Page 73 of Death on Riddle Road

The staff atthe café, who’d already seen us once today, didn’t blink at our return.

Not only that, but they gave us the table in the back corner with the maximum privacy.Clara and I sat side by side facing the room.Both so we could spot Evan Ferguson when he arrived and so he would be harder to spot and overhear for anyone else.

“I was thinking while I was in the shower getting ready to come here...”I wasn’t going to tell her my writing thoughts...or my Teague thoughts.And it wasn’t the most scintillating preamble.

But it did the trick.

“What were you thinking?”she obligingly asked.

“What’s a recurring theme from everyone we’ve talked to who was at the hospice center that morning?”I quickly narrowed it to, “What most surprised them about it?”

“You mean besides a man who was going to die soon anyway being murdered?At least after Rose Gleiner insisted hehadbeen murdered.”

I confirmed her assumption with a nod.

She gave it a sip of water’s worth of contemplation.

“I’m tempted to say Robbie being upset, then leaving.But, really, would that be so unusual?A kid who’d just lost his father, even if that father had been convicted of murder.”

I didn’t intrude on her cogitations as she slowly lifted the glass to her lips again.

“So, I’d have to say what seemed to surprise them most was Dova losing it.Got to admit, I’d sort of like to see that myself.Partly curiosity.But also that mean girl part of me that wants to see the Homecoming Queen break a heel.”

“There is no mean girl part in you, Clara.”

She grinned.“Sure there is.I try not to indulge it much.But why did you ask about what surprised people the most?”

“Wanted to know if you formed the same impression I did from their comments — you did.And then I had this other thought — what if she lost it at the hospice for a reason?”

Clara frowned.“Of course she had a reason.She was upset about Robbie being upset and that the hospice called him.He’s her son and he’s young to have that sort of thing dumped in his lap.”

“I should have said purpose, instead of reason.That she came across as being beside herself for a purpose.”

Clara frowned.“I know you have something in mind, but I don’t see...”After a couple beats, she shook her head.“I don’t see what her purpose could have been.”

In that instant, I regretted bringing it up.She wasn’t ready to see the possibility.She’d say absolutely no way, which would make her resistant to ever seeing the possibility.

Not consciously, because that wasn’t Clara.But resistance to shifting perspective was human nature and the resistance hardened once the human declared another perspective as an impossibility.

It was back to the two-way image of the crone or the young woman from another age in a Derby hat.Some people got stuck on one image and never could refocus to see the existence of the other.

Much less my still murky and unformed third alternative.Or was it fourth?Fifth?

But I couldn’t drop it.Not only would it drive my friend nuts, but it wasn’t partner-like.I’d brought it up, time to spill.At least some.

“What if she was protecting Robbie?”

“Of course she was.From the tragedy of his father’s murder—”

“No.I mean...What if she was distracting everyone from Robbie?How he was reacting.”

“Oh.”She extended the syllable as she absorbed one interpretation.“Because it was so raw for him.Because, being a guy, and specially a young one, he’d be embarrassed later to have been so emotional.”

Not the interpretation I had in mind.

Crossroads.

Did I share the inkling of a thought at the back of my mind?Or did I not, shielding her from something I knew she wouldn’t like?