"Diana Greene." She held out her hand and the man at the kitchen table lifted his hand with what appeared to be a great deal of effort. His grip was weak and brief, like sand dribbling through her fingers.
"John Bolton," he said. "Jill...would you..."
"Do you want something to eat or drink?" she said.
The kitchen smelled of coffee and burnt toast, the radio on the table played. Diana shook her head.
"I'm fine," she said. "Thanks."
"You're from the police?" he said.
"Not really," Diana said. "I used to work for the police. I'm here on a private matter now. About one of your former employees."
Bolton nodded. He held out his hand toward an empty chair, inviting Diana to sit. She did but didn't speak. It took a moment for him to get the message, but then he looked up.
"Jill?" he said. "You can...we'd like..."
Jill rolled her eyes a little. "I have some homework to do."
When she was gone, Diana said, "Anything new on the radio?"
Even in the bright sunlight that poured through the windows of the kitchen, John Bolton looked tired and drawn. He had dark circles under his eyes, and the thinning wisps of his hair went in several different directions across the top of his bald head. His shoulders were slumped, the tie of his bathrobe loose, revealing a stained white T-shirt.
"Nothing," he said.
"Jill said you didn't know the Foley girl. Do you know her family?"
He was slow to respond. "I care about Fields," he said. "I'm an alum, the fifth generation to go to school there. If something happens to someone there, it's like it happened to a member of my family."
"So you must have been pretty devastated when Margaret Todd disappeared?" Diana said. "Not only did she go to Fields, but she worked for you."
Bolton didn't respond. The weather report switched over to sports, and Diana wondered if it were possible that Bolton hadn't heard.
"Mr. Bolton?"
"So," he said finally. "It's beginning again."
"What's beginning again?"
"You're not from New Cambridge are you, Officer Greene?"
"Ms. Greene. And no, I'm not."
He nodded as though Diana had confirmed some important truth. "New Cambridge is a...unique community with a lengthy history. I guess you could say we have our own way of looking at the world here, our own sense of how things should be done. But that's changed over the years, I suppose. Time marches on, and the old ways change."
"How did Margie Todd come to work for you?" Diana said.
"Hm? Oh, that." He shook his head. "My wife went through an agency that employed girls from the college."
"Does your wife remember her?"
He smiled wanly. "My wife died ten years ago. Pulmonary embolism, right here on this kitchen floor. I found her in the afternoon. She was already cold."
"I'm sorry."
"All of my family is gone. My wife is dead. My children have moved away. I think of moving away, too, but there's something about New Cambridge that keeps me here. It makes sense to me somehow. I know my place here, and my family's place. I wouldn't have that somewhere else."
"Did you notice any problems with Margie Todd? Anything she let on about her personal life?"
The radio announcer paused. Bolton held up a finger, asking for silence until a commercial for a car dealership came on.
"I wish they'd tell us something new." He turned the volume down a little. "Margie Todd's problem was that she couldn't dust the picture frames properly. That's why she was let go from this job."
"So she wasn't working for you the day she disappeared?"
"Yes and no. That was her last day. My wife fired her during the day, and that night she disappeared. I have an alibi."
"I didn't ask you for one."
"But I'm offering. My daughter, Clarissa, she must have been about four years old at the time. She fell down our basement stairs and cut her head. We spent most of the evening in the emergency room. I'm sure the hospital has—" He leaned forward quickly and reached for the radio dial. "Shhhhh."
The news announcer came on and started summarizing the Foley disappearance. They both listened, their heads tilted toward the radio, but in the end, no new information was revealed. They both leaned back when the story ended.
"Well," Bolton said. "Nothing."
"You were telling me about your daughter cutting her head..."
"Right. I'm sure the hospital has records, even after this long."
"I didn't come here to accuse you of anything," Diana said. "I just came to gather some information about Margie Todd."
"Did you find it difficult to be a female police officer?" he said.
"Sometimes."
"I would think that a lot of people would be resistant to a female police officer. A lot of men, I guess I should say."
"It comes with the territory," Diana said.
Bolton turned his eyes away from Diana and out the window to the driveway where the front end of a white BMW peeked out of the garage. "There was a time when everyone knew their place with more certainty than they do now. Men ruled the roost, and there were no questions asked about it. That's the world my father and grandfather grew up in."
"You sound nostalgic for those days."