Mourn not your Dead

down, between your knees,” ordered Brian, and Geoff obeyed, his blond curls swinging near the floor. His breath whistled audibly.
    Deveney slipped out the door, and when he returned a few moments later, he said, “I’m sorry, Bri. We’ll have to take him along to headquarters. I’ve radioed for a squad car,” he added quietly to Kincaid.
    Brian stood with his hand on Geoff’s shoulder. “You can’t. You can't take him away from here. You don’t understand.”
    “We’ll have to charge him, Brian,” Deveney said gently. “But I promise you he’ll come to no harm at the station.”
    Geoff lifted his head and spoke for the first time, his teeth clenched to stop them chattering. “It’s all right, Dad.” He brushed his hair from his face and took a shuddering breath. “I’ve got to tell the truth. There’s nothing else for it.”
     
    BRIAN GENOVASE INSISTED ON ACCOMPANYING HIS SON TO Guildford Police Station. By the time they climbed into the back of the panda and Deveney joined the driver in the front, a handful of neighbors had gathered and stood watching from a distance. Doc Wilson hurtled by the green in her little Mini, then braked hard as she peered at the police car.
    Kincaid wished now that he’d not sent Gemma to interview Malcolm Reid, but he’d had no way of anticipating Geoff’s quaking terror. Glancing at his watch, he hoped she’d at least be back at the station by the time they were ready to begin the interview.
    He retrieved the Rover and was reversing it from its space in the car park when he saw a blur of motion in his mirror and heard a thumping on the boot. A moment later Lucy Penmaric pounded on his window, shouting at him. When he’d killed the engine and rolled down the window, the words became comprehensible.
    Between sobs she wailed, “Why are they taking him? You mustn’t let them—please don’t let them take him away from here. He couldn’t bear it.” As he slipped out of the car to stand beside her she clung to him, pulling at his sleeve with force enough to rip it.
    “Lucy.” He clasped her hands in his, holding her balled fists tightly. “I can’t help you if you don’t calm down.” She gulped, nodding, and he felt her hands relax a bit. “Now. Take it slowly. Tell me exactly what’s wrong.”
    Still hiccuping, she managed, “Doc Wilson stopped at the house. She said they were taking Geoff away in a—” before her face contorted again.
    Kincaid squeezed her hands. “Hush now. You must help me sort this out.” She seemed a frightened child, far removed from the poised young woman he’d seen on the night of Alastair Gilbert’s murder. “We just need to ask him a few questions, that’s all. There’s nothing to—”
    “Don’t treat me like a baby. You think Geoff killed him! Alastair. You don’t understand.” She wrenched her hands free and pressed her knuckles against her mouth, fighting for control.
    “What don’t I understand?”
    “Geoff couldn’t hurt anybody. He won’t even kill spiders. He says they have as much right to exist as he does.” Her words poured over one another in her eagerness to explain. “ 'Might is not right.’ He says that all the time—it’s from his favorite book. And ‘The end never justifies the means.’ He says we can always find a peaceful solution.” Kincaid sighed as he recognized the quotations. It had been one of his favorite books, too, and he wondered how much of the young King Arthur’s vision he had managed to retain in the face of everyday policing.
    “Maybe Geoff wouldn’t hurt anybody,” he said, “but would he take things that didn’t belong to him?”
    Lucy’s eyes skittered away from his. “That was a long time ago. And he didn’t hate Alastair for what—”
    “Hate Alastair for what, Lucy?”
    “For being a cop,” she said, recovering quickly. She scrubbed at her face and sniffed. “Though he probably should have, after the way they treated him.”
    Kincaid regarded her quizzically for a moment, then decided to let that one pass for the moment. “I’m not talking about what happened when Geoff was sent to prison, Lucy. I’m asking about here, now, taking things from the people he works for in the village.”
    In a small, bewildered voice she said, “Geoff?”
    “Nothing terribly valuable, mostly keepsakes, really. Do you know that he may not be able to help himself?” He touched her cheek. Her eyes looked enormous and dark, even in the fading light, and the