“Oh, I think you could do anything you put your mind to, Winifred.”
She cackled at that and slapped a second cup down on the table. “It’s Earl Grey or go thirsty.”
“Earl Grey’s fine.” I sat down and watched her fix the tea. After she got everything situated, she puffed at the steam over her cup and her tongue loosened up some.
“Course I knew the kids were using it, that’s why I put the No Trespassing sign up on the east side over there, so no one could sue me if the roof fell in on one of their heads. But I haven’t been out that way in years.”
“You didn’t see or hear anything strange on Friday night?”
“Not a thing. Came home from the play and went to bed.”
Something sank inside me when she said it and it wasn’t only because I knew she was telling the truth. I should’ve been up at the school, too, cheering Hattie on, watching her shine for the last time. Drinking in silence, I watched a cardinal land on one of Winifred’s bird feeders out the window. The tea was bitter.
“Mona must be beside herself,” she said after a while.
“She is.”
“I been there. Something shifts inside you after your child dies, like things that were liquid before turn hard and brittle.” She nodded out the window absently, lost in an old, familiar sorrow that was as part of her now as the curls on her head.
I finished the tea and made my way to the door. “Nothing else you know offhand about Hattie, is there?”
“Seemed a little uppity this last year, talking about going to New York and being on Broadway, but I didn’t think so on the way home on Friday. That girl could act. It was something to see.”
“Well, I’m not going to rule out making more sweeps of the property, and the barn’s off-limits until I tell you personally otherwise.”
“Sure, sure.”
“And stop shooting at people or I’ll confiscate your rifle.”
“Mm-hmm.” She walked me out to the cruiser, not worried at all about losing her gun. She probably had five more where that one came from.
“Is Mona still out at the house or did she go to her mom’s?” she asked.
“I don’t know. She was there yesterday.”
“I’d better go see her.” Winifred pulled her worn sweater around her middle, even though the sun was warm today. She looked up at the sky and then around the horizon, sighing. “Kids leaving all the time and the ones that haven’t are getting killed. Men dropping off with heart attacks every other day. Pretty soon this is going to be a country of nothing but old women.”
I flashed her a cheeky grin. “That suits me fine.”
She gave me a nice slap on the shoulder for that as I got in the car. “Oh, go on.”
As I followed my nose over to the Reever farm, I saw I’d missed two calls from Jake and phoned in at the station on the way.
“Del, where are you at?”
“Checking a few things out. Did you find Gerald Jones?”
“He’s in Denver until tomorrow. Says he’s been there since last Wednesday. We’re confirming, but it sounds like a pretty tight alibi.”
Damn. Now my suspect list was down to Tommy.
“I want to talk to him when he gets back.”
“Should we bring him in?” Jake asked.
“No, I’ll go to him. Anything from the forensics team?”
“No, not yet, but—”
“What about Hattie’s computer?”
“You’re not going to believe what I found.”
“Well, you’ve been calling me like a spurned woman all morning. Must be something worth telling.”
“Jesus, Del, I’ve got a lead on the killer. Did you want me to wait around until you’ve had your Dairy Queen?”
I pulled into the Reevers’ driveway and bumped over the mud ruts to park in front of the house.
“What do you have?”
“It looks like Hattie was talking a lot to some guy named L.G.”
“The hell kind of name is that?”
“It’s a handle.”
“A what?”
“I’ll explain it to you when you come in. Pick up some Dairy Queen, will you?” And he hung up, the little shit.