Page 39 of Death on Riddle Road
“Doubts?”Payloma went to her chair and sat with a flounce.
That finally allowed Clara and me to advance into the room and stand a normal distance apart instead of huddled at the doorway.
“Exactly,” Clara said.“Plus, if that’s not so — if hedidn’tkill your sister — this is probably your only chance to find out who did.Because when he’s buried, the case will be, too.”
A flicker told me she recognized the fib in her words.The case wouldn’t be buried.She wouldn’t let it go.She wouldn’t let me let it go.Maybe I wouldn’t even let it go.And then there was the sheriff’s department and Teague not letting it go.
But Clara didn’t let the fib interrupt her flow.
“Either way, talking to us is your very best way to help assure justice for Jaylynn.Because, of course, that’s what you want more than anything else.”
Olive sobbed suddenly and sank deeper into the large chair, grasping a piece of paper towel from a roll on the narrow table between the chairs as she went.
“My girl, my girl,” she moaned.“She was an angel.Cruelly snatched away from me.Never to see her again.Not to have her comfort and love in my old age.Not to have that grandbaby in my life.Her baby.Her poor, sweet baby.That poor, poor baby.”Sobs took over from words.
“That kid’s done all right for himself.”Another grumble from Payloma.
“Oh, do you see your nephew, Robbie, regularly?”
“Hah.As ifshe’dlet us get anywhere near him.”Clearly a reference to Dova by Payloma.“She’s as bad as those stuffed owls, the Dorrios.How they ever got naked long enough to have a kid is beyond me.”
The paper towel shifted, revealing her mother’s smirk, a moment of unity and approval Payloma didn’t seem to notice.
“Especially one who looked like Derrick did when Jaylynn snagged him.He was a hottie back in school — I was a year younger than them—”
“Ten months,” her mother said.
Payloma’s grumble lines deepened.
In high school, being a year younger would have been a drawback.Now she wanted to maximize the age difference.Even though Jaylynn stopped getting older years ago and Derrick never would again.
“—though he’d already cooled off considerably by the time Robbie was born.Supposed to be the woman who falls apart, but he got pudgy and started losing his hair, while Jaylynn worked like crazy to get her figure back — mostly anyway.She still had that roll around the middle that comes along with a kid.Not that getting rid of it would have made a difference in keeping him, even if he hadn’t killed her, because he was already starting to slide back to being likeMotherandFather Dorrio.”Was that supposed to be a snooty, upper-class British accent?“And now Robbie’s just like him, thanks to the great Dova Dorrio and her saying to him all the timeyou and me, Robbie, you and me.Closes out hisrealmother’s family, that’s for sure.”
“You don’t see him?”
“Not if he sees us coming first,” she said with dark would-be humor.“Walked right away from me when I said hello at the gas station a while back.”
“That’s awful, turning your back on family,” Olive mumbled.“He didn’t get that from our side.”
“Such a shame to lose touch like that.”Clara’s patented soothing had an almost immediate effect on the mother.“Especially when I understand you all were close when he was a baby, living nearby and everything.”
“We were,” Olive said with a sigh.“We were so close.Taking care of Robbie so, so often for Jaylynn.”
“Free babysitting,” Payloma muttered under her breath.
Would be interesting to know if she realized I could hear her.I guessed Clara heard, too, from a slight twitch of her shoulder, as if an insect landed on it.
At first, I thought Olive hadn’t heard her, but then she said, “You always were jealous of Jaylynn.Ever since you came along.”She turned to us.“I found her leaning over the crib, hitting her sister with a plastic cup.”
“I was the younger one and she was inmybed after kicking me out — actually kicking me.You saw the bruises.”This sounded like something that had been repeated ad infinitum in family squabbles.
Clara tugged them back on track with, “So you frequently took care of Robbie, but that night...?”
“Jaylynn was back to teaching and it so happened that Payloma and I were both working late shifts at the hospital, so we were here to look after Robbie for her while she was at the school.”Olive sniffled again into the lump of paper towel.“That night we were both working.Me in the all-night café — it’s not glamorous, but that hospital couldn’t run without it.If the workers and visitors had to count on the machines for coffee and tea or a snack to tide them over, there’d be a lot more deaths every night, I’ll tell you that.We not only havegoodcoffee, but salads and sandwiches that won’t destroy your gut.That’s why I’ve gained this weight, you know.All odd hours messed up my gut.”
Clara said, “Your customers must be so grateful for you providing good food at their most difficult time.Even if they don’t always show it, because it’s such a difficult time for them—”
“Nevershow it.Not families and not most of the staff.There are a few who are pleasant,” she qualified carefully.
