Page 55 of Death on Riddle Road

“Did she?”

“Yeah, I can’t describe it exactly, but I noticed it, too.Had to concentrate to keep my focus on what she was saying and not that.”

“Yeah,” she said with relief.“That was it — finding myself not listening to what she was saying.I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t hanging on every word.”

Without consulting each other, we paused in front of the door marked 127.Derrick Dorrio’s room.

Clara moved to block anyone’s view as I reached out and tried the doorknob.

Finding anything would be a long shot, with the hospice staff, the family, and the sheriff’s department all here ahead of us.

The doorknob didn’t budge.

“Locked,” I murmured.We didn’t get the chance at the long shot.

We continued down the hall, as an aide came around the corner.

“May I help you?”the woman asked.

Clara smiled at her.“That’s so kind of you.We were talking with Derrick Dorrio’s family, but they had to leave and now the door has locked.”

The aide’s pale eyes went past us, presumably looking at the door.

“The sheriff’s department locked it,” she said, faintly apologetic.

“We understand.Did you care for Derrick?”Clara’s question drew a nod.“Talking with his family—Did they all come together to see him?”

“No, no, no.That would have been entirely too much for him.His parents came together, mostly.Then the wife.The son...”She shook her head.“She really wanted to protect that boy, didn’t want him to suffer, which does her credit.And she mostly succeeded.”

“Mostly?”

She clucked her tongue.“The boy was here on his own once.After hours, it was, and took some working around.But how could anyone have the heart to shoo him out?Not like with that mother.Not Dova, but the patient’s mother, Beverly.”

Ah, the aide was not a fan.

“She came alone?”

“She did.Twice that I know of.Interfered with routine both times.That upsets the patients.They need routine.Visitors can upset that anytime, if it comes to that.But they’re not thinking about that.Wanting closure and all that.The patients can become...unsettled and having lots of people around makes it worse.Especially—”

She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

I might have tried to shake more words out of her.Clara’s quiet, “Especially what?”worked better.

“There was yelling.His mother and his wife, both here quite late the night before he died and—”

“You mean just a few hours before or—”

“No, no.The night before that.But well after dinner, like I said.I’d seen the mother and tried to get her to leave, but she said she needed to talk to her son and she wasn’t going anywhere until he woke up.So, I left her there.Maybe I shouldn’t have, but it was busier than usual with Rose off and...”

“It would have been hard-hearted not to have let her stay,” Clara said firmly.

The aide pulled in a breath.“I looked in about an hour later and she was still there, dozing in a chair and he was still resting comfortably.Next thing I knew, I heard raised voices and I rushed in there, because it had to be bothering nearby patients.It’s a miracle he didn’t wake up with them arguing about whether his son should come to see his father or not — the grandmother saying absolutely yes and the mother saying it was up to him.I had to be, well, quite firm with them.Made them both leave.Right then.”

She breathed a little heavily as if coming through that ordeal again.

“And then, with it not even first light, I went in again and there was the boy.His son.Alone.”

“What happened?”