Act of God

like little scenes.”
    “You saw Darbra face-to-face?”
    “Yeah. The address book, people almost always put the relatives under the right letter for the last name, but use only the first names. So I looked right away under “P,” and found just “Darbra” and “William” with no last names. I remember this decedent, she had nice handwriting, flowery like an old woman who learned her penmanship real well.”
    “What was Darbra’s reaction?”
    “Well, that’s what I mean. I caught her at work—some kind of temp job, I think—and I broke the news the way you try to, kind of simple and quick but clear, so they don’t have to try and ask you any questions? But she asked me how it happened, and I told her it looked like her mom was sunbathing and tripped, and your Darbra, she says, ‘Her body, it always got her into trouble.’ Just like that, no tears, no break in the voice. Just the observation there.”
    I had the feeling Folino had been one hell of a cop. “And it rubbed you the wrong way.”
    “You could say that. Me, the hairs on my arms always tingled, I got somebody I thought was hinky. For you it’s rubbing?”
    “More like something off in the stomach.”
    “Yeah. Yeah, I knew a guy was like that. Narcotics. He said it was like he’d just had an extra dessert, something too sweet rolling around down there. Anyway, this Darbra, she was cold, but even so, I thought it might be better to have the son identify for us, being a man and all. So I left my partner with your Darbra, take down her story, and went out to him—a druggist back then.”
    “And still.”
    “They didn’t get along, William and her.”
    “And still again.”
    Folino stopped. “But the brother hires you to look for her?”
    “Insurance.”
    He looked out to the ocean. “He’s got a policy on her.”
    “The aunt does, actually, William as beneficiary. She kept them up as a promise to her dead sister.”
    “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want to testify to it, but there was more than a little insurance back then, too.”
    “The brother told you?”
    “Not right away. I come into the drugstore where he is, and I break it to him same way as to her. I remember that, because after your Darbra, I wanted to see what his reaction would be, so I used the exact same words with both of them. And he says, ‘How far did she fall?’ And I say, ‘Ten stories,’ and he says, ‘Well, then, there won’t be much to identify, will there?’ ” "i
    “Cold runs in the family.”
    “Except for the aunt. Maybe the dead woman, too, for all I know.”
    “The aunt was different?”
    “Yeah. I didn’t really need her for anything, but you want to do the right thing, not leave anybody up in the air, so I asked William if it was okay to see—I don’t get her name, either.”
    “Darlene.”
    “Oh, right, right. That’s where the daughter’s name came from.” A couple of sailboats did a ritual dance on the bay, sails changing color a little as they wheeled in the wind. “Christ, I should have remembered that.”
    “It was six years ago.”
    “Yeah, but it was my last—Jeez, I was about to say ‘homicide.’ A city like Quincy , you don’t get so many. I don’t want to say you’re nostalgic about them or anything, but there’s something to it when you don’t get a hundred a year like Boston or—what, four hundred down in D.C.?”
    “More, I heard.”
    “Christ, can you imagine that? I mean, D.C. proper, it’s not even that big.”
    “I know.”
    “Well, back to the aunt. I see her and I tell her the same way. Figure to see if it really runs in the family, the cold. Well, she’s just the opposite. I mean, she goes near berserk on me, crying and screaming about how the kids must have done it, the kids did her in.”
    “Like, acting together, you mean?”
    “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t know what the aunt meant right at that moment, you know? She was just screaming whatever came into her head. Took me half an hour, more
    just to get her calmed down enough to tell me about the policies.”
    “The insurance company investigated, too?”
    Another whole body shrug. “Aw, they ran a routine check, but what can you do? We got no eyewitnesses, no physical evidence, nothing but motive on account of the policy and opportunity on account of no certain time of death. You take that to the DA, you get laughed at. Even the company’s lawyer backed off it, said they’d never survive summary