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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“You cannot stop there,” Clara declared after a couple beats of silence.

Rose huffed out a breath. “I suppose you’ll find out soon enough. Donna told me she’s already heard. Granted she hears most things early, but it will get out to the general population soon enough.”

I could tell Clara wanted to object to being lumped into the general population , but I waggled my fingers at her below Rose Gleiner’s line of sight. We could be insulted later.

“What did kill him?” I asked bluntly.

Maybe she appreciated bluntness, because she answered.

“A pillow.”

“A pillow?” Clara repeated. “A pillow? How—Oh. Over his face?”

Like a haze rising from a pond on a cold day, I saw Rose Gleiner’s caustic of course over his face wreathed around her head.

I cut in. “How can you be sure?”

“Sure? Sure is up to the coroner. What I was was observant. First, I observed petechiae around his eyes. Petechiae display as tiny red dots. They are blood vessels made visible because of an abrupt increase in blood pressure into them.”

We both knew about petechiae. Neither of us mentioned that. The sacrifices we made to keep someone talking...

“They do not, in themselves, indicate suffocation, however. There can be many causes for petechiae—”

“Strangulation,” Clara muttered, closer to umbrage than I’d expected. She might have seen that caustic wreath rising, too.

“Strangulation,” Rose concurred. “Some patients exhibit petechiae from vomiting, coughing, childbirth — it’s the straining. The autopsy determines the cause.”

“But then how did you know about the pillow?” Clara had returned to her getting-the-most-out-of-people.

“I don’t use that kind of pillow for my patients.

Ever. Soft, fluffy. The kind designed for a hotel,” she said with disdain.

In addition, I keep the number of pillows at two per patient, while this was a third pillow.

And—” Her tone conveyed this was the clincher.

“—it did not have a pillow protector on it. Pillows for my patients are always to have protectors on them for adequate hygiene and all the aides know that. There have been stretches, with some new employees when it’s been unsatisfactory, but our current roster is fully compliant.

“There was a third pillow on that bed and it was not from the hospice’s stock.”

****

“Wouldn’t someone be seen walking in with a pillow?” Clara asked once we were settled in the vehicle.

“We should try to track that down. Clara—” I looked at her. “—I am going to tell Teague about the pillow. Maybe he already knows, but if he doesn’t, he needs to.”

“But—”

I held up a hand. “They probably have the actual pillow. We have to hope they do, because how could we even try to track it to a suspect? They have the resources to research pillows. We don’t.”

She contemplated that a moment. “You’re right.”

“I’ll call him and—”

“Besides, it might keep them busy and out of our way,” she added with satisfaction as I got him on the phone.

“Teague, we have something to tell you,” I said into the phone.

“Not me,” Clara said loud enough that he’d hear her through the speakerphone. “I’m going home. You can go to Sheila’s and get the scoop.”

“Sorry. No time. What do you have to tell me?”

“You have to eat,” Clara called out, shifting from standoffish to concerned. “Sheila will bring you some dinner.”

****

If anyone else hearing Clara’s statement about me bringing Teague dinner thought home-cooked meal, I was confident he didn’t.

I’m not a terrible cook, but have a limited repertoire.

Especially spur of the moment. As much as he likes it, I didn’t think he’d appreciate seven-layer dip and tacos while he was working.

Not only is it dangerous (drips and stains), but it’s the sort of dish you eat over a long period of time, not during a compact dinner break.

I picked up a salad at Shep’s Market, then headed to our favorite Chinese place for takeout, having called on the way.

As usual, there was a line. Three people ahead of me and two back from the counter I spotted Emil Dorrio.

In that instant, I became the penultimate customer.

Urban Parhem walked up and stopped just behind me.

We exchanged slightly awkward hellos.

After an even more awkward pause, I asked abruptly, “Are you familiar with Kentucky Manor? Out on Riddle Road?”

“Oh, the hospice care.” His eyes sharpened. He knew about the murder. And guessed at our involvement.

“Right. Named for the ultimate riddle of life and death?”

No humor showed through as he said, “Not at all.”

“Someone was riddled by bullets?”

“I don’t know why you would assume that,” he said stiffly, not back to our previous friendly footing when he would have already answered.

But no matter what our footing, he didn’t have cause to stick his nose in the air considering some of North Bend County’s history.

“The road’s name stemmed from another meaning of the word,” he said, “involving removing ashes from a fire. Wood stoves generally have a riddle plate, which facilitates that process, though some still use a sieve. There was a small woodstove manufacturer located there a century or so ago, and they — of course — made riddle plates.”

“Of course.”

“Though,” he allowed with a faint thawing as his interest caught fire, “it could, by some, have seemed appropriate as a reference to the funereal riddle.”

“Funereal riddle,” I repeated, trying to place why the term sounded familiar.

“A young woman is attending her mother’s funeral.

She encounters a man there whom she has not previously met.

He’s charming and handsome and she wants to know him better, but she is otherwise occupied with the events of the funeral.

When her duties are over, he’s gone. Her solution is to kill her sister. Why?”

I’d heard this before, thanks to Kit.

“He was the grim reaper. But, really, charming and handsome? And why doesn’t she kill herself if she wants to know him well?”

A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “They say that if you can answer that riddle quickly, you’re a sociopath.”

“That never made sense to me, either. Why would a sociopath get the riddle right?”

We’d advanced during this exchange. Emil had picked up his order and now turned for the door.

As he passed us, without making eye contact, much less acknowledging either of us with even a mumbled hello, he ripped the stapled receipt off the bag, balled it up in his hand, then dropped it on the floor.

“Typical,” Urban said under his breath. He bent over to pick up the receipt. When he straightened, he asked me, “Why are you frowning?”

“Am I?”

“You are.”

I shook my head. “I guess at Emil being a litterbug. Or maybe it’s like with a baby — some gas.”

He chuckled slightly. The closest either of us had come to expressing amusement around the other in weeks.

“Emil has that effect on many people. Likely including his cousin in his last days.”

“Derrick? Why would he feel that way?”

“Emil tried to stop his release from prison to hospice.”

“He did?” My surprise skidded my voice up and turned a couple heads toward me. I lowered my voice to add, “Are you sure?”

“Yes. He was vehement in his opposition.”

“Do Beverly and Yale know?”

“Not that I’m aware of. He did it within county leadership circles they have not been part of since Derrick’s conviction. But I understand Dova was aware.”

Possibly through Dova’s connections, if Berrie was right.

What neither of them said was it was, in essence, anti -political.

Having met Emil, I ruled out a refined sense of justice as a motive for his efforts to leave Derrick in prison for his final days, which just happened to pose less chance of their last name popping up in the news.