Page 40 of Death on Riddle Road
Payloma snorted.“Then you get better than I do.I’m an admitting clerk, caught between the administrators who lay down the law but aren’t ever on the front lines, the medical people who think they’re God, and the patients, who think I’m trying to steal their identity.Back then, I was just starting out.If I’d been smart, I’d’ve quit, benefits be damned.”
“Payloma,” her mother remonstrated.
Payloma rolled her eyes.“At least I’m day shift now.We both are.Seniority still goes for something.Not much.Especially since we have to be there at six in the morning, not nine like normal people.And no more pay or respect or—”
Clara smoothly diverted that flow.“But back then — that particular night — neither of you was available to care for Robbie?”Without waiting for confirmation, she added, “Did Jaylynn call you?”
“No.If only she had,” Olive said with another sniffle, but not one big enough to require more paper towel.
“She knew our schedule,” Payloma said.“No reason to call when she knew we weren’t home.We didn’t know anything about what happened.Not until the next morning when the cops showed up.”
Lines around her mouth and eyes tightened, strengthening the resemblance to her mother.Also showing what I interpreted as genuine sorrow.
But that faded under a more martial light as she added, “Not a word to us otherwise.Didn’t expect the Dorrios to consider us, but Dova could’ve at least let us know that she had Robbie while the deputies questioned Derrick.We were frantic looking for him.She knew we would be.She knew how often we cared for Robbie.She’d been here often enough when we had him.”
Clara voiced my reaction, too, when she asked, “You knew Dova?Both of you?Before...everything happened?”
Olive snorted.“I knew the Diva — that’s what we call her, because of her name.”In case we didn’t get the Diva-Dova connection.“But only from her hanging around here.That was when we were caring for Robbie.Well before that, she and Payloma were fast friends.For a while, anyway.”Her voice dropped on the last words, coating them with dark significance.
Payloma grimaced.“Yeah.Right, Mom.We all know she used me.Okay?After you’ve said it ten million times it kinda loses its impact, so you might as well stop talking about it.”
But then she turned to Clara and talked about it herself.
“She was new in town, working in records, wanted to meet people.We started talking at the cafeteria one day.We were about the same age, liked the same things.Her mother was that woman who was in Congress who everybody hated because she was so nasty to people.”
I remembered Kit talking about the woman.She’d adopted several children, possibly as political scenery.Mommy Dearest of D.C.they called her.
Plenty of women served in Congress and raised good kids — at least as many as men did.But this woman had far deeper issues than a demanding job and a career that can foster a reality disconnect.During a full-blownincident, she was removed from a committee room — the sight of plenty of political tantrums — and taken straight to St.Elizabeths psychiatric hospital in D.C.She never left.
If my memory had the timeline roughly right, Dova would have been old enough by then to be on her own.But what preceded it couldn’t have been fun.
Another reason for her to be protective of Robbie.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Still remembering, Paylomasaid, “Dova always said she wanted to be the opposite of her — a good mother, a respectable person, someone her kid could be proud of.”
“And not a bottle blonde or always having things sucked out or plumped up or frozen solid,” Olive added.“She said that a lot.Especially when she was telling me how she admired how I kept my hair natural.”
“She was saying you looked old, just in that fake nice way you never could see through.”
“She was not.You’re jealous.”
Of whom?Dova?Or Olive herself?
Payloma rolled her eyes.“Anyway, I introduced her to a bunch of my friends and pretty soon they were all her friends, too.”
Her mother cackled, which turned into a cough.“Too?They were her friends, period.Left you in the dust.Except Jaylynn, because you were her sister.”
“They turned on Dova fast enough when Derrick was charged with murder,” Payloma fired back.
“Never came back to be your friends, did they?All those you’d introduced the Diva to.Not to mention most of them have sidled back to her over the years as everybody started seeing her as some kind of saint for raising Robbie, forgetting she’s only doing that because she married the monster who murdered my girl.”From an invigorating satisfaction — though hard to tell with what — that had brought her upright in the chair, Olive sank back.
“But you know, in general, how Robbie has been doing over the years?”Clara pursued.“How he has been — at least before this?”
“I see things, don’t I?”his aunt responded.“See him around with more money than a kid should have.”
That surprised me.He hadn’t struck me as a flashy kind of kid.And dating the granddaughter of a flower shop owner didn’t fit the picture she painted.Also different from his paternal grandmother’s vision.
