As they neared the front door, a Jeep Cherokee pulled into the drive and parked behind Jo’s Toyota. A six- footer got out, attractive, with long dark hair, thirtyish.
“Just arriving, Ben?” There was a Spanish roll to his r’s.
“Good evening, Tony.”
Tony looked long and appreciatively at Jo.
“Tony, this is Jo O’Connor. Jo, Tony Salguero.”
He wrapped Jo’s hand very warmly in his own. “You’re here because of Eddie? Did you know him well?”
“Not well.”
“A pity, his death.” Tony turned his attention to Ben. “By the way, that package I flew back from Aurora. Any word?”
“Aurora?” Jo said. “Minnesota?”
“That’s right.”
Ben said, “Tony flew some samples back yesterday for DNA testing.”
“My husband is Sheriff O’Connor,” Jo told him.
“Your husband?” He looked to Ben, then back to Jo, and smiled wickedly. “A long way from home, are you not?”
“What about the DNA?” Jo said.
“They were hairs taken from Eddie’s SUV,” Ben explained. “And a cigarette that had been smoked by a woman in Aurora. There’s a lab here that’s doing a match. Your husband thinks the woman might have been with Eddie the night he was murdered.”
“What woman?”
“Her name is Fineday.”
“Lizzie?”
“You know her?”
“I know who she is. Is she a suspect?”
“Dina reports that she’s the focus of the investigation at the moment.”
She was thinking like a defense attorney, thinking that Lizzie’s presence in the SUV meant nothing in itself. There had to be more to tie her to Jacoby’s murder.
Jacoby said to Tony, “Why don’t we go inside. Gabriella is there, I’m sure.”
A cadaverous white-haired man in a black suit opened the door for them all.
“Good evening, Evers,” Jacoby said.
“Mr. Jacoby,” Evers replied with a trace of a bow. “Mr. Salguero.”
“Everyone here?” Ben asked.
“They come and go, sir. May I take your wrap?” he asked Jo.
“We won’t be long,” Jo said.
“Safer to surrender it,” Ben advised her.
Tony left them as Jo removed her coat and handed it to Evers.
Beyond the expansive foyer, the house opened left and right onto huge rooms filled with people. Some of the guests wore black, but many-the family members, like Ben-had only a torn black ribbon pinned to a lapel or bodice. They didn’t appear necessarily to be dressed for mourning, but all were dressed elegantly.
Ben led her into a room dominated by a Steinway baby grand. There were two mirrors in the room, both completely covered by fabric to block any reflection, a custom of sitting shivah, Jo figured. Seeing them arrive, a woman separated herself from a small group on the far side of the Steinway.
“Ben,” she said, languorously drawing out the word. She took both his hands and kissed him on the cheek. Her hair, dark red and expensively cut, brushed against her shoulders. Her face, tight skin over wonderfully sculptured bones, was so skillfully made up, Jo guessed it had been done professionally. She carried herself with finishing-school panache. Although her dress was the appropriate color for the occasion, it was cut low enough to show off substantial cleavage with freckles like splashes of rusty water. She looked forty, although Jo had the feeling that she was much older. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, Rachel.”
Rachel seemed to notice Jo as an afterthought. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“This is Jo O’Connor. An old friend. Jo, Rachel Herschel.”
“How do you do?” Rachel’s eyes cut into Jo, but she forced a smile, then looked back at Jacoby in a knowing way. “Lovely,” she said, with an edge of ice.
“Have you seen my father?”
“It seems to me he was heading toward the veranda. For a cigar, no doubt.” She still hadn’t let go of Jacoby’s hands. “I’d love to have a moment to talk with you. It’s been…a while.”
“Call me,” he said, extracting his hands and looking past her toward a set of French doors on the far side of the room.
“Of course.” She gave Jo another lengthy appraisal, pursed her pomegranate-red lips, and turned abruptly back to the piano.
They made their way through groups that were like floating islands on the soft white sea of carpet. Everywhere it was the same. Jacoby was greeted heartily, sometimes greedily, and Jo was addressed through a veil of civility that barely hid the looks of appraisal and approval, as if she were something that had been bought at auction for a good price.
Jacoby finally reached the French doors and opened them for Jo to pass through ahead of him. Outside on the veranda, the air was cool. Jo could see the back of the estate stretching to the lake, the long expanse of lawn turned nearly charcoal in the fading light. The water of an unlit swimming pool flashed now and again with a reflection from the windows of the big house. In a corner of the veranda sat a man in a great chair of white wicker, the glow of a cigar reddening his pinched, narrow face, lighting a dull fire in his eyes as he stared at Jo and Ben Jacoby.
“Escaping, Dad?” Ben said.
“What needs taking care of is being seen to. Has there been any more word from Minnesota?”
“Nothing from Dina.”
“What about that yokel sheriff?”
“There’s someone here you should meet,” Jacoby said.
“I don’t want to meet anyone right now.”
“This is Jo O’Connor. She’s the wife of Sheriff Corcoran O’Connor in Aurora.”
The cigar reddened considerably. “When your husband has the murderer of my son in jail, Ms. O’Connor, I’ll gladly take back the yokel.”
“I’m sure my husband is doing everything possible to make that happen.”
“Why are you here?”
“I asked her, Dad. Her daughter’s applying to Northwestern. They came to see the campus.”
Lou Jacoby took the cigar from his mouth and studied the long ash beyond the ember. “You know each other?”
“I told you,” Jacoby said. “We went to law school together.”
“That’s right.” He seemed to be putting it together now. “You were Eddie’s attorney in that town.”
“Not exactly,” Jo said. “I represent the Iron Lake Ojibwe. Your son was trying to negotiate a management contract with their casino.”
“That have anything to do with his murder?”
“I can’t imagine that it did, but that’s really a question my husband should answer.”
“Does he confide in you?”
“Sometimes. In this, he’s told me nothing that you probably don’t already know.”
He slipped the cigar back into his mouth, took a long draw, and sent out enough smoke to temporarily obscure his face. “Then I don’t really want to talk to you right now, Ms. O’Connor. You either, Ben boy. I’d rather just be alone.”
“All right,” Jacoby said dutifully. He opened the French doors and waited for Jo.
“Grief can be blinding,” Jo said, standing her ground. “But at some point, you’re going to have to take a good long look at the man Eddie was.”
