Leaving his receptionist with a conciliatory pat on the arm, he breezed around her and in a couple of steps stood in front of his waiting guest. “Mrs. Townshend? Dismas Hardy. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

She snapped the magazine closed and popped up to her feet, her mouth set in a prim line, her forehead creased with worry. Reaching out, she took Hardy’s hand in a firm grip, as though now that he’d finally arrived, she didn’t want to lose him.

“I asked Harlen to have you give me a call to make an appointment. I’m afraid I didn’t expect you to come right on down.”

She let go of his hand and brought her fingers up to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought… I mean, he told me where you worked and that he’d talked to you and I was free and just gathered-”

Hardy held up his own hand, stopping her. “It’s okay,” he said. “Timing’s everything and yours couldn’t be better. I was looking at a long tedious afternoon of administration, and now instead I get to chat with Harlen’s sister.” He broke a welcoming grin and guided her toward his office with a hand under her elbow. “Does that also make you the mayor’s niece?”

“Yes.”

“Well”-Hardy led her into his office-“I’m a big fan of Kathy’s as well. Since back in her own supervisor days.” Closing the door behind them, he motioned to the more casual of the two seating areas, a couple of wing chairs by a magazine table. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Wine? Something a little stronger?”

“Actually… well, it’s a little early, but I’m… I think I must be a little nervous. Maybe a glass of wine wouldn’t be too bad.”

“You don’t need to be nervous,” Hardy said. “Nothing we say in this room leaves here if you don’t want it to. Red or white?”

“White.”

“White it is.” Hardy crossed over to the mirror-backed, granite-topped wet bar that took up most of one of his walls. The bar was a bit of a showcase piece, with a golden inlaid sink and gold faucet, one open shelf for the oversized wineglasses and another for the china cups, a large commercial espresso-making machine, and a selection of teas, mixers, and spirits arranged along the rest of the free wall space. Opening the half-sized refrigerator, he stopped and turned back to her again. “Chardonnay or other?”

“Other, I think.”

“I think so too. Maybe I’ll join you.” He pulled out a bottle of Groth Sauvignon Blanc. Serving her, he said, “If you think the bar service here is good, wait’ll you see our legal work.” He flashed what he knew was his professional disarming smile, sat down across from her, and took a sip of his wine, silently prompting her to do the same. “Now how can I help you?”

After her first small sip she held her wineglass on her lap with both hands. “I think I’m in trouble,” she began. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s see if the first part’s true first, then see where that leads us. Why do you think you’re in trouble? Because the police came to see you about your manager’s death?”

“Partly that. I don’t know how much Harlen told you, but Dylan was selling dope-marijuana only, I hope-out of my store.”

“Harlen told me you didn’t know much about that.”

“I didn’t. Not really.”

“Then you shouldn’t be in trouble.” He broke a smile. “That was easy. Next problem?”

“Really?”

“You mean really you shouldn’t be in trouble?” He didn’t feel he needed to go into the low-probability scenario of a forfeiture. “Yes, really.”

“But… well, I mean, I own the place. I’m the legal owner. If somebody trips and falls there, I’m the one who gets sued.”

Hardy sat back, put an ankle on a knee, and took another sip of his wine. “That’s not the same situation. Nobody’s suffering recoverable harm because they bought marijuana at your place. Who’s going to sue you?”

But she shook her head again. “I’m not so worried, really, about getting sued. I’m worried about-about the police coming to talk to me again.”

Against all of his training, and possibly because of the casual nature of Harlen’s request that Hardy have a chat with his sister, Hardy was tempted for a moment to come right out and ask her if she had in fact killed her manager. Though he didn’t for a minute think that this was likely, it was a question you normally didn’t ask, an unspoken rule of the defense business. Because if you, the lawyer, didn’t know, you would always be acting in technical good faith in your client’s defense. And, of course, in theory it wasn’t supposed to matter anyway. You argued the evidence that could be proved in court. Not necessarily the facts.

So, instead, he said, “I’m guessing you really don’t have anything to worry about.”

“I don’t know if that’s true.” She saw her wine sitting there on her lap and brought the glass to her lips. “Why would that be true?”

“Because your inspector, Bracco, used to be Harlen’s partner in homicide. Did you know that?”

“Okay, but what does that mean?”

“Well, the first thing it means in the real world is that Bracco’s going to find out you’re Harlen’s sister. Knowing Harlen’s inherent shyness,” he said with irony, “he might even know by now. So unless Bracco’s got something close to a smoking gun in your hand, he’s going to be inclined to cut you some slack to begin with. You’re the one who’s lost your manager, so you’ve been victimized by this murder too. Plus, your connection to the mayor isn’t going to make Darrel Bracco want to cause you any problems. Was he a little hard on you?”

“A little bit.” She hesitated. “He seemed to think that there was something weird about how much I paid Dylan, or something about our relationship, I don’t know what. But it just made me uncomfortable.”

“It’s supposed to. It’s one of the things cops do when they interrogate people. They find a soft spot and go at it.”

“But why did he think it was a soft spot?”

“I don’t know. How much did you pay him? Dylan?”

When he heard the number, Hardy kept his face straight and took a quick breath to hide his surprise. “That’s a real salary.”

“I know. But he did a real job. He was good with the customers. I hardly ever had to be there. If ever. I felt he was worth it.”

“Well, then, who’s to argue? You own the place.”

“Right. But Inspector Bracco, he wanted to know if we socialized together, Dylan and I.”

“And?”

“And I told him no, which is true. But he seemed to think that was weird somehow. In spite of the fact that Dylan and Jansey had their own life and it’s nothing like mine and Joel’s.”

“Lots of business owners don’t socialize with their employees,” Hardy said. “I don’t see why Bracco would think it’s strange that you don’t.”

“Maybe because I told him Dylan and I had been friends in college. This was before he did his time in prison, of course.”

Hardy took a beat to let that settle. “I don’t believe I’ve heard about that yet.”

She shook her head. “It was a misunderstanding, a stupid juvenile mistake, call it what you will. He got involved somehow in a robbery and got caught. But long story short, when he got out, I was hoping to get the store up and going and… anyway, he started working for me.”

“So you were close friends in college?”

Hesitating, she tightened her mouth, checked out the windows behind Hardy. “We weren’t intimate, if that’s what you’re asking. We were friends.”

Hardy brought his glass to his mouth, sipped, waited. She had more to tell him and he wanted to give her the space. She scanned the corners of the room, telegraphing to Hardy the jumble of her thoughts. He sat, unmoving, giving her time.

Finally, with an intake of breath, she met his eyes. “I suppose I wasn’t exactly the same person then as I am now.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Hardy said. “That was what? About ten years ago?”

“Close enough.”

“So you’re saying that you and Dylan wouldn’t have been friends if you met him now?”