for a conversation, though the small talk was making me tense. He seemed happy enough to have me sitting there with the subject matter wandering this way and that. Maybe he appreciated the company, being hemmed in all day with the little ones. He focused on his guitar, idly approximating various chords; not actually playing them, but positioning his fingers on the frets, his gaze fixed on his hands. The pads of his fingers made a faint metallic sound as he moved them across the strings. While he wasn’t being rude, it was like trying to have a conversation with someone filling in a crossword puzzle. He caught my look and smiled briefly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off. You were talking about your father.”

“I was explaining why I knew so little about my Bakersfield kin.”

“How’d you hook up with my dad?”

“We never met. The first I heard of him he was in the morgue as a John Doe. My name and number were on a slip of paper in his pocket, and the coroner’s office called, thinking I might know who he was.”

“And you turn out to be related? That’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Not really. I’m told he came to Santa Teresa to look for me.”

“Because of his prior relationship with your father,” he said, as though assembling the facts.

“Exactly.”

“Are you the only Millhone in Santa Teresa?”

“That’s right. I’m actually a private investigator, so he might have found me in the phone book.”

“No fooling. Well, ain’t that a kick in the pants. I never met a real private detective before.”

“This is me,” I said, raising my hand.

He turned his attention to his guitar, trying a chord or two. In a whispery falsetto, he put together two lines of a song he was apparently composing extemporaneously. “When your daddy dies, it should come as no surprise . . .” He stopped and tried the line again. “When your daddy dies, you have to realize . . .” He shook his head, holding the guitar against him like a shield.

I said, “When did you last see your father?”

“September. A year ago, I forget the date. I heard a knock at the door and nearly fell over when I saw who it was. You knew he went to prison?”

“Someone told me about it.”

“Man was a loser, big time. What’re you going to do?” The latter wasn’t meant as a question. It was verbal filler.

“I can see why you were shocked when he showed up. Did he tell you why he was released?”