Free Death's Last Run by Robin Spano

several days. “Maybe you weren’t the best father. You didn’t visit her at summer camp when she would have liked that, or give her stellar report cards more than a cursory glance. But that doesn’t change that you
were
her father.”
    â€œI’m not second-guessing my parenting skills. It’s a genetic impossibility. I can’t have children.”
    â€œWhat?” Martha felt as foggy as if she’d had three Scotches. She vaguely remembered the thought crossing her mind, when she’d found out she was pregnant, that maybe it had been the other man . . . but Fraser had been so loving — so excited to start a family — she’d successfully pushed those doubts away.
    The drinks arrived. Though she was not remotely hungry, Martha asked to hear the specials and said “That sounds lovely” to one of the middle options. She was pretty sure it was a salad, but it might have been a pasta. It was something with sundried tomato, which she liked.
    When the waitress left, she said to Fraser, “Maybe you can’t father children now. That happens to some men as they get older. But Sacha is your daughter.”
    â€œI’m missing the tube that releases my sperm into the world. I’ve been missing it since birth.”
    â€œBut . . . I remember . . .” Martha tried to think of a less than crude way to say she’d been swallowing something all those years.
    â€œI have ejaculate. There’s no sperm in it.”
    â€œBut Daisy’s pregnant.”
    â€œIn vitro.” Fraser expanded his arms, as if to say,
It wasn’t my choice
.
    Martha wondered why this even mattered now. It wasn’t like she and Fraser were going to hole up over Häagen-Dazs and grieve together. Ugh — the thought of ice cream made her stomach knot. She hoped whatever she’d ordered didn’t have a cream-based sauce.
    Fraser met Martha’s eye. “Sacha was mine as far as anything important was concerned. I didn’t change my will, she was welcome to stay in our apartment anytime. And I never said a word to her — I figured there was nothing that knowledge could help. But Daisy . . .”
    â€œRight.” Daisy had to know, because even an idiot could understand science that far.
    â€œDaisy thought I should tell Sacha. She thought we were living a lie.”
    â€œSays the woman with the breast implants.”
    â€œWhen we found out the in vitro had taken and Daisy was pregnant, she thought, well, she thought Sacha, not being a blood relative, should back out of our family. Let the baby be our only child.”
    Martha simultaneously recoiled and felt her eyes bug forward. “What did
you
think, Fraser? Did you even have an opinion?”
    The bread arrived. It looked bland and white. Fraser took a chunk and started buttering it.
    â€œMy opinion is moot now,” he said.
    â€œYour opinion is not even remotely moot. Someone killed Sacha. Or had her killed. You ask me, Daisy is looking like a damn good suspect. Where was Daisy eleven days ago, incidentally?”
    The conversation stopped while the smooth-as-silk waitress topped up Martha’s mineral water. When she’d left, Fraser said, “You can’t accuse my wife of murder. Not in your position.”
    â€œBecause I’m a politician, I’m supposed to not think like a mother?”
    Fraser smiled. “This is why men are better suited to high-powered jobs.”
    â€œFraser, fuck off. Don’t you care who killed Sacha?”
    â€œSacha killed herself. It’s the most horrible thing for a mother to acknowledge, I’m sure. But wake up. She wasn’t happy.”
    Martha matched Fraser’s passive smile and said, “Of course Sacha was happy. Off the beaten track, perhaps. But she would have found her way.”
    â€œShe was using drugs. Hard drugs and lots of them. Daisy saw when she visited.”
    â€œDaisy visited Sacha in