"They're divorced?"

"Separated," he says. "Nicky's been staying with his mother."

"Where does she-"

"Monarch Bay," he says. "I told this to the police when they were here, so that they could notify."

Except, Jack thinks, Bentley tells me they're still looking.

"I feel for the kids," says Meissner. He sighs one of those sighs that come only from advanced age. The man has seen too much.

"In and out. In and out," Meissner says. "Chess pieces."

"I know what you mean," Jack says. "Well, thanks, Mr. Meissner."

"Howard."

"Howard," Jack says. Then he asks, "Do you know why they were separated? What the issues were?"

"It was Pamela," he says sadly. "She drank."

So there it is, Jack thinks as he watches Meissner walk away. Pamela Vale has a night without the responsibility of the kids so she gets hammered. At some point she lets Leo out to go pee, forgets he's out there, and ends up in bed with a bottle and some cigs.

So Pamela Vale is drinking and smoking in bed. The vodka bottle tips over and most of the contents spills onto the floor. Pamela Vale either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Then, with a burning cigarette still in her hand, she passes out. The sleeping hand drops the cigarette onto the vodka. The alcohol ignites into a hot flame, which catches the sheets, and the blankets, and the room fills with smoke.

Normally it would take ten to fifteen minutes for the cigarette to ignite the sheets. Ten to fifteen minutes in which Pamela Vale might have smelled smoke, felt the heat, woke up and stamped her foot on the cigarette and that would have been that. But the vodka would ignite instantly, at a much greater heat than a smoldering cigarette – enough to ignite the sheets – and because she's passed out she never has a chance.

It's the smoke, not the flames, that kills Pamela Vale.

Jack can picture her lying in bed, passed out drunk, her respiratory system working even though her mind has shut down, and that respiratory system just sucks in that smoke, and fills her lungs with it, until it's too late.