“So, how are you two acquainted?” he asked.

When Beaufort explained that he had met Carlo over the backyard fence, so to speak, and helped him move his telescope, Maas’s lip curled as in “You call that a telescope?” and Manwaring asked with a smile, “You’re familiar with the daunting Ms. Quinn, then?”

“I’m sorry?” Beaufort said, not recognizing the name.

“Mrs. DiForenza, I should have said. Carlo’s wife.”

“Her name is…”

“Quinn. Brigid Quinn,” Manwaring said. “I’d been told she kept her name.” He glanced at Carlo. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Maas said, “Man, Elias, for a liberal clergyman you’re way out of step.”

Beaufort asked, “But why do you say ‘daunting’? I think she’s a lovely lady.”

Manwaring winked at Carlo. Carlo said, “Elias is being ironic. My wife is an ex–FBI agent. You see, there was some trouble at the church, and that’s how—“

“Trouble my ass,” Manwaring said, while Beaufort thought it unlikely for a priest to speak that way. Was he really a priest and reflected more of the changing times, or were the others shitting Beaufort and he didn’t get the joke?

“She saved my life,” Manwaring added.

Carlo laughed and sipped his coffee. “Elias is exaggerating as he often does,” he said. “There was an incident that involved the church. Brigid took care of things.”

Behind their conversation Beaufort cursed to himself while he felt his grin stretching wider and wider like an idiot’s and hoped no one was smart enough to notice he was close to hyperventilating. He rubbed his palms on the edge of the table, took a deep breath, held it for a couple of seconds, and then released it and said, “So, how did Brigid get to be a superhero?”

Whereupon Carlo told him all about her fabulous career foiling villains for the FBI, awards from the president, a strong woman who still made him proud.

“Still?” Beaufort said, and it sounded to him like a croak.

No one noticed that either.

“She retired,” Carlo says. “But she’s still a private investigator.”

Beaufort still made no move to leave, until finally, in the silence that grew a little more awkward with each second, Carlo said, “You know, that offer of an evening of stargazing still stands. If you give me your telephone number I’ll call you.”

Beaufort got out his wallet, took out the receipt from the restaurant where he and Gloria had been last, and handed it to Carlo. “Would you mind if I called you instead? I’m having trouble getting messages off my cell phone.”