Page 22 of Obsession

“Yes. I’m conducting interviews with Robbie Hammond.”

She eyes me for a second before stepping aside and letting me enter her home. “I expected someone older.”

My smile is genuine as I take in her small but cozy hallway. “That’s what most people say.”

“The kitchen is through there.” She motions ahead, then walks past me.

Photographs of Mrs. Ashton’s family line the walls.

“My kids are grown now,” she states with a soft smile in the doorway. “The eldest is pregnant with her second child.”

“You have a beautiful family.”

I follow her into the kitchen, where flowery curtains frame the square windows, the marble countertops gleam in the sunshine as though they’ve been recently wiped down, and the sputtering coffeepot in the corner fills the air with a warm, welcoming aroma. A vase of fresh lilies sits proudly in the center of the table.

Pulling out a chair, I take a seat and look around the cozy room while Mrs. Ashton pours us each a cup of coffee.

“It’s hard to imagine the boy I knew doing such horrible things.” She takes a seat across from me.

I watch her blow on her coffee, trying to picture her as the younger woman she was back then. Smile lines crease her eyes when she offers me a soft smile.

“What was he like?” I ask.

“Quiet.” She puts the coffee down and smooths out the tablecloth. Age spots dot the top of her hand amongst the protruding veins beneath the saggy skin, and her trimmed nails are painted a soft mauve color.

My chest grows tight at seeing the sadness in her eyes.

“He came from a bad home. We all knew it.” She takes a sip of her steaming coffee to allow her a moment to get her feelingsunder control. When she looks at me again, her eyes glisten with tears.

“I’m led to believe Mr. Jones raised his concerns.”

She nods, gripping the cup in both hands. “He did, but nothing came from it. Robbie was rarely in school.” A tired sigh escapes her. “I know it sounds bad, but we lived in a bad neighborhood. Most, if not all, kids had terrible home lives.”

“His mother put him through systematic abuse.” There’s no point sugarcoating the truth, and by the way that Mrs. Ashton winces, I know it hurts her. “She beat him and tortured him both mentally and physically.”

Mrs. Ashton sets the cup down with shaky hands, the coffee threatening to spill over. “Trust me, if I could go back and change things, I would.”

“Do you think his home life caused him to kill?”

“This is off the record, right?”

“Like I said on the phone, anything you say to me stays between us. I won’t write about this conversation.”

“So why did you make the trip here?” she asks, studying my face. “Why make the effort?”

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly, as a crow caws outside. “Maybe I’m trying to understand the man I sit across from for an hour every week.”

She studies me for a moment longer before standing up and rooting through the cupboards. A moment later, a plate of biscuits is placed in front of me. “Yes, I think his mother is responsible for his impulses.”

“What makes you say that?” I reach for a biscuit to be polite.

“Robbie was a sweet boy. One of the sweetest.”

“You said he was quiet.”

She bites into a biscuit, wipes crumbs from her mouth, and dunks it in her coffee. “He was very quiet, but we put it down to the other kids teasing him. It’s hard to imagine now,considering…” She drifts off, visibly swallowing. “Back then, he never hurt anyone.”

I watch her absentmindedly eat her biscuit as though she’s lost in memories of the past. “You cared for him.”