For the rest of the ride to Harrisburg they made little more than small talk. Caxton was anxious to start interviewing the Arkeleys, but she needed to get them alone in controlled environments where she could record what they said and where she could think clearly enough to work out the questions that were worth asking. The pickup wasn’t built for a smooth ride—she felt every bump in the road and especially every pothole—and it was all she could do to ask the one question that bothered her the most.
“Raleigh,” she said, “your mother. She wasn’t at the funeral.”
The girl sighed deeply. “No. I begged and begged with her, but she wasn’t interested. She said she didn’t care to share any memories of Dad, not with strangers. Especially if Vesta Polder was there.”
Caxton frowned. “They know each other?”
“From way back. Mom introduced Dad to the Polders a very, very long time ago. That was back when we lived in State College. Then maybe ten years ago Mom and Vesta had some kind of falling-?out. At least, they haven’t been in the same place together since and neither of them seems to want to change that. I don’t really know the details. Sorry.”
Caxton had always been possessed of a certain morbid curiosity concerning Arkeley’s wife, Astarte. She had never met the woman, nor seen so much as a picture of her. Arkeley had rarely mentioned her and never provided even cursory information about her background. Caxton believed she still resided in Bellefonte but didn’t know for sure.
“I’d really like to talk to her. Can you call her for me?”
Raleigh gave her a polite but negating smile. “I can…try.”
“Okay,” Caxton said, feeling a headache come on. “Can you give me her number, so I can call her?”
The girl nodded and recited the digits from memory. Caxton fed them into her cell phone and then pushed the call button. The phone on the other end rang again and again without going to voice mail or even an answering machine. Eventually Caxton ended the call.