Mickey sat with that for a moment. At last, he picked up his coffee and sipped at it. “How close was pretty close?”

“I don’t know, not for sure.”

“But what would you guess?”

Thorpe made a face, then shrugged. “I’d say it wouldn’t be impossible that they were having an affair, though Alicia’s always said she’d never go out again with a married guy.”

“Again?”

“I told you, guys were always her problem. She’s kind of pretty, and then of course having her father kill himself, she’s got a few issues of abandonment and self-esteem. Wants to prove she’s attractive to men. You’d think after the first fifty, the issue would kind of go away. But in Dominic’s case, I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say. She did tell me, though, that she didn’t kill him.”

“You asked?”

He nodded. “Directly. I wanted to know what we were dealing with.”

“And you believe her?”

“Absolutely. She wouldn’t ever lie to me. I’m sure of that.”

“Okay.”

“Plus, you should see her. When it finally came out he was actually dead and not just missing, after you found him in the lagoon… I mean, she’s been crying full-time ever since.”

Even with his limited experience of criminal matters, Mickey had learned that crying wasn’t a guarantee of innocence or of much else. Wyatt Hunt had told him that most people who kill someone close to them spend at least some time afterward crying about it for one reason or another-genuine remorse for what they’d done, or self-pity for the predicament in which they’d put themselves. “So what would you want a private investigator to do for you?” Mickey asked.

“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. I only thought of the possibility of it when I saw you on the tube and they said that’s what you were. I know it’s not much of a connection, you and me. But I thought you might be cheaper than a lawyer.”