“In 1977,” she said, “my father, Jack Kantke, was convicted of killing my mother and a friend of hers. In Long Beach. I was five.”

There.

Jean looked at the maid. The maid looked at the TV.

Jimmy drew another glass of water and looked out at the backyard. A fog was filling the back of the canyon, rolling down from on high like a very slow waterfall. It was always sad when you heard what it was.

“My father was Assistant D.A.,” Jean continued. “Mother was a dress designer. It was in all the papers, even Time magazine. There were appeals. He was executed in 1992. The gas chamber.”

It was so matter-of-fact. So repeated.

“I know people say you shouldn’t go back into the past,” she said.

“I never say that,” Jimmy turned and said.

“I just — ”

“Were you there? When it happened?”

“No. I was at my grandmother’s.”

She’d lost some of her force from before. He liked her this way. This was the big hurt in her life. Most people, you’d have to know them for months or years to find out what it was. Maybe it was why he did this, looked into things. He liked knowing, even when in the end sometimes it tore him up.

“So what do you want to know?”

“If he really killed her,” Jean said. “Killed them. He swore he didn’t.”

Jimmy said, “You know, innocent people don’t get executed.” He watched for some reaction to the word innocent. She didn’t have one. “You would think it would happen and people like to talk about it all the time, but it really doesn’t happen.”

He looked at her until she nodded.

“It would be an enormous surprise if he didn’t kill them,” he said.

There was a long moment. She nodded again.

“So you just want to know how much to hate him?” Jimmy said.

“No.”

“What then? What difference would it make? Everybody’s dead.”