Mind Games

“Yes, that’s exactly right. Ah, we’ve got some iced sun tea, or I can make you coffee.”

“It’s a rare day I turn down coffee, but it’s a hot one. That tea sounds good, if it’s no trouble.”

“No trouble. Rem, why don’t you take the detectives to the front room while we get the tea.”

“Here’s just fine.” Howard gestured to the kitchen table. “We just have some follow-up questions, but first I want to tell all of you we’re sorry for your loss.”

“We appreciate that. Rem, you can take a counter stool, all right?”

“The youngest always gets the shaft.”

Howard couldn’t help but grin at him. “Tell me.” He poked a thumb at his chest. “Youngest of three.”

Lucy took her best glasses from the cupboard. “Sheriff McKinnon came to tell us when you caught him. Can you tell us if there’s going to be a trial?”

“He confessed to everything,” Howard told her. “For a full confession, we took the death penalty off the table. He’ll serve two consecutive life sentences. No chance of parole.”

Lucy pressed a hand to her throat, nodded while the girl stuck by her like a shadow. She took the big glass jug from the refrigerator, poured the tea over the ice in the glasses.

Crackle.

“It’s a relief to hear that. I’m—we’re obliged you’ve come all this way to tell us. Did you drive from Virginia?”

“No, ma’am.” Musk took the glass she offered. “We flew down to the regional airport.”

“A good hour’s drive from there, isn’t it? We’ve got some…” She paused, breathed out. “Some chocolate pecan pie a neighbor brought by.”

“We’re fine,” Howard assured her. “We’ll try not to take much of your time. We understand you’re the children’s legal guardian.”

“That’s right.”

“And the executor of their estate.”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind telling us when that was decided?”

“Oh, well, Cora and John had wills made right after Thea came along, and asked me if I’d agree to it.”

“You’re a widow, Ms. Lannigan.”

“Yes, I lost my husband eighteen years ago come November eighteenth.”

“Your son-in-law has parents.”

Musk let that statement lay. Before Lucy responded, Rem did. “They don’t like us.”

“Rem—”

“Well, Grammie, you say tell the truth even when it hurts, and they don’t like us.”

He hooked his sneakers around the stool, shrugged.

“They never came to see us, and they didn’t send me anything for my birthday, and the last time we went out there—I didn’t tell anybody—but I heard them say Thea was going to turn out just like her mother, how she’d never be a lady, and I’d just be a ruffian.

“I had to look that up, and that’s a lie! And when Grammie called her to talk about what happened, she said she was going to take Dad, just Dad, out there to bury, away from Mom, and how she was going to put us in boarding school. Grammie got mad, madder than I’ve seen her ever, and said she wouldn’t do any of that, and if they tried, she’d cover their reputations with poop. But she didn’t say ‘poop.’”

“Rem! That’s enough.” But the light in Lucy’s eyes spoke of humor and admiration. “The detectives didn’t come all this way to hear that.”