Page 51 of Death on Riddle Road
That had to be Rose.
“—and the other woman — the administrator — tried to shut her up.There were a couple other nurses there, too.With all these people in the hallway, it was crowded.And there was some bumping.By accident, you know?Then a person who wasn’t a cop, but had something to do with death, showed up and she said the sheriff’s department had to be called.That’s when things sort of turned around.”
“Turned around how?”
“Robbie had been really calm until then.It was Dova who was yelling and red in the face and stuff.I mean, I knew he was upset.Really, really upset, but like he didn’t know how upset he was or what to do with it.I thought it was a little scary.But then the person who wasn’t a cop, but—”
“Assistant coroner,” I filled in.Clara frowned at me for interrupting Mamie’s flow.
“I guess.Anyway, she wasn’t a cop.”
I grimaced at Clara, acknowledging my error in trying to hurry this along.
Clara focused on Mamie.“What happened when she came?”
“She didn’t come right out and say he’d been murdered, but that’s what they’d been talking about before so everyone — all of us in the hallway and some other people standing in doorways and such — knew that’s what it meant.And that’s when things...flipped.”
“Flipped?”Clara nudged gently when she paused.
Mamie nodded hard.“Like all of a sudden, Dova was the calm one and Robbie just...just...”She hiccupped over a sob, while tears tracked down her cheeks.“I’ve never seen him like that.”
“What did he do?”
“He got completely red, like Dova had been before, only now she was pale.And Robbie said they were wrong, incompetent, and a lot of other things — that his dad hadn’t been murdered, that they were trying to cover up their own mistakes, that it was their fault and they wouldn’t get away with trying to pretend it was murder.He...he didn’t sound like himself.At all.Dova tried to tell him to be quiet, not to say anything, that she’d take care of it, but he didn’t listen to her.And then he walked away fast.And I ran after him, but even so he almost left before I could get in his car and he was still shouting and angry — so angry — and I was scared we’d have a wreck.
“He drove really fast and then when he went to the cliffs park by the river, I thought...I thought...”This sob swallowed a hiccup.“Because of the cliffs that are there.And he wouldn’t wait for me.It was hard and I kept getting farther behind him and I was so afraid...”
Clara encircled her shoulder with one arm.“You were very brave.”
Mamie sobbed full force for a minute, then sucked in shaky breaths before she had herself back under control.
“Did he finally wait for you?”Clara asked gently, giving her somewhere to start again.
“No.He’d stopped, but not to wait for me.He was at this spot, high up.Standing and staring out.He didn’t even seem to know I was there.Not for the longest time.Not even when I sat on the bench and it clanged, because the back of my boot hit the leg when it tipped.Scared me, because I thought it was going to tip over, but it stopped.
“I finally caught my breath and went and stood beside him and said his name.Even then, he didn’t answer the first time, or second.Finally, he turned his head and looked at me and sort of blinked and said,Oh, you’re here.Like he’d had no idea.”
“Did he say why he’d gone there?”
“Not really.I asked if this was a place he, you know, associated with his dad.He gave a kind of laugh — one of those laughs that hurt to hear — and he said no.Then he said he’d needed room to breathe.So I didn’t say more.After a few minutes, he gave a sort of shake all over, like a dog in water.He said,C’monand we started down.
“He still wasn’t talking.Not even in the car.He drove me back to my car at his house and said he needed some time alone.After I saw you at Shep’s, I went to the flower shop.Gramps listened to me for a while, but customers came in and I couldn’t stand to see people being ordinary, like nothing had happened, and Robbie wouldn’t answer my messages.I tried Dova, too, but she messaged back that Robbie would be fine and not to worry and she was really busy.After a while Gramps said I needed to get my mind off it and sent me to make deliveries.Only I couldn’t get my mind off it.
“Somebody has to figure out what happened.And not the sheriff’s department, because Robbie won’t ever believe anything they say.But he’d believe you two.”
From that optimistic statement, her face crumpled.
“He’d have to, wouldn’t he?Because it’s tearing him up.As if he hadn’t had it hard enough already, with his father in prison and his mom nearly killed in a car accident last year.”
I almost corrected her, to say Robbie’s mother died at the hands of a murderer.Nothing against Dova for the job she’d done raising him, but sorrow for Jaylynn, whose opportunity to be hisMomwas stolen by her murderer.
Unaware of my mind-wanderings, Mamie was saying, “...how we got to know each other.He was so upset.I mean, he didn’t cry in the hallways or anything, but I could see how much he was hurting and trying so hard not to show it.
“We were hanging out with the same group one night and that’s when we first...you know, got together.”
She blushed and I had a feeling their relationship did not start with a hand-holding date to the weekly Sock Hop.
“The next day I went with him to the hospital.He hated the hospital and really, really hated seeing his mom in pain.”Her eyes widened.“And she was.She had all these broken bones — really, really bad breaks.She couldn’t even go to see Derrick in prison like usual.Not for months and that made everything worse.She was in such pain she wasn’t like herself at all.I mean, she scared me at first.It was only later I could see what she was really like.”
