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“I imagine so.”
“It’s nothing to do with us.”
“No? Your son, Lewis Callaway, was in On the Rocks, the bar where the first incident took place. He left minutes before it happened.”
“Lew was there?” Audrey clutched at her throat and the small gold cross she wore there.
“You didn’t know?” Eve leaned back, rocking slightly on the back legs of her chair. “Reports on the incidents are all over the screen, you have a son who lives and works not only in New York, but within blocks of both locations. You didn’t think to contact him, make sure he was okay?”
“I—”
“How are we supposed to know all this happened near his work or his place?” Russ demanded. “We don’t know the layout of New York. We’ve never been here before, and don’t much like being here now.”
“You’ve never come up to visit your son?” Teasdale asked them, in the most pleasant and sympathetic of voices.
“He’s the one moved to this godless place. We don’t have the time or wherewithal to come hieing up here. He comes home to visit.”
“Is he all right?” Audrey asked. “I tried to get a hold of him, but he didn’t answer. He texted me back last night, just to say he was fine, and he was busy. But you said he was there, at that place where it happened.”
“That’s right, with some coworkers. One of them died there.”
“Oh.” Again she closed her hand over her cross. “Rest his soul.”
“He lost other coworkers there, and at the café where the second incident took place.”
“Oh, this is terrible. Russ, we have to go see him. He must be very upset.”
“Not upset enough to tell you he lost someone he’d worked with for years. Someone he’d just had a drink with.”
“He’s got no cause to worry his mother.”
“Maybe not, Mr. Callaway, but it strikes me his mother was already worried. That’s why she tried to contact him. When’s the last time you saw or spoke to him?”
“He came down a few weeks ago, stayed a couple days. Audrey, you stop fretting now.”
“I see he’s come to see you several times in the last few months.” Eve opened a file, scanned data. “Yet previously, his visits were spaced much further apart. Once a year.”
“He’s very busy.” Head down, Audrey spoke quietly. “He has an important position in his firm. People depend on him. He has important clients, and a very demanding job.”
“Have you ever met any of his coworkers?”
“No.” Russell spoke before his wife could. “We’ve got nothing to do with any of that.”
“I’m sure he’s shared stories.” Teasdale spread her hands. “About the people he works with, his friends, his work.”
“I said we’ve got nothing to do with it.”
“But an important man with such a demanding job, and all these recent visits. Surely he’d talk about his life here.”
“We don’t really understand his work.” Audrey shot her husband a nervous glance.
“Why has he come home so often recently?” Eve demanded.
“It’s restful. It’s restful on the farm.”
“Restful ’cause you wait on him hand and foot. Up till all hours doing God knows what. Can’t risk his soft hands on a good day’s work.”
“Now, Russ.”
