I asked for water and Mills poured a glass from the pitcher. I took a small sip.

“When did you first learn about the will?”

“I knew he was leaving me the house, but I knew nothing else about it until I met with Hambly.”

“Your father never discussed it?”

“He was a secretive man, especially about money.”

“Hambly tells me you were angry about the terms of the will. He says you cursed your father’s name.”

“Jean was not included.”

“And that bothered you.”

“I think it’s cruel.”

“Let’s talk about your mother,” Mills said. I stiffened.

“What about her?”

“Did you love her?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Answer the question, please.”

“Of course I loved her.”

“What about your father?”

“He loved her, too.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“He was my father.”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” she said.

“I think it does.”

She leaned back in her chair, enjoying this power she had over me. “Were you friends?”

I thought about it, and almost lied. I wasn’t sure why the truth came out, but it did. “He was my father and my business partner. We were not friends.”

“Why not?”

“He was a hard man. I don’t think he had many friends.”

Mills flipped the pages of her pad, looking back over some previous notes. “The night your mother died.”

“That was an accident,” I said, a little too loudly.

Mills looked up, the pages still held between her fingers. “So you’ve said. But questions were asked. There was an inquest.”

“Haven’t you read the report?” I asked.

“I’ve read it. It raised some questions.”

I shrugged as if this wasn’t killing me. “People die. Questions are asked. That’s how it’s done.”

“Where was Alex Shiften?” she asked.

The question took me off guard. “Alex?”

“Yes. During the argument. After the argument. Where was she?”

“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully.

Mills made a note on her pad and then changed tack seamlessly. “You’ve never seen your father’s will. Is that right?”

She’d asked this before. “I’ve never seen his will,” I told her. “I never knew any details. Until I spoke with Clarence Hambly, I had no idea that his estate was so large.” I sensed movement and looked at Detective Small Head. He hadn’t actually moved, but the razor’s edge of his mouth had turned up at one corner, and suddenly I felt the true danger of the game I was playing. I couldn’t see Mills’s trap, but I sensed it. My next words were spoken slowly. “I certainly didn’t know that he’d left me fifteen million dollars.”

I put my eyes back on Detective Mills and saw the first gleam of triumph. Whatever she had up her sleeve, I was about to find out. She opened the manila folder and removed what looked like a document sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag. She read the evidence number into the record, took the document out, and then laid it before me. I knew what it was before it hit the table. A glance confirmed my suspicions. “The Last Will and Testament of Ezra Pickens,” it read.

“You’ve never seen this document?” she asked.

“No,” I said, a hollow place opening in my stomach. “I’ve never seen it.”

“But according to the title of this document, it is your father’s will. Is that a fair statement?”

“It purports to be the last will and testament of my father, yes. You’d need Clarence Hambly to confirm it.”

“He has,” Mills said, making her less-than-subtle point. Everything would be confirmed. Every word I said. “And you’ve never seen it before?”

“No.”

“No, you’ve not seen it?”

“That’s correct.”

Mills picked up the document.

“I am turning to page five,” Mills said. “There is a sentence here that has been marked with a yellow Hi-Liter. The last three words of that sentence have been underlined three times in red ink. I’m going to show this to you and ask you if you have ever seen this.”

She presented the document, placing it face up on the table. The feeling of surreal calm that had enveloped me started to crumble.

“I have never seen this before,” I said.

“Will you please read the highlighted portion?”

I felt Detective Small Head detach himself from the wall. He crossed the room and stood behind Mills. In a shallow voice I read my father’s words; it was a voice from the grave, and it damned me.

“To my son, Jackson Workman Pickens, I leave, in trust, the sum of fifteen million dollars.” Red ink underscored the dollar figure. Whoever did it had pressed down hard, as if in anger or expectation. I could not bring myself to look up. I knew what the next question would be. It came from Mills.

“Will you explain for us how this document, which you have never seen, came to be in your house?”

I could not answer them. I could barely breathe. My father’s will had been found in my house.

They had their motive.

Suddenly, a hand crashed down on the table before my eyes. I jumped in my chair, looked up at Mills. “Damn it, Pickens! Answer the question. What was this doing in your house?”

Mills continued, pounding me with words as she’d pounded the table with her open palm.

“You knew about the will,” she said. “You needed the money, and you killed him!”

“No,” I finally said. “None of that is true.”

“Hambly told us that your father planned to change the will. He was cutting you out, Pickens. Fifteen million dollars was about to fly out the window, and you freaked. So you put two in his head and you waited for the body to be found. That’s how it happened, isn’t it? Admit it!”

I was stunned. He was going to cut me out? Hambly had never mentioned that. I filed the issue away, concentrated on the present. This was a hard blow, a strategic nightmare, but I’d faced worse. I had to think. I had to be calm. I took a slow, deep breath, told myself to think about the transcript of this interview, think about a future jury. This was a deposition, I told myself. Nothing more.

I almost believed it.

“Are you through?” I asked, leaning against the back of my seat. My voice was quiet, and I knew that the sound of it made Mills’s histrionics seem extreme. She was on her feet, leaning over the table. She studied my face and straightened. “May I pick this up?” I asked, indicating my father’s will.

Mills nodded, took a step back, and sat down. Much of the color had faded from her face. “As long as you’re still planning to talk to me,” she said.

I declined to answer. I lifted the document from the table and slowly flipped through the pages. I needed something. Anything.

I found what I was looking for on the signature page.

“This is a copy,” I said, laying the document back down and squaring the edges.

“So?” I saw brief concern tighten her eyes. It showed in her voice, too.

“So there are only a few originals of any will. Usually the client keeps one, as does the drafting attorney. Two originals, then. Maybe three. But copies, by their very nature, can be limitless in their number.”

“That’s irrelevant. All that matters is that you knew the terms of the will.”

Arguing with me was her first real mistake. She’d opened the door, given me license to speculate, and it was my turn to lean forward. I wanted my next words on the transcript; I spoke clearly.

“You acquired a copy of the will from Clarence Hambly. You did so prior to the search of my home. That’s one person that we know of who had a copy-you. I can also assume that you gave a copy to the district attorney. That’s two. Clarence Hambly, of course, had one of the originals, so he could also have made a copy. That makes three people with copies of the will who have also been inside my home within the past few days.” I counted on my fingers, bending each one back as I spoke. “Hambly was at Ezra’s wake the night after his body was discovered. That’s one. The district attorney stopped by the other day to speak with my wife. He made a special trip to visit her at the house. Nowhere else. The house. That’s two. And you were there during the search. That makes three. Any one of you could have planted that copy.”