“I think so,” I said. “It’s hard to know how to handle these things.”
“And up until everything went to shit, it was kind of a good time up there. I mean, just being there with Mom. She was okay. She was really nice to me. She wasn’t judging me the way she usually does, even though I know she was pretty pissed when she found out I was pregnant. But close to the end, she seemed to come to terms with it.”
“How about the father?” I asked. “How’d he react?”
“Derek?” she said.
“Yeah. I’ve never known his name.”
“Derek Cutter.”
The name rang a bell. From my days as a reporter for the Standard.
“I didn’t tell him right away. I hadn’t talked to him much in the last few weeks I was pregnant. She didn’t want me to have anything to do with him. I don’t think I was really in love with him or anything.”
“He’s a student?”
Her head went up and down twice. “He’s local. He didn’t leave town to go to college like a lot of kids do. He started out living at home, but then his parents split up, and they sold the house and his mom moved away, I think. His dad moved into an apartment, and then Derek started sharing a house close to the college with some other students.”
“Sounds kind of rough for him.”
“Yeah. His dad runs a gardening service or something. When Derek was a teenager, he worked for him. Cutting lawns and doing landscaping and stuff like that. But when the house got sold, he had to rent a garage or something to store his lawn mowers and everything. Mom never liked Derek. She figured I should be finding someone whose parents were lawyers or owned Microsoft or invented Google. Someone like that. But Derek was okay.”
“Where’d you meet him?”
“At a bar in town. We just kind of bumped into each other. I might have sort of lied about how old I was. I told him I’d just gotten out of school, so he’d think I was only a year or two older than him, instead of seven. But I don’t think age really matters that much, do you?”
My phone rang. “Hang on,” I said.
It was home calling. That could mean Mom or Dad, but I was betting Mom.
“Hello?”
“David?”
I was right. “Yeah, Mom.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s a long story. I can’t really get into it right now. I’m with Marla, and Agnes has arrived.”
“Because I don’t know if this is something you want your father to handle. I’d do it myself but I fell on the stairs.”
I gripped the motionless steering wheel with my free hand. “Mom, what’s going on?”
“I was coming up the stairs and slipped, but it’s nothing. But the school called about Ethan.”
Jesus, when it rained, it poured. “What about Ethan? Is Ethan hurt?”
“I don’t think so, but he got into some kind of fight. With another boy. He got sent to the office and they called here for you. You gave them your old cell phone number when you enrolled him and you must have forgotten to give them your new one, so if there’s an emergency—”
“Mom!” I shouted. “What about Ethan?”
“They want you to pick him up. They’re sending him home.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled. “I can’t do that right now. I can’t leave the scene.”
“The scene?”
“Let Dad go. He can pick up Ethan, and I’ll sort things out when I get home. Okay?”
“I’ll tell him. What did Marla do, David? Did she really take another baby?”
“Later, Mom.”
I ended the call, put the phone away, and lowered my head until it was touching the top of the wheel.
“Trouble?” Marla asked.
“Seems to be a lot of it going around,” I said. “But it’s okay.”
I looked at the Gaynor house. The front door was being opened from the inside. Detective Duckworth emerged, locked eyes on my car, and headed our way. But before he could reach the car, two other people appeared by Marla’s open window.
Agnes and Natalie Bondurant.
Agnes said, “Everything’s going to be okay, child. Everything is going to be okay.”
Duckworth reached the car and asked Agnes and Natalie to step aside. “Marla Pickens? Would you step out of the car?”
“She has nothing to say,” Agnes said as Marla started to push open the door. Agnes pushed it back.
“Ms. Pickens,” Natalie said, addressing Agnes, “let me take it from here. Hello, Barry.”
“Natalie,” he said.
“I’m representing Marla Pickens. I’m afraid she won’t be taking any questions at this time.”
Duckworth eyed her tiredly. “I’m investigating a murder here, Natalie. I’ve got things to ask.”
“I can appreciate that. But right now my client’s in shock and in no position to handle questions.”
“And just when do you think your client will be taking questions?”
“I’m not able to say at this time.”
“Well, whether she wants to answer questions or not, you’re going to have her at the station in exactly one hour.”
Natalie’s tongue poked the inside of her cheek. “She’s not going to have anything to tell you.”