Authors: Jeanne Matthews
Bet Your Bones (17 page)
“Pot?”
“The best. If you get down that way, drop by and I’ll roll you a joint to round out your experience of the island.”
“I wouldn’t think an upstanding attorney like yourself would risk getting caught smoking dope.”
“I don’t smoke with just anyone.” There was an invitation to something more than pakalolo in his twinkling blue eyes.
Dinah smiled and placed a rendezvous in Pahoa in the Rain Check section of her brain. “Jon told me that your father drowned at a conference in California.”
“That’s right, on the same day Jon and Lyssa lost their mom. Afterward, Xan included me whenever he took his kids fishing or camping or sailing. He took us all to Yosemite one summer. Lyssa used to contrive all kinds of schemes to get Xander and my mother together, but it didn’t work out.”
Dinah thought about the phone call that triggered Leilani’s suicide. “It was an amazing coincidence, the two of them dying, drowning actually, on the same day.”
“No kidding. Over the last twenty years, Jon and Lyssa and I have wasted many hours chewing over the coincidence of their deaths. We never made a connection. Sometimes, a coincidence is just a coincidence.”
“Steve, I don’t mean to delve into painful memories, but why would Jon keep a newspaper article about your father’s death behind a photo of Xander?”
“Does he need a reason? I don’t know. People put things where they put them and half the time they forget where or why. I probably have an article somewhere about Jon’s mom’s suicide.”
“Did you ever think your father’s death might not have been accidental?”
He seemed to deliberate. “A long time ago the thought entered my overheated young mind. But facts are facts. He had a few too many, he fell and hit his head against the edge of the pool, and he died. There was a woman on a float who paddled across the pool and tried to save him, but he went under and she couldn’t swim.” He took a slow sip of beer. “Scuttlebutt has it that the lady who couldn’t swim was my father’s roommate.”
“Ah.”
“I’ve never told my mother. I don’t know how she’d feel about it, but there’s no sense dredging up his infidelities at this late date.”
Dinah pondered the arbitrary nature of the cosmos. Coincidences happened. Doppelgangers, synchronicities, flukes of all kinds. But they didn’t happen in swarms, like earthquakes. “It’s another amazing coincidence that only a few days ago an archaeologist was murdered in the same way as Raif?”
“They weren’t killed in the same way. Raif was shot.”
“Don’t quibble. They were both pushed into fiery holes in the ground. Hellholes.”
“From what I understand, hell opened up coincidentally under Raif’s body.”
“All right, all right. Maybe that was a coincidence. Patrick Varian wasn’t by any chance the archaeologist you hired to evaluate Uwahi, was he?”
“No. Our archaeologist is very much alive and still sending us bills.”
Jon left the table of U.S.G.S. oldtimers and drifted over to chat with Avery and Xander. Xander shoved purses and wraps aside for him and he sat down next to Paul Jarvis. Maybe Xander thought Jarvis should hear from a leading light in volcanology that Uwahi was safe from volcanic flows. She wondered if anyone from SAX Associates had apprised Jarvis that ancient Hawaiian bones might lie under his proposed development. Wouldn’t they have an ethical obligation to disclose the information?
“Steve, what do you know about Eleanor Kalolo’s claim against Uwahi?”
“So far, she hasn’t filed a claim, although she’s hired an attorney. He called me a few weeks back alleging that there were bones in a lava cave on the property.”
“Not just any bones,” said Dinah. “The bones of a king.”
“The alleged bones of an alleged king.”
“Did her attorney say she’d hired her own archaeologist?”
“No, but it was under consideration. Xan and Avery and I discussed the matter and we’re standing by our guy’s findings. No human remains. Not so much as a fragment. His Highness’ bones are a figment of Eleanor’s imagination, or a ploy to extort money from SAX.”
“Shouldn’t you inform Mr. Jarvis of the risk of bones?”
“Not if no claim has been filed. It’s up to his lawyers to exercise due diligence and lay out the potential risks for him.”
“Do you suppose his lawyers hired Varian?”
“If they did, I’m sure they would’ve informed the police. Jarvis has big plans for development here in Hawaii. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his squeaky clean image.”
Jarvis sat forward, head down, apparently all ears while Jon talked.
Dinah wished she could read lips. “If Eleanor’s right and bones are found, what would that mean to your sale?”
“There are always obstacles to buying and selling land in Hawaii. Ownership rights aren’t as unambiguous here as they are in the rest of the country. The law grants Native Hawaiians usage rights for certain protected practices, but there’s no definitive list of those practices. It could be anything. Somebody like Eleanor with a Hawaiian pedigree and a bee in her bonnet can claim that a piece of property has some cultural or religious history and a buyer and his lenders can find themselves screwed at the last minute and unable to get title insurance. It’s buyer beware.”
“Akahele,” said Dinah. “Watch your step.”
Across the room, Johnny Cash burst into “I fell in to a burning ring of fire.” Jon pulled his phone out of his pocket and walked away from the group, looking uneasy. In a minute, he returned and said something in Xander’s ear. In the murky, yellow light, Xander’s face morphed into a mask of misery. He stood up, kissed Claude Ann on the cheek, shook Jarvis’ hand, and conferred briefly with Avery.
Jon walked across the room to Steve and Dinah. “Something’s come up. Will you give Dinah a ride back to the cottage after dinner, Steve?”
“Of course. Not more bad news, I hope.”
“No. No problem.”
Dinah sank the last of her wine. She hated that expression.
Dinah sat down and took off her shoes on Jon’s lanai. She breathed in deep drafts of the cool night air, looked up at the infinitude of stars, and decompressed. Her clothes reeked of cigar smoke, but she wanted a cigarette anyway. She dug inside her purse and found the Sincerely Yours. Tomorrow was to have been Claude Ann’s big day and Dinah had scheduled her return flight to Manila for the day following. Claude Ann had informed everyone at dinner that she and Xan planned to marry in a civil ceremony in a week or two, after the Uwahi closing and Raif’s funeral. Now that Dinah’s Mindinao study had been abandoned, she had no plans. She was, as her detective ex-boyfriend Nick was wont to say, in the wind.
Once these awful murders had been solved, Hawaii wouldn’t be a bad place for a budding anthropologist to settle down and study. Her acquaintance with the soon-to-be Senator Norris Frye would stand her in good stead. At dinner he had talked her ear off about his friends in academia and Xander and Avery and Jon were all alums of the University. They might help her get her toe in the door. She didn’t have a Ph.D., but she had tons of practical experience and being part Native American never hurt. Maybe she could parlay her research on the customs of the T’Boli and the B’laan of Mindanao into some sort of internship. She conceded that at least part of her interest in staying on could have something to do with sex. She remained inexplicably attracted to Jon and, more explicably, to Steve.
She put out her cigarette, took a last look at the stars, and pulled out her key. But she turned the knob and the door opened. In her haste, she’d forgotten to lock. She went in and locked it behind her, then headed for the shower. She walked into the bedroom and a hand sprang out of the darkness and clapped over her mouth like a vise.
“Don’t yell, Dinah. I’m warnin’ you.”
Wailing Jerusalem. It was Hank. The accent was unmistakable and the smell of his sour perspiration was even stronger than the smell of her smoked clothes.
“I’m gonna let you loose now, but don’t yell, you hear?”
She made a compliant mm hmm sound and tried to nod. Slowly his fingers relaxed and he moved his hand. “You can turn on the light if you want. Can’t anybody see in through all those trees.”
Her heart was flapping like a wild bird in a net. She clicked on the bedside lamp and turned to look at him. He was gaunt and unshaven and the loose-fitting shirt he wore made him look like a scarecrow.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m tryin’ to atone. I know what I did was wrong. I don’t know what I was thinkin’. I was so damn mad. Claudy takin’ me to the cleaners and then givin’ my money away to some bozo with a slick line of bullshit. But I never meant to hurt her. I waited at the hospital ’til you left and followed you to that drive-in. I would’ve given you a ride back to the hotel, but I was afraid you’d holler and start a riot. Anyways, I eavesdropped on you and the deformed bub to find out if Claudy was all right.”
Dinah’s heart rate slowed and her thoughts caught up with the situation. “You need to turn yourself in to the police, Hank, and get this mess straightened out. Don’t get yourself in worse trouble than you’re in already.”
“You mean that boy that was killed? Phoebe told me about it. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“You talked with Phoebe? When?”
“Tonight while everybody was gone. I tried to talk to Marywave, but she wouldn’t come out of her room. She called me a fallen man and she’s right.” His knees buckled and he dropped into Jon’s chair and hung his head. “I should never have come out here, only Marywave was homesick and beggin’ me all th’ time to bring her home. She misses me and I miss her. How can I share custody with Claude Ann movin’ her way off to the middle of the ocean? Took me a whole day and half the night to get from Needmore to Atlanta to L.A. to Honolulu.”
“Claude Ann’s not unreasonable, Hank. If you hadn’t tried to turn Marywave against her and written those letters, she’d be more accommodating.”
“It’s my right and duty as a father to see what kind of a man she’s taken up with and I can tell you, he ain’t what she thinks. Claudy tells you stuff she doesn’t tell anybody else, stuff she doesn’t tell Phoebe. What does she say about how this Garst bozo gets along with Marywave?”
“She thinks Marywave will come around to like him if you stop putting him down. And she told Phoebe one thing she didn’t tell me.”
“What’s that?”
“That Claude Ann had lent him money. Phoebe’s been keeping you well informed, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah, well, the money stuck in my craw. I’d have thought Claudy had more common sense.” His voice hoarsened. “But there’s other stuff Claudy tells you and I’ve gotta ask. I know she had a thing for Wes Spencer, but when we married, she said that was over and done. She said she wanted a dependable man who’d cherish her and take care of her. She acted like I was the one. Have I been her chump for all these years?”
Despite his bloody-mindedness, Dinah felt a twinge of sympathy for Hank. It couldn’t have been easy appeasing his homegrown Aphrodite over the years, living with the ghost of Wesley Spencer and the awareness of smalltown opinion that Claude Ann could have done a lot better for herself. She said, “You weren’t a chump if you loved her. You got the girl you wanted.”
“I’d have chosen her over God if she’d have stayed. That’s my sin and I’m damned for it. Damned and beat out by the likes of Xander Garst. He’s phony as a rubber wiggler. I can’t believe she went for him hook, line, and sinker.”
“Why do you say he’s phony?”
“Consortin’ with other women for one thing. I followed him into town today and saw him pick up a blonde. And him supposed to marry Claudy tomorrow mornin’. What kind of a life is he gonna lead her?”
Dinah sat down on the bed and tried to collect her wits. “You stalked Xander from the airport today?”
“Call it what you will. I saw what I saw.”
“Which was what, exactly?”
“He drove into Hilo and went into a travel agency.”
“He was probably picking up their airline tickets for their honeymoon trip to Bali.”
“You think I’m such a hick I don’t know how to pick up airline tickets? I know you don’t have to go sit in your car for a half hour with a big-breasted blonde negotiatin’ the price.”
This tidbit tore through Dinah’s brain like a bullet. Tess Wilhite worked at a travel agency in Hilo. Was this yet another coincidence? “Did Xander and the blonde go to a big, fancy house somewhere down by Kapoho Point?”
“Nah, she went back inside the agency and he left by hisself. I’d seen enough. I drove on up here to Volcano and found a motel. I need to talk to Marywave and Claudy. I have to find a way to tell ’em I’m sorry. Claude Ann won’t believe anything I tell her about Garst. Will you try and talk some sense into her, Dinah? We can’t let her throw her life away on a user like Garst.”
Dinah got up and started into the kitchen. “I’m going to brew us a pot of strong coffee. Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll find you one of Jon’s shirts to wear. Both of us need to take a few minutes to think about this.”
The floor juddered.
“Jerusalem!”
Hank dropped to his knees. “It’s the End.”
“No, Hank. It’s only an earthquake.” She crouched in the corner farthest from the window and rode the waves. Since when had “it’s only an earthquake” become a comforting thought?
Hank stayed on his knees and prayed. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
The shaking stopped. Dinah felt a spasm of regret. When the earth is shaking like a wet dog, survival is the only concern. Everything else is on hold. There was a lot to be said for crouching in a corner. She sensed she was going to miss it. Reluctantly, she got up and dusted off her hands. “Hawaii’s an adventure, isn’t it, Hank? Always something going on.”
“Earthquakes and hellfire bubblin’ up out of th’ earth. It’s God’s wrath comin’ down. Have you seen the signs? Pele’s Revenge, Hawaiians for Obama. This place is full of false gods and idolaters. Beware them that forget the Lord. Beware and take heed lest ye also fall.”
Dilemma, tri-lemma. Dinah put her head down on the kitchen table and banged it several times, but no happy solution fell out. Her instinct told her that Hank didn’t kill Raif, but Hank was an odd duck with an obsession about stopping the wedding and no alibi for the time of the murder. The question of when the Beretta had been taken was problematic. Langford could clear that hurdle without breaking a sweat. Hank had been in Honolulu for several days before Claude Ann noticed it was missing. The cops would assume he had gained admittance to her suite on more than one occasion. They would assume he’d mistaken Raif for Xander, or even that he had intended to pick off the members of the Garst party one at a time.
She also knew in her heart that Claude Ann didn’t kill Raif, but the murder weapon belonged to her and she had no alibi, either. And Xander, who admittedly despised Raif, had lied about his whereabouts at the time of the murder. At least he had omitted one of the stops he made. Why would he do that? Tess Wilhite could have given him an alibi for at least part of the afternoon. And what were those two saying to each other that couldn’t have been said in her office?
Tchak, tchak, tchak. Something was barking. She raised her head. Attached to the window across from her, a little green gecko with lavender feet and round, blue-shadowed eyes observed her with brazen curiosity. Tchak, tchak, tchak.
“Okay, buddy. What’s your bright idea? Should I go to the police and lay all these worries and suspicions and hearsay on them?”
Tchak, tchak, tchak. He skittered down the window and disappeared into the woodwork, which is what she wished she could do. After a stimulating read from the Book of Isaiah, something along the lines of
The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard and shall fall and not rise again
, that’s what Hank had done. He’d waltzed out the door and disappeared into the darkness and she hadn’t uttered a word of argument. Cowardice or concern? Definitely procrastination. Maybe she would wake up tomorrow morning and learn that Langford had solved the crime, or the crimes, and she needn’t have to think another thought about it. Them.
God, she was tired. She showered and climbed into bed, not expecting to sleep a wink. Mercifully, she was wrong. She woke up six hours later wondering if she’d dreamed that strange interlude with Hank. But when she went into the kitchen, she saw two cups of half-drunk coffee on the table and reality returned in spades.
Light streamed in through the windows as cheery as marmalade and the birds chirruped and tweeted to beat the band. Not a care in the world, the little slackers. Sometime today, Fujita and Langford and their forensic team would show up to fingerprint the human inhabitants, but they hadn’t given a specific time. Did that mean there was leeway to do other things? She felt claustrophobic here in the forest. She needed to venture out and see where she was on the map, have a look at what was on the other side of these enclosing trees and forty-foot ferns.
She dressed and brewed a fresh pot of coffee. She wondered if Jon was up yet and whether he’d lend her his Sidekick for an hour or two. She wondered what fresh misfortune had summoned him and Xander out of the lodge last night. It must have been something to do with Lyssa. But having heard no sirens and received no middle-of-the-night call, Dinah was content to leave that worry on the back burner for the time being. Sufficient unto the day is the pilikia thereof.
Still curious about the missing newspaper article, she went back to the bedroom, turned on Jon’s computer, and Googled “earth sciences conference marred by death, San Francisco, 1989.” The results were not helpful. Scientific treatises of Ptolemy marred by errors, anti-Islamification conference marred by protesters, Mineralogical Society meeting marred by non-appearance of guest speaker. She modified her search, adding Louis Sykes’ name and U.S.G.S. and Hawaii. Nothing came up. After several failed attempts, she gave up. Apparently, the story hadn’t merited a lot of media attention or it had never been scanned into Google’s database. Anyhow, Jon was right. There were far more pressing matters.
She needed to talk to Phoebe and find out if she knew where Hank was hiding out. Not that Dinah wanted to sic the cops on him, but it would be prudent to know where he was in case his prints turned up on the murder weapon and proved her instinct wrong. And she wanted a tête-à-tête with Tess Wilhite to find out if the blonde Hank had seen “negotiating” with Xander was, in fact, Tess. With this agenda in mind, she finished her coffee, put on her running shoes, and started down the path.
The morning air was laden with the smell of jasmine. She stopped beside a tree with multiple, vine-covered trunks and sniffed a pretty white flower with a red center. It smelled like a rotting carcass—an unpleasant reminder of just how wrong her instinct could be.
When she reached the carport where the path forked to the other cottages, she saw the unmarked car the detectives had arrived in yesterday afternoon. Fujita was nowhere to be seen, but Lt. Langford was sitting behind the wheel of the Wrangler. It was humming like a sewing machine. He smiled a gotcha smile, shut off the engine, and opened the door.
“Battery’s fine,” he said. “For future reference, Mr. Garst keeps the key on a chain next to the front door. Pretty obvious place if you think about it.”
Terrific. So now she had no verifiable alibi for the time of Raif’s death. “Thank you,” she said, holding out her hand for the key. “I was planning on going out for a while this morning. Would you like to take my fingerprints first?”
“Forensics won’t be around for another day or so. I’m just here to iron out a few inconsistencies and update everyone on the progress of the investigation. Seems the Honolulu police let Hank Kemper get away from them. He made it to Hilo on a charter flight about noon yesterday. He might try and contact his ex-wife or his daughter. Haven’t seen him snooping around, have you?”
“If he’s evading the police, I’m sure he’ll keep well out of sight. And Claude Ann’s and Xander’s cottage is much farther down the path.”
He showed her his underbite. “I hope evading the police doesn’t turn into an epidemic.”
She nodded and hiked back to Jon’s cottage to get her driver’s license. She would talk with Phoebe later. An hour from now everything could be changed. Hank might turn himself in or Phoebe might turn him in, or Langford might lose his patience and unleash a pack of bloodhounds. Langford gave her the hives. That knowing glint in his eyes reminded her of a loaded mousetrap poised to whomp down on some hapless neck.
Since Jon had already given her permission to drive the Wrangler and Langford had given her the keys, she saw no reason to disturb anyone with her good-bye. She stuffed her license, her Visa card, and a few dollars in her pocket and went back to the carport. Langford’s car was still there, but neither he nor Fujita were anywhere in sight. Feeling vaguely like a fugitive, she started up the Wrangler, backed quietly down the driveway, and headed toward Hilo.
***
According to Hank, Xander had visited the Casino Royale Travel Agency, which was listed in the Hilo Yellow Pages on Lanikaula Street. Dinah wended her way through town until she found it in what looked like a private residence set back from the street in the shadow of a Marriott. She maneuvered the Wrangler into a tight parking spot on a side street and walked back to the agency. Only as she marched through the Casino Royale’s frosted glass door did she think about what she would say to Tess. “Were you or were you not raped by Xander Garst and, if yes, why in the name of God are you still seeing him?” seemed unlikely to lead to a fruitful exchange.
The walls of the large front room were plastered with posters of fabulous casinos and gambling destinations—Bellagio Las Vegas, The Venetian Macau, Fairmont Monte Carlo, Conrad Cairo, Casino Baden-Baden. Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Lines apparently also catered to high rollers with onboard casinos. One poster featured a background seascape and in the foreground, a Sean Connery look-alike hoisting a martini at a roulette table. Another showed two women simpering at one another in front of a row of slot machines.
A dapper Chinese man with an unctuous smile stood up from his desk and bowed his head. “May I help you?”
“Is Tess Wilhite in?”
“That’s Tess on the phone over there. You can have a seat at her desk and she’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
Dinah thanked him and sat down. Given Jon’s love of Nature, she had expected that Tess would be an outdoorsy looking girl with at least a passing resemblance to Avery. This woman surprised on both counts. Her skin was very fair and creamy and her eyes amazingly large and violet. Like a baby’s eyes. At first, Dinah thought she might be wearing those circle contact lenses popularized by Lady Gaga, but she changed her mind when Tess settled a pair of purple glasses on her nose to read a price list to the person on the other end of her phone call. She had fine, white-blond hair, bee-stung lips painted the perfect shade of raspberry, and a sultry voice even when explaining the surcharge for checked baggage and the cost of a single room supplement. She and Jon must have made a striking couple. Dinah thought she perceived a gloss of artificiality about Tess, but attributed the judgment to petty jealousy. How artless and sincere could a person be, after all, when selling an expensive junket to Vegas?
Tess finished booking her client at the Mirage, shook her tinkling gold charm bracelet down her willowy, white arm, and smiled at Dinah. “How may I help you?”
“My visit is personal, Tess. My name is Dinah Pelerin. I’m a friend of Jonathan Garst’s. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you can spare the time.”
Her big, violet eyes skewed toward the clock on the wall. After a second or two, they skewed back to Dinah’s face. “Of course. There’s a little place on the bay that I like. I’m parked in front. I’ll drive.” She informed her Chinese co-worker that she’d be gone for an hour, donned a pair of Chanel sunglasses, and led Dinah out the door to a red Miata convertible.
The day was gloriously sunny. Dinah didn’t see how the woman could keep her skin so milk-white and drive a convertible, but with Hilo’s rainy weather she probably kept the top up most of the time. And Jon had said she traveled a lot. She probably spent much of her time scouting out casinos where Hawaiians could indulge their craving to gamble.
The Miata sliced through the city streets like a Jedi lightsaber, coasting through stop signs and romping it through yellow lights. At the first red light, Dinah said, “I’ve never run across a travel agency that specializes only in gambling destinations.”
“That’s because gambling is illegal in Hawaii. No games for money, on shore or in Hawaiian waters. No cruise ship that has a casino on board can start or end its cruise here. If you want to gamble, you have to go elsewhere.”
When they reached the waterfront, Tess careened down a narrow alley and jerked to a stop in front of a hole-in-the-wall called Kava-Kava. “Have you ever drunk kava?”
“No.”
“It alleviates stress, but doesn’t impair thinking.”
Dinah was all for alleviating stress. She followed Tess into the grungy little coffeehouse. It had only three tables, none of them occupied, but there were three large, morose looking employees behind the counter. Tess ordered two kavas and two glasses of guava juice and sat down at the table farthest from the door.
“What is kava?” asked Dinah, dusting crumbs out of the chair before sitting.
“It’s a South Pacific shrub. It’s been used for thousands of years to help people relax.
Fijians say it makes people talkative. Some people say it lets them see into the future.”
“Sounds like the magic potion I’ve been searching for all my life.”
Tess smiled. “In Hawaii, it’s mostly drunk during naming ceremonies, when boys are consecrated or when girls are initiated into the traditional hula.”
A fat-faced man arrived with a tray and offloaded two wooden bowls of what appeared to be liquid mud with a skim of yellowish slime on top and two glasses of juice. “Anything else?”
Tess said no. The man grunted and went back behind the counter.
The kava smelled like a mixture of Pine-Sol and rotting leaves. Dinah tried not to gag. “What’s the yellow goop on top?”
“Mashed hibiscus. Gives the kava more of a kick. Drink it down fast. Like this.” She took the bowl in both hands, turned it up to her mouth, and drank. She set the empty bowl on the table and smiled. “Try it.”
Dinah lifted her bowl to her lips and tasted. “Ugh!”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?”
Dinah choked down a few more swallows, forced herself not to urp, and reached for the guava chaser. “If that’s what seeing into the future tastes like, I’d rather be surprised.”
“It’s an acquired taste. Your lips and tongue will start to feel a little numb. It takes a while, but you’ll find it reduces your inhibitions.”
With her huge, violet eyes and voluptuous mouth, Tess didn’t look like the inhibited type. Avery had described his daughter as high-strung, Jon had described her as intense and, when professing his innocence to Jon, Xander had called her crazy. But looks and descriptions to the contrary, Tess seemed at the moment almost preternaturally cool and composed.
Dinah didn’t know if it was the kava already at work reducing her inhibitions, but she got straight to the point. “What did you and Xander Garst talk about yesterday afternoon?”
Tess’ raspberry lips parted and formed a round O, like a Lifesaver. “What makes you think I talked with him?”
“You were seen together in Xander’s car shortly after noon.”
“By whom?”
“By the ex-husband of Xander’s fiancée.”
“He was spying on Xander? How creepy.” She shook her charm bracelet down her arm, rested her elbows on the table, and steepled her fingers under her chin. “What is it you want from me, Ms. Pelerin?”
“Your father told me that you were close to the Garst family at one time, engaged to marry Jon.”
“That ended a long time ago. Are you interested in Jon? Is that what this is about?”