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concerned, your wait’s over,” I said, speaking more flippantly than I felt. “He got his last night.”
    “Huh?” said Reid.
    “Someone strangled him last night in the parking lot near Jonah’s and threw him in the river.”
    I kept my eyes on Bill’s face as I described the scene. The news seemed to surprise him, but then most lawyers have trained
     themselves to contain their emotions and to cultivate a poker face.
    Both asked a dozen or more questions. In the end Reid leaned back in his chair and lifted his coffee cup as if toasting his
     friend. “They say you can’t go home again, but maybe now you can.”
    “Not while Lisa’s still there,” Bill said grimly.
    “One down, one to go.”
    “Don’t joke,” I told Reid. “Once the police come up with a list of his enemies and learn that Bill was in the vicinity, they’ll
     want to know what time y’all left the restaurant last night.”
    “Us? Oh hell, Deborah, you know we didn’t have anything to do with his death.”
    “Well, as long as you can alibi each other,” I said. “You did drive back here together, right?” I said.
    There was a split-second silence as the two men locked eyes.
    “Actually,” said Bill, “we were in separate cars. Reid said he’d get the check and I needed to pick up some half-and-half
     for breakfast, so I left first and got here about thirty minutes before he did.”
    “Where were you parked?”
    “Up Ann Street, across from Jonah’s.”
    “Did you see Pete Jeffreys in the parking lot?”
    “No. When was he killed?”
    I had to admit that I didn’t know. The last time I’d noticed him was right after I came back from talking with Reid. My cousin’s
     hostility to Jeffreys had been enough to make me look around for him to see if he’d suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. I
     now realized that the sour look he’d given me was probably because he’d seen me at Bill Hasselberger’s table.
    As we ate, our talk turned from murder to gossip about mutual friends.
    “So ol’ Fitz is finally retiring?” Reid said.
    “And he’s being honored at a reception tomorrow night,” I told him. “Why don’t you come?”
    “Maybe I will,” he said and entered the information as to where and when on his BlackBerry.
    We’d finished eating and Reid began to make noises about getting down to Sunset Beach before lunch, so I thanked Bill for
     his hospitality and drove back to Wrightsville Beach.
    I was halfway there before it hit me. Why had it taken Reid so long to pay the check that he’d gotten back to Bill’s house
     a half hour after Bill?

CHAPTER
7
    The municipal laws of all well-regulated states have taken care to enforce this duty: though providence has done it more effectually
     than any laws, by implanting in the breast of every parent that insuperable degree of affection, which not even the deformity
     of person or mind, not even the wickedness, ingratitude, and rebellion of children, can totally suppress or extinguish.
    —Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)
    T he SandCastle Hotel is as friendly to children as it is to judges. The decor in the spacious lobby is vivid turquoise and
     coral with terra-cotta tiles and couches upholstered in soft sand-colored leather. Bowls of taffy wrapped in wax paper twists
     sit on the registration counter. A floor-to-ceiling saltwater aquarium filled with exotic and colorful sea creatures lines
     the wall of a hallway that leads to the restaurant. In the middle of the lobby itself, beneath the large circular skylight,
     is a round shallow tank that holds an inch or two of white sand and six or seven inches of water. It’s chest-high to a four-year-old
     and kids are encouraged to touch the living sand dollars, sea urchins, snails, and skates or watch a school of tiny minnows
     dart through the water.
    Adults can play there, too.
    When I returned to the hotel that morning, the first person I recognized was pudgy-faced Bernie Rawlings from Lafayette County,
     who stood by