Page 92 of Death on Riddle Road

Her brows popped up over widened eyes.“She’s certainly the reason we got involved.”

“Combined with your soft heart.”

She waved that off.“But how else is she a recurring pattern?”

“She was with Robbie when he got the phone call about his father.She was with Robbie at the hospice center.She was with Robbie when he rushed out.”

“You’re not saying—Are you saying—?You can’t mean—”

“I’m not saying she was involved with the murder.I’m notnotsaying it, either.My point is, we don’t know.”

“But—”

“Not for certain.I know she’s nice.I know she seems sweet.But to look into a murder we have to look into everything.”

“I was going to say, but she asked us to look into this and if she’s involved, that wouldn’t make sense.Although, I also know sometimes murderers do things like that to throw off the investigators.”From the height of dignity, she slid down to her usual manner to add, “Although sheisnice and sheissweet.And you can see how much she cares about Robbie, so unless she thought that killing his father would protect him somehow...Especially since she’d have to know it would upset him—”

“Though she has said she’s surprised by how upset he’s been.”

“But she wouldn’t have wanted to upset him even to the extent she could have expected, much less how much he’s actually upset.”

I unexpectedly remembered my late-night prep of the spare key, even though I hadn’t decided to give it to Teague.Even though I hadn’t put into clear words thequestionof whether I would or should give a house key to Teague.

“I wonder if Robbie even knows what he’s upset about.”

Clara cut a look at me.“You mean there’s him being upset about his father being murdered — the sort of normal upset, if you can call it that.And then something else?Something more?”

“Maybe.”

We sat in silence for several minutes, tracking the erratic paths of the dogs as they chased and caught and chased again.

I wasn’t ready to tell Clara about giving Teague the key, so I also couldn’t tell her about my below-the-surface-of-my-conscious-brain wanderings while preparing it.

Why wasn’t I ready to tell her?

The answer surfaced in my conscious brain all too readily.

In case he gave it back after I told him about my past.

“Not just maybe.Probably.”Clara’s words jerked my thoughts back from Teague to what we’d been talking about.“It explains why Robbie’s upsetness seems...out of rhythm, the timing off, just a little.Like when the audio of a movie gets out of sync with the visual.”

I wanted to hug her.Not only for not calling me nuts, but for putting her finger on what had been bothering me.

“That’s it, exactly.His timing has been slightly off.And that could be because—”

“He’s upset about something beyond or in addition to his father’s murder,” she concluded.“But what?”

“I have a thought about that.”

****

She stared atme a moment, then frowned nearly as ferociously as she had at Emil Dorrio.

“You can’t mean...When you hesitated before...Were you thinking Dova was covering forRobbie?Because she believeshekilled his father?No.No, no, no.You’re wrong.He didn’t.”

I knew it wouldn’t go over well with her, but at last it was out.

“Why do you say that?Because he’s a kid?Because it will break Mamie’s heart?And Dova’s?None of that is proof, Clara.”