Page 52 of Death on Riddle Road

“When people are in a lot of pain, sometimes they lash out at the people they love the most,” Clara said gently.“At some level they know the love won’t end.”

I wondered if she’d experienced that with her mother-in-law.

“Oh, no,” Mamie said.“She was never mean to Robbie.Never.But those first days, I thought she hated me.Not just didn’t like me, but trulyhatedme.Gramps found me crying one time and he was ready to say I couldn’t see Robbie anymore.That’s why we were keeping it secret when I met you, because Gramps thought Robbie...but it was never him.Not ever.And after she got out of the hospital it got better.”

“Your relationship with Dova since then has been okay?”

“More than okay,” she said emphatically.“Because we both love him.Only she’s loved him all along.He says all the time that he doesn’t know what he’d do without his mom.That she always said it was the two of them against the world.”Pink surged into her cheeks and the corners of her mouth tucked in, like she was fighting a smile.“Until he met me.Now he knows there’s someone else who’ll always have his back.”

Worry erased the hint of a smile.“Except these past days.He’s been so...different.I mean...I know his father died, of course I know that,” she said hurriedly, “and maybe I don’t understand because my father was never around and my mother was in and out of rehab, so Gramps was...Guess you could say my safe place.Always.So, I know I need to be understanding and—”

“Mamie.”

Robbie stood nearby.None of us had heard him coming.

“Come sit here, Robbie.”Clara stood, offering her spot and moved around to sit next to me.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he dropped down next to Mamie.

Clearly, he meant it for her, not for interrupting us.

She slid her hand into his.He shifted to intertwine their fingers.

“Mamie was telling us about yesterday morning, when your father died,” I said deliberately.

He didn’t react.

“She was telling us about the phone call at your house, when the two of you were going to hang out.”Clara’s spate of words — clearly designed to smooth over my directness didn’t bother me.He’d already reacted by not reacting.“You still have a landline?”

“I know,” Mamie said, “isn’t that wild?I didn’t even know what it was at first.”

Robbie’s lips twitched.Closest thing to a lightening in his expression we’d seen.“Yeah.We don’t use it much, but Mom decided to leave it in until she does a remodel.Doesn’t want patches and stuff on the walls.”

A silence descended.

I caught Clara’s gaze and apparently was successful in encouraging her not to fill it, because it extended.

Mamie focused on Robbie’s hand.

Eventually, he shifted his shoulders.Then, slowly, he looked up — at the wall with a bad painting of a meadow, instead of us — but up nonetheless.

“You two finding stuff out?”he asked.

Clara left the lead to me.“First, we’re talking to a lot of people.Like your grandmother and aunt — on your maternal side.You know they took care of you a lot when you were a baby.”

“I guess.”

A pause.

“Because she left me to go back to work.”

Another pause.

“I don’t remember them.”

If a fourth statement was coming, it was so far behind the first three as to be disconnected.

I said, offhandedly, “Heard you ran into your aunt — Payloma Carnell — not too long ago.”