Page 22 of Sinful Sorrow

“The hospital administrators informed us of your release this morning,” Fletch tries, gentle. Calm. “We were happy to hear you’re doing okay.”

“Okay?” The woman walks ahead of us in a frumpy cardigan and a floor-length skirt that kind of reminds me of a tablecloth. Her hair is messy. Her face, swollen. It’s like she’s aged a decade in less than twenty-four hours. “I’m not okay, Detective.” She turns left, into what I discover is the kitchen, but she glances back and hits us with fiery, red-rimmed eyes. “My daughter was murdered last night. No parent will ever be okay after something like that.”

“Mom?” A younger girl, one of Naomi’s sisters, walks into her mother’s embrace and cuddles in as Fletch and I stop by the door. She looks to be about fifteen. Maybe sixteen. But the family resemblance between her and Naomi is strong.

Same cheekbones. Same eyes. Hair. Build. It’s easy to tell them apart—they’re not that similar—but it’s just as easy to know they share a biological connection.

“You’re the police?” She watches us warily. “You’re taking care of my sister?”

“I’m Detective Charlie Fletcher.” He takes a cautious, undemanding step forward. Careful not to spook either Wallace. “And that’s my partner, Detective Archer Malone. We’re part of the homicide division, and we’re here to help find out what happened to Naomi.”

“Homicide?” She nibbles on her bottom lip and looks me up and down. “That’s another word for murder, right?”

At that, her mother breaks and sobs, her chest heaving, but her body remains upright, it seems, purely because her daughter holds her.

“Do you know what happened yet?” The girl, whose name is either Sandra or Heather, according to the bios Fletch and I have pulled since last night, helps her mother to the table, overflowing with things—photo albums, paperwork, boxes of photos, and school reports—and sets her down.

“We were sorting through some of Naomi’s stuff.” Releasing her mom, the girl circles around and heads toward the old island counter that fills most of the small kitchen. Taking down a mug, she moves to the stove and starts a silver kettle, old style. “I’m Sandy. Middle child.” She snags a tea bag from the cupboard and drops it into the empty cup. “My mom got home an hour or so ago. She wanted to grab that stuff down from the closet and look at it all.”

“Is this Naomi?” Carefully, Fletch reaches for a photo sitting close to Patricia’s arm. Her eyes swell and spill over. They watch his hand, preparing to snatch back the image of her baby. But she doesn’t grab it. Doesn’t snap at him for touching. “And Mason?” He turns the photograph for Sandy and me to see. “They were pretty young here, huh?”

“About ten, I think.” Sandy hovers her hands over the kettle, warming them, though the room isn’t cold. “That was taken just outside. Near the mailbox.”

“They’ve known each other for a long time, right?”

“Their whole lives.” Shaky, Patricia brings her focus up and stares at Fletch through glistening eyes. “Their birthdays are just a few months apart. Mason is February,” she rasps. “And Naomi is June. I brought my baby home to this house, Detective. And Dora brought Mason home to hers next door.”

“Had a lot of playdates?” Fletch pulls a chair out at the table. Making himself at home. And yet, I see it more as him getting down on Patricia’s level. He’s meeting her where she is and not forcing her to look up. “I have a daughter. So I know that, often, I want to get her playing with other kids her age.”

“At first.” Patricia reaches to the middle of the table and snags a handful of tissues. Balling them, she brings them to her lips. “Back when they were young, Dora and I got along well enough. We let the kids play in the yard on nice days. We let them create cup phones and connect the houses.” She looks at me, “You know, with the string between both? Mason and Naomi’s rooms faced each other. And they were still only little. No cell phones yet. Everyone was fine with the string.”

“Did something happen in the later years?” Fletch asks. “You said you got along back then. Not so much anymore?”

She only shrugs, sniffling and wiping her nose until it burns red, raw. “Life just got away on us. Dora was busy with her stuff and I was busy with mine. Mason and Naomi were no longer playing in the street, so they didn’t need supervision like they did when they were little. Time just…” She shrugs again. “It happened. Before I knew it, months would pass between us even saying hi to each other. Usually when we were taking the trash out. Or collecting the mail. Or getting in or out of our cars.”

“Did you and your husband support Naomi and Mason’s relationship, Mrs. Wallace?” I lean against the counter and fold my arms. “Likewise, did Mr. and Mrs. Morgan support it?”

“Everyone was fine with it.” She blows her nose and fills her tissues. “I mean, it was cute at the start. They’d been inseparable for years, so no one was surprised. Things got a little tense in high school once we realized things were a little more…” She looks at Fletch. “Serious. It was natural, I suppose. A couple of sixteen-year-olds. It happens. So as the girl mom, I made sure to talk to my daughter—daughters,” she amends, looking at Sandra, “about safe sex. Condoms. Birth control. Consent. It was all discussed. And I assume, as parents to boys, the Morgans did the same. Naomi told me that Mason told her,” she pauses for a beat, smiling a little nostalgically, “it sounds so high school. Someone told someone who told someone else.” Swallowing, she looks down into her lap. “Naomi said that Mason’s parents gave him the talk around the same time we’d given hers. They mentioned condoms. The difficulties of co-parenting a child if things went awry. They focused on the career he had ahead of him, and how high school was just a blip in his life. So it was important he was making smart choices.”

“But both sets of parents liked the other partner?” Fletch presses. “You liked Mason, and the Morgans liked Naomi?”

“I think they tolerated her,” Sandy inserts, bringing three sets of eyes her way. She turns to the stove and lifts the boiling pot before it whistles. Then she pours. “Mason was here a lot. For dinner and stuff. But Naomi didn’t feel as welcome at his place.”

“They didn’t want her there?” Fletch questions.

“Not so much didn’t want her there. They just…” She glances up, shrugging. “It wasn’t as warm as it is here. We’re poor, Detectives, but at least we talk to each other. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan are corporate career driven. They had a cleaner. And often, a cook. They don’t have pictures on their walls, except for the few they had professionally taken. Like, the family empire, Schitt’s Creek style. It’s gaudy and cold in their house. Which is why Mason was always here.”

“There seems to be a distinct difference in economics,” Fletch tries again. “Respectfully. Typically, homes on the same street house similar families.”

“This street was one of the least developed in Copeland,” the girl explains. “Back, before I was born. Property prices were low, compared to everywhere else in the city. It was one of those worst houses on the best street type situations, but in our case, the worst street on this side of the city. My parents bought in. The Morgans bought in. Everyone else did, too. Our home is worth more now, but my dad didn’t become a lawyer, and my mom stayed home to raise us. Including,” she adds, pointing toward the wall. Which, I think, is her pointing toward Mason’s house. “Raising him, too. While Mrs. Morgan was working, my mom did school pickups. Mason was one of us a million times in my childhood. He was part of the family.”

“You don’t like them?” I turn to the girl and try to read her. Study her sharp eyes. Understand her mature vocabulary, despite her young age. “You hate them, Sandy?”

“I don’t hate them.” She adds a little honey to her tea, then picks up the cup and walks it around to her mother. “I don’t even dislike them. I just want you to figure out who hurt my sister. Which means you need all the information. Not the ‘everyone is being polite’ version. The Morgans are decent neighbors. They say hello when we’re outside. They would probably put our trash out if we were on vacation somewhere and they were here. They treated my sister well enough—she never complained to me about them—and they raised a nice son. But even if all that is true, it doesn’t mean they weren’t also more interested in their work than they were in the parenting part of having kids. They relied on my mom for afternoon child minding more times than I can count. They upgraded their SUV every year, while secretly pitying us for our two-thousand-and-two van. And if they had an event at their place, like for Christmas or whatever, we were rarely on their invite list. Not because they hated us. But because we didn’t meet the same aesthetic their other guests did.”

“Sandy—” Patricia scolds. “Enough.”

“It’s true!” She sets the tea down and heads back to where she started. “They’re snobs, and we’re still the worst house, but now this is the best street. If my parents hadn’t bought twenty years ago, there’s no way we could afford it now.”

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