Page 71 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch

“Oh, that’s lovely. How was the wedding?”

“Small.”

“You probably want to take her out of that snowsuit while she’s inside. You don’t want her to overheat.”

“We won’t be here long.”

Opal stomped on my foot. I gritted my teeth as I waited for the pain to subside.

There was a noise on the stairs and Carl came down. Ivy hurried over to the bottom of the stairs, nearly knocking Opal over. “Sweetheart, if it’s too much you don’t have to come down.”

“I want to see Opal.”

“All right. She’s right here.”

Carl had reached the bottom of the stairs. He looked smaller somehow. He was still tall, thin, and sharply drawn, but now… well it was like the difference between a watercolor and ink sketch. Denny’s death had drawn the color from him and left only dark scratches.

“Well,” Ivy said. “I’ve got coffee upstairs and cinnamon buns. I’ll bring them down.”

“You didn’t need to come,” Carl said as his mother went upstairs.

“Yes, I did. I’m so sorry, Carl,” Opal said.

“I meant him.”

Great. I didn’t want to be there and he didn’t want me there. This was going to be pleasant.

“He found Denny. I knew you’d have questions.”

His eyes flared, and he demanded, “Who killed him? Who killed Denny?”

“It was an overdose.”

“Were you there?”

“No. Of course not. I don’t do… meth.” Nor would I lower my standards enough to find people to have sex with while on?—

“Then how do you know he wasn’t murdered?”

He had me there. I wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but Denny was known to be an addict, was found in a location where people were known to be doing drugs, he was naked, and there didn’t seem to be any indication of another cause of death.

“The sheriff didn’t send Detective Lehmann. They don’t consider it a suspicious death.”

“The sheriff is an idiot. And he lives in Florida.”

“Well, there’s that,” I had to admit. “But, honestly…” And here a lie seemed appropriate. “He looked peaceful. I’m not sure people who are murdered look peaceful.”

Yes, he looked more surprised than peaceful. But surprised didn’t mean murdered either. Murdered would be terror, horror, anger… and mostly fear. There had been fear on Bobbie’s face and there had been none of that on Denny’s.

Ivy came down the stairs with a tray holding a pot of coffee, mugs, cream and sugar, and the cinnamon rolls. She put the tray down on the coffee table, and said, “Help yourselves.”

I put Emerald back in the car seat and sat down across from the coffee, poured myself a cup and put a roll on a napkin. I was starving. And if I’m being honest, still a bit groggy from the Ativan I’d had the night before.

“He was murdered,” Carl said to his mother.

I had a mouthful of cinnamon roll, so all I could do was shake my head and mumble, “I middn’t zay…”

“Let’s wait to see what the sheriff says,” Ivy said.