Small Vices Read online

  She smiled. Pearl got sick of looking at the river, or sick of standing on her hind legs, or both, or neither, and dropped down to all fours and looked up at us questioningly. I scratched her ear.

  "How do you feel about all this?"

  "As little as possible," I said. "The Stapletons are not without resources. They'll get the best justice money can buy. The kid especially. A good lawyer may convince a jury that Melissa Henderson was complicit in her own death, that Clint was doing what she wanted. But I know a couple of things. I know that Melissa Henderson shouldn't be dead. I know that no one should have framed Ellis Alves."

  "Or hired someone to kill you," Susan said.

  "I might do that to save my son," I said.

  Susan looked up at me in the now thickening darkness.

  "No," she said, "you wouldn't. You might kill someone to save your son, but you wouldn't hire someone to do it."

  I put my arm around her and she leaned her head against my shoulder.

  "But since we don't have a son, and won't, I guess the question is moot."

  "We have Paul," she said softly.

  "True."

  "You'd kill someone to save him."

  "Yes," I said.

  "And we have Pearl."

  "A son and a daughter," I said. "No need to adopt at all."

  Susan laughed softly. Pearl looked up at the sound and wagged her tail. And we stood together like that as night fell and the river ran.