Page 68 of Death on Riddle Road
She pretended not to know what I wanted.Until Clara, trying to untangle the leashes of the other two dogs, walked LuLu alongside the van and Gracie spun around to watch.That gave me access to her fluffy backside.Her sable coat camouflaged dead leaves.I’d learned to run my hand down to find the texture of hitchhikers.
During the height of dead leaf season, she could pick up enough to join an orchestra’s percussion section.Even now, when I thought they were gone, she displayed a knack for finding and securing them about her person.
I found one and it came out easily, teasing me into false confidence.But the next crumbled into dust in my hand, except for shreds that clung to her fur.I combed through with my fingers and got a few more particles.A third one was even more stubborn, seeming to be inextricably bonded with the fur.I thought I’d need scissors, but Lulu jumped into the back then, Gracie jumped forward to greet her — long time no-see, you know — and the leaf and attendant fur came free, with no indication Gracie even felt it.
I dropped all I’d found onto the gravel parking lot and helped Clara guide Murphy in.
I’d settled in the passenger seat, but Clara, in the driver’s seat, had made no move to turn on the engine.
“Clara?”
She looked straight ahead.“I want you to know, I called Teague.This morning.Before I picked you up.I figured he’d already be working and you wouldn’t mind a couple more minutes before I got there.And...Anyway, I called him.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Not to try to wheedle information out of him.I apologized.I shouldn’t have said what I said about the department not looking into Derrick Dorrio’s murder.Well, I guess I didn’t say it right out, but the way I said what I said...it was pretty obvious.”
How many people would have hidden behind not being explicit and pretended they hadn’t meant what they clearly had?Not Clara.She owned up to it and she apologized.
My heart swelled.But I said very evenly, “No, you shouldn’t have indicated they — he — wouldn’t do their jobs.”
“I’m sorry.I told him that and now I’m telling you.Because I know how you feel about him.”
And just like that, she had me flustered.
How could she know how I felt about him when I wasn’t totally sure of how I felt about him...?Or was it that I wouldn’t let myself be sure until I told him all.
Apparently unaware of my inner fluster, she added, “That doesn’t mean I don’t think we can do their jobs better than they do a lot of the time.”
“We have advantages.”
“I know, I know.Not being as scary as the sheriff’s department, so people will talk to us.”
“Not needing to make the evidence court-worthy,” I added.
“That, too.”Finally, she looked at me.“Still, we’re pretty darned good.”
I grinned back at her.“We are.”
She made a show of checking the rearview mirror.With the canine trio milling around it probably showed only dog heads, so not the safest time to back up.And she didn’t try.
“You’re going to tell Teague about Derrick and Payloma, aren’t you?”she asked.
“You want me to because you think it points to her as the possible murderer of Derrick?”
Her lips flickered in a nearly suppressed curl.“Of her sister, first.”
“Which would clear Derrick of that murder.Got it.But, you know, Clara, Mamie asked us to help Robbie over the murder of his father, not his mother.Though, of course, we’ll look for the murderer, no matter who it is.”
“How could it not be the greatest help in the world for him to know his father didn’t kill his mother?”Not waiting for my agreement, she added, “Payloma also could have killed Derrick.She said she didn’t go to the hospice center, but that’s shaky.”
Having the murderer be his aunt wasn’t exactly ideal, I thought but didn’t say.“Why would she, after all this time?”
“She wanted to all along, but couldn’t get to him because he was in prison,” she said promptly.
“She had a couple years before he was convicted.”
“Maybe it was too hot to try to kill him then.More people could have known — or remembered — about their affair and pointed at her.Or she thought it would be enough for her if he was convicted, but she realized it wasn’t.”
