Page 50 of Death on Riddle Road

“Mamie, what’s wrong?”

The girl sucked in a sob.

Clara opened her arms and Mamie went into them.Between sobs, she emitted phrases about being silly and selfish.Clara patted her back.

“Let’s go someplace else, someplace we can talk,” I suggested.

Mamie pivoted and opened the door.Without a word, she led us down a hallway, then into an intersecting one, with rooms on either side all along.Most had closed doors, but two of the open ones revealed family groups around a bed with quiet conversation and even soft laughter.

At the end of the second hallway, a nub of a space held two love seats, a low table with photography books, and a quintet of single chairs.

Mamie and Clara sat on one love seat, I sat across from them.

“Sorry,” Mamie said, her head down low enough that her hair hid much of her face.“I didn’t mean to fall apart like that.”

“Nonsense.You didn’t fall apart.”Bracingly Clara added, “When you called, you said you wanted to talk to us and that Robbie’s here.”

Good guess he was associated with the tears, without outright asking.

“He is.Somewhere, but...Robbie got real impatient and told me to go.I didn’t, then he walked away.I stayed, but he didn’t come back.It was kind of creepy and I don’t know where he is or...”

She seemed prone to another gush of tears.

I echoed yoga advice.“Breathe in through your nose, then slowly out through your nose.”I had no idea if it would help someone whose high school boyfriend’s convicted-murderer father was recently murdered, but it let me hold positions longer.Worth a try.

Mamie’s tears abated and her air-gulping slowed.

I ventured a question.“Where were you that was kind of creepy?”

“Oh.In Robbie’s father’s room.His former room.”

“Which room is that?”

“One-Twenty-Seven.”Her shoulders shuddered slightly.“I didn’t know that’s what he had in mind.I thought maybe he was going to ask questions, you know?But he went straight to the room.”

“Wasn’t it blocked off as a crime scene?”

She shook her head.“A nurse said the tape was taken down this morning.It still needed cleaning and stuff, but she said we could go in.I thought maybe...”

“Maybe what?”Clara asked gently.

Mamie shook her head, but still answered.“Maybe he wanted a memento or something of his father.There wasn’t much there.Hardly anything, really, except a small frame with a photo of Robbie — at least I think it was Robbie — as a little kid.I thought for sure he’d take it, but after staring at it for a while, he turned away and started looking through the other stuff — you know, clothes and pajamas and things like that.”

Remembering the recent conversation about drugs, I eased in with, “Toiletries, too?”

“I guess, I heard him opening and closing the cabinet in the attached bathroom.”

“What about medicines?”

“Oh, no.Those weren’t there anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“There’d been a tray on a stand near the bed with bottles and things yesterday.I saw it while that nurse kept us out of the room while she closed and blocked the door, but...”Her gaze lost focus.“I’m pretty sure one of the nurses took the tray away during the yelling.”

“Which nurse?”

She frowned.“Not the one blocking the door, because that’s when Robbie and Dova realized she was the one insisting the authorities be called—”