High Noon

already on record. Except for a few minutes before she’d taken over negotiations, and that horrible aftermath, she’d been inside the diner.
    Nobody liked a Monday-morning quarterback, she told herself.
    She would go to Charles Johnson’s viewing, then she would have to put it away. No comment, she promised herself, unless the department directed otherwise. What more did she have to say, in any case?
    She pinned her hair back. Nothing would sober the color, she mused, but the style seemed more respectful than loose.
    She stepped into the family parlor. Her mother was crocheting in front of the TV, and Carly was sprawled on the floor paging through a picture book. Puppies, Phoebe realized with a little sink in the belly.
    “I’m heading out now. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
    “Mama! Wait, Mama, look! Aren’t they cute?”
    Carly scrambled up to hold out the book. The page was full of irresistible balls of fur and adorability. “They are, sweetie. They couldn’t be cuter. But they also need to be fed and watered and walked, and cleaned up after, and trained, and—”
    “But you said someday we could get a puppy.”
    “I said maybe someday.” And only after she’d been worn down to a nub by pleading glances from those big blue eyes. “And I’m just not sure it’s someday yet. I can’t talk about it now because I have to go. And this isn’t going to be just my decision. I’m at work all day and you’re in school, so I need to discuss this with Gran and Ava before we get close to thinking about it. Where is Ava?”
    “Book club.” Essie gave Phoebe a puzzled look. “She mentioned it at dinner.”
    “Oh, of course she did. Slipped my mind.” No, Phoebe admitted. She hadn’t heard a word anyone had said at dinner. Apparently she hadn’t just stopped active listening but listening at all. Time to pull it back together. “You be good for Gran.” Phoebe bent to kiss the top of Carly’s head. “I’ll be back before long.”
    As she walked out she heard Carly using her slyest, most sugarcoated tone. “Gran, you like puppies, don’t you?”
    It should’ve been funny. She wished she could see it as funny. But all she could think about as she headed downstairs was that Carly was going to manipulate the other two adults in the house until they ended up with some shoe-chewing, puddle-making, middle-of-the-night-whimpering canine.
    She liked dogs, damn it. But she just wasn’t ready to take on another responsibility.
    She knew Ava planned to take her son on a trip out West this summer. She deserved it, absolutely. And it meant ten days where there was no one around to run to the store, the bank, the dry cleaner’s, to haul Carly, to do all the endless errands.
    She already had an active seven-year-old and an agoraphobic to tend to. Phoebe didn’t think it made her a heartless monster not to want to add a puppy to the mix.
    But, of course, she felt like one, so when she opened the front door to go out, her scowl was already full-blown.
    Duncan came up the last step to the portico. “That’s timing.”
    “What are you doing here? You didn’t get my message? I’m sorry, but—”
    “No, I got it. I’m going with you.”
    “To the funeral home?” Shaking her head, she closed the door firmly behind her. “No, you’re not. Why should you? You didn’t know him.”
    “I know you, and you shouldn’t go alone. Why should you?”
    “I’m perfectly capable.”
    “A reason you could, but not why you should. If it irritates you so much to have me along, you’ll just have to pretend I’m not there. You don’t go into something like this by yourself. That’s stupid, and you’re not.”
    Phoebe yanked out her sunglasses, shoved them on. “Simple competence and responsibility aren’t stupidity, thank you very much.”
    “Okay.” Hair trigger, he thought again. Why did he like that about her? “Do you want to stand out here debating the issue, or do you want to go do this thing?”
    “I’m not going to drive up to this poor boy’s viewing in a Porsche and walk in with some rich guy in Armani.”
    “First.” He stepped aside, gestured. There was a black sedan of some sort at the curb. “Second, this is Hugo Boss, or maybe Calvin Klein. I can’t keep that sort of thing straight—so now that I think about it, it may be Armani. And I may be rich but I grew up not two spits from where that kid spent his short sixteen years. Not in a mansion on Jones. So don’t call the pot,