Iashvili kept his eyes on Alena, watching her. He did it not so much because he suspected she might be lying, I thought, but rather because he liked looking at her. It wasn't unusual. A lot of people did, and if they noticed that she was sometimes a little slow, sometimes seemed to favor her right leg over her left, they still watched. Given that once upon a time, she had excelled at being someone who was barely noticed, I think Alena had come to even enjoy it.

The chief turned his attention reluctantly to me. After a moment for thought, he said, “You'll hear soon enough. Bakhar Lagidze, his whole family-they were murdered last night.”

Alena dropped the teacup she was about to fill. The crash of it shattering in the sink was enough to turn Iashvili's attention back to her. I was grateful for the misdirection. It gave me an extra handful of seconds to set my reaction.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“The children?” Alena asked softly, her voice thickening.

“All of them,” Iashvili replied. “I'm very sorry. They were your friends?”

I thought about the word. In Georgian, “friend” was megobari, which, loosely translated, meant, I will take your place in times of danger.

“Yes,” I told him. “They were.”

“I was teaching her to dance,” Alena said. “Tiasa.”

“I have to ask,” the chief said. “Did you notice anything unusual? Strangers in the area? A change in Bakhar's behavior?”

“No, nothing,” I said. “Everything was… everything was fine. I talked to Bakhar the day before yesterday, we were going to take Koba to the football game in Batumi next week.”

“Do you know if he'd bought the tickets?”

“I was going to buy them. I was going to get them today.”

The chief frowned. At the sink, Alena began gathering pieces of broken crockery.

“I'm sorry to say this,” Mgelika Iashvili said. “It looks like Bakhar killed his family, then himself.”