Alphonse was enthusiastically talking to a couple of flamboyantly dressed men about a painting. To me it looked like someone had eaten spaghetti and red sauce and vomited on the canvass, but the two men seemed to be impressed. Joyce met me at the bottom of the spiral staircase and we went up to her office after I introduced her to Hawk, who then went to look at some statues that were probably imported from someplace in Africa. The two men said they'd take the picture, and Alphonse told them they'd made a great choice.
This time, Joyce joined me in the other client chair instead of sitting behind her desk.
"This won't take long," I said. "Just got a couple of questions."
"Sure, if it helps you to find Buffy."
"When did you notify your ex-husband that Buffy had run away?"
"I tried to call him that day."
"Where did you try to call him?"
"His office and his house."
"In LA?"
"Yes."
"When did you hear from him?"
"Oh God, no more than a day before you called. He called me and started to ask questions."
"Does he know that Buffy is a slayer?"
Joyce sniffed and shook her head.
"Of course not."
"So what did you tell him?"
"The sorts of things he probably could find out on his own. Kendra's death, Buffy's expulsion, the fact that Buffy was cleared of suspicion in Kendra's death."
"Did you ask him why it took him so long to call you back?"
"Of course I did. He told me that business had taken him out of town."
"You could say that. He and his new wife have been living in New York."
"Wife?" Joyce said.