Crime.

And I watched the word land in that hallway with a weight that all of Arthur’s wealth could not lift.

And for the first time in all the years I had known Arthur Vance, the man who always had an answer, who always had the last word, who had never once in my presence been at a loss, stood there with his mouth slightly open and absolutely nothing to say.

I have replayed that sentence often, the one that silenced him, because I did not plan it and it came out of me whole, and I think it came out whole because it was simply true, more true than anything I had ever said to that man in all our polite awful years.