Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

“Start by telling me what you know about the death of Robbie’s father.”

“Not much — yet. I first heard Derrick Dorrio was killed this morning when a neighbor stopped me while I was walking LuLu — I wanted to give her a long walk because I wasn’t sure you’d get Gracie to the dog park today with Kit flying out.

Anyway, this neighbor said he’d been found dead early this morning at the hospice that’s part of Kentucky Manor, out there between Stringer—”

The biggest town in the county, close to the interstate, and southeast of Haines Tavern, the county seat and where we both lived.

“—and the dog park. This time of year, with all the leaves gone, its green roof sticks out.”

I often spotted the roof during our visits to the dog park, but had another association with it.

“Kentucky Manor? That has hospice, too?” I knew it had independent living, assisted living, and memory care units.

During the first murder Clara and I looked into together, we’d met a friend of her grandmother who was a resident and we visited her now and then, always with a dog or two.

We limited our visits to the occasions when the dogs had mostly worn themselves out at the dog park yet hadn’t picked up half the mud in the county.

“Uh-huh. It’s sort of isolated in that wing off the back — the side closer to Stringer. It even has a separate entrance that faces Riddle Road.”

“Riddle Road,” I repeated.

“Uh-huh,” she said absently.

I’d had previous occasions to point out this county’s propensity for strangely named byways to Clara, but since she never found them odd, I passed up this new opportunity.

I had another source for information on the origins of North Bend County’s strange street names, but I wasn’t inclined to ask Urban Parhem.

For reasons.

He was, in essence, the North Bend County Historical Society, though officially it existed as a separate organization and even had its own tiny building. Without Urban, I doubted it would continue to function, however, and I’d have missed out on a lot of local history.

But he’d withheld information when we — Clara, Kit, and I — looked into a death at the local B&B before Christmas.

So had Fern, an octogenarian I knew from the Beguiling Way Yoga Studio.

Now, I realized that withholding wouldn’t affect my relationship with Fern.

That was because I more than half expected Fern to withhold information, if not outright mislead, if it suited her.

In a way, it was part of her... well, not charm . That’s far too sweet for Fern. More like her appeal . The way an astringent vinegar can be just what a recipe needs, I had no expectations of good behavior from Fern.

But Urban...

I mean, he had told me of his past connections to people involved in that inquiry. Eventually. Though not until, in fact, Fern told me to go talk to him and he knew I couldn’t be put off.

The upshot was, if trust hadn’t been broken, it sure had been stretched.

We’d talked — briefly — afterward, but not since.

So, popping into the Historical Society building to ask how Kentucky Manor, where someone had been murdered in the hospice wing, came to have an address on Riddle Road would feel... awkward.

Clara, unencumbered by such considerations, continued, “Then, after talking with that neighbor and before I went to Shep’s Market, I stopped by the post office and Ruby told me what she knew.”

Ruby Zweydorf ran the post office, as well as being a hub for news and gossip.

“Derrick Dorrio’s death was about to be accepted as natural, but one of the hospice staff insisted it wasn’t and got the sheriff’s department called in.

Ruby said the hospice administrator was fit to be tied over that.

Especially because Kentucky Manor wanted to keep it real quiet that Derrick Dorrio was there at all.

Thought they’d slip him in, let him die peacefully, then bury him quietly, with no one the wiser.

Of course, with him being murdered, there was no chance of that. It was all over town right away.”

Presumably the hospice administrator’s desire for secrecy was because having a murderer — even a dying one — in the next room wasn’t a selling point for families searching for peaceful hospice care for their loved ones.

“I mean, they’re used to people dying — they have to be, don’t they? — but the idea of someone being murdered there? From everything I heard, the administrator was verklempt .”

Clara must have been watching Saturday Night Live reruns again with Mike Myers’ Coffee Talk sketches. As far as I knew, that was her only contact with Yiddish slang.

“But Ruby said the person telling her about it also said the staff member wouldn’t budge on requiring an investigation.”

“What made the staff member suspect it wasn’t a natural death? Was he shot or stabbed or—”

Clara shook her head. “I don’t know. But you’d think if he’d been shot or stabbed no one would resist calling the sheriff’s department in, not even an administrator worried about the place’s reputation.”

“Right. That’s something we’ll need to dig into. What else do you know about Derrick Dorrio’s death? Mamie must have told you something.”

“Not much. It was hard to make out anything around the sobs.” Clara tipped her head, remembering.

“The hospice called the house — where Robbie and his mother live — first thing this morning. He and Mamie were there alone. They planned to hang out together, what with no school today. She did say she’d just arrived.

I got the feeling she wanted it clear she hadn’t been there overnight. Maybe for Alan’s sake.”

Understandable that Alan — Mamie’s grandfather and owner of the flower shop — didn’t want her reputation to include overnight stays with Robbie, even if he was okay with them dating.

“Robbie answered the phone and the hospice told him to get there right away. Apparently, the hospice called Dova next — that’s his mother.

His step-mother officially, but Mamie calls her Robbie’s mother, probably because he does.

She called Robbie and Mamie on their way to Kentucky Manor.

Mamie said Dova told them to go home, that she’d take care of everything, but they were nearly there, so they went anyway.

Mamie said Dova was really upset when she got to the hospice. Really going after people.”

“Because Derrick had been murdered,” I assumed.

She frowned. “Before they knew that, I think. From what Mamie said, Dova was upset the hospice people talked to Robbie directly. Kept saying they shouldn’t have said anything to him, should have only talked to her. I suppose she’s particularly protective of him, considering the history.”

I accepted that invitation to detour to the past.

“Right, the history. What happened with the death of the first wife, the one Derrick was convicted of killing?”

“It was tragic. Poor Robbie. He was only a baby and—”

“A baby?” My memory by this time had dredged up an image of Mamie’s boyfriend from our earlier encounter — a tall teenager with shiny hair flopping over his forehead.

Oh, right. Teague said the first wife’s murder was seventeen years ago.

“All over the news, of course, after she was found in her car, with Robbie in the baby seat in back.”

I might have sucked in a breath, because she nodded. “I know. Can you imagine? Sitting right there, seeing his momma shot. Thank heavens, too young to remember.”

“And he wasn’t harmed?”

“Not a scratch. Though they didn’t know that at first, because her blood... Well, you can imagine.”

“Who found her? Wait — we can’t keep calling her her . Maybe you mentioned it, but what was her name?”

“Jaylynn. Jaylynn Carnell Dorrio. A patrol officer found her. But not right away. I didn’t remember about that, but Ruby reminded me — I was young enough when it happened that I didn’t pay real close attention then.”

In other words, before her pastimes involved digging into murders with me.

Oblivious to the twinge of guilt that crackled through me, she continued, “Ruby remembered that there was a lot of discussion about a delay in finding Jaylynn. Not that she could have survived, but the baby wouldn’t have been sitting there in that horror.

Someone in the area called in about hearing a sound.

“They told 911 they couldn’t swear it was a shot. That meant it wasn’t prioritized. Plus, it happened in a rural area, so the sheriff’s department could’ve thought it was a stray shot.”

“Could it have been an accident—?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember those details either, but Ruby was adamant it was deliberate — Jaylynn was targeted. I couldn’t follow up with her, because other people came into the post office then.”

Her tone could be interpreted as The nerve of those people interrupting her discussion with Ruby to transact post office business.

“You said a rural area. Near where she lived?”

“Not right around the corner, exactly, but Ruby said it was the most direct route to the school where Jaylynn taught — she’d gone back after maternity leave — from where she and Derrick lived, not far from her mother and sister.”

“She was on the way to work?”

“Oh, no. She was shot at night. Around eleven o’clock, I think. I can check that.”

I put the pieces together as I spoke them aloud.

“So, she took Robbie — surely asleep at that time of night — from home, put him in the back of her vehicle... But why? No matter what pushed her to drive that route at night, why take her baby? Why not leave him with her mother or sister since they lived nearby? Or, better yet, have one of them come over so he could stay in bed.”

She was nodding before I finished. “They weren’t available to take care of him, they both worked night shifts at the hospital.

They made a point of it that Derrick knew they were working nights, knew Jaylynn wouldn’t have had the opportunity to drop Robbie off to a family member and say, Oh, I’m going to help Derrick out — something the family could have testified to after the murder. ”

“I suppose.”

“But you’re thinking of something else.” She sounded hopeful that my something else would point away from Derrick.

I couldn’t pin down why, but I felt irritated.

“I guess... maybe...” The jumble in my head found words. “Would a devoted father have left his baby sitting in the back of the car with his mother’s dead body for—How long was he there?”

“I’d have to look at the stories again, but I think.

.. an hour, more? A devoted father couldn’t do that and before Jaylynn’s death, everybody said Derrick was really involved with the baby.

Even after the murder, they said at least Robbie would still have one parent who loved him completely.

It wasn’t until the trial that people started saying it was all part of a set-up by Derrick, an act, building an image so nobody would think he could do what he was accused of doing.

And how cold that was of him — to use his own son that way. ”

Ah, now I knew what irritated me.

It was the idea of Clara having a solution she wanted to be true and working from that conclusion.

Kit’s voice in my head screamed to start from evidence and find the solution based on it, not to torture facts to fit an opinion.

“The killer could have been anyone who figured Robbie couldn’t be a witness, so why kill him,” she continued. “Because the baby — Robbie — wasn’t physically hurt doesn’t mean the killer had to be Derrick.

“You’ve been a proponent of Derrick Dorrio’s innocence—”

“I hadn’t thought about it much, to tell the truth.

” Until, I suspected, Mamie cried on her shoulder.

“I guess I hope he was innocent, for Robbie’s sake, because how absolutely awful to have had your father kill your mother — your birth mother.

Because even though he’s had a good and loving mother in Dova, Jaylynn did give birth to him.

Plus, if Derrick didn’t kill Jaylynn that means. ..”

“Jaylynn’s murderer is still out there.”

But her thought was different. “It means Robbie’s father was in prison all these years for no reason. That poor kid.”