Page 103 of Death on Riddle Road

“How should I know.Trust me, it wasn’t because I wanted them to.”

Okay, I wasn’t going to get him to say it was because the only number the prison — or Derrick, I’d bet — had was the seldom-used landline.I’d have liked the added confirmation, but pushed on.

“Emil, tell us about going to dinner with Derrick the night Jaylynn was killed.”

“We went to dinner.We came back to town.What’s there to tell?”

“You said he’d earlier told you he wanted to make his marriage with Jaylynn work.”

“Yeah.So?”

“Was it the truth?’

“That he said it?Yeah.”He sounded bored.“What difference does it make—?”

“And then you two went to dinner that night.Was that your idea?”

“No.Derrick said—” His boredom flushed away.He jerked his head toward a corner of the room.“He said she told him to go to dinner with me.”

“She—” Several voices started.

I spoke over them.“What about the receipt, Emil?”

“The receipt?”

“From that dinner.”I tried hard to keepthe man’s an idiotimpatience out of my voice.

“I kept it.He said— Hey.Hey, that’s right.He said she said to keep it.And she asked me about it later, too.”

“You’re only remembering that now, you prime idiot—” Beverly caught her anger in clenched fists.“So she tried to give Derrick an alibi by making sure Emil kept the receipt, but—”

“After the fact, to help my husband,” Dova said.“I didn’t know what he planned.”

Beverly wasn’t having it.“—you didn’t make it stick and stopped trying, handing him over when all the time it wasyou.”

Clearly Olive and Payloma hadn’t previously followed the breadcrumbs of suspicion as fast as Beverly.Both gasped and spun to Dova, chorusing.“You?”

“Her,” Beverly insisted.

Yale joined Beverly with, “I knew it.”

Payloma said.“You stole Derrick and youshotJaylynn.You—”

“Killed my son,” Beverly said.

Because, as Clara and I had imaginatively sketched for Quebec Ferguson, Derrick had suspected or recognized Dova’s guilt in the murder of Jaylynn.If we could get her to say it.The others didn’t appear to need proof.

“My girl,” Olive wailed.“You...you—”

Emil said with some admiration mixed in, “You crafty—”

“Bitch,” Payloma finished for him and her mother.

Neither set of in-laws looked at Robbie.

I’d stationed myself to block the sightline between Dova and him.

Mamie put her hand in his.