“This must have been how it all began with Chymes,” sighed Jack. “A smallomission on one case, an ‘embellishment’ on the next. The question is not aboutwhat’s best but what’s right. Chymes had confused the two and compromised notonly his own integrity but that of the police—and the due process of law.”

“There'd been no time for her to plead her case. To tell him how she'd be flexible about his schedule and never ask for too much. Neol never gave her the option now he had a warrant and they wanted him for questioning. She'd covered for him the best she could but there were laws requiring his testimony to clear himself.”

“Now as I began to sort through his “effects” it occurred to me how little I had really known him … I had forced upon my father the character that fitted most easily with my image of myself; to have had to admit to any complexity in him would have compromised my own.”

“His own parents, the estimable Gilchrists, a couple who had taken the 'till death' part of their own wedding vows so seriously he wouldn't be surprised if they one day throttled one another, had naturally wangled the next best seat in the house: row two, on the aisle.”

“The integrity of my sleep has been forever compromised, sir.”

“Practically every fella that breaks the law has a danged good reason, to his own way of thinking, which makes every case exceptional, not just one or two. Take you, for example.”