down a name and number. “This guy is amazing. He has a whole network of tradesmen. They’re fast and efficient, and he guarantees the work.”
“Thanks, this will help a lot.” She slipped the paper into her purse. “Can I see Helen now?”
“Of course. Try to get her to talk about what she saw. She must have seen something. There’s a shi-”—he stopped himself—“a lot of DNA evidence, but no clear suspect.”
Pat took a breath, not sure what would happen when she finally faced her sister. “I’ll do my best.” God only knew what that would entail.
The detective sensed her trepidation. “Would you like to see her before you go in?” Pat nodded, and he escorted her to a dimly lit observation room. “Don’t worry,” he said, “she won’t be able to see you.” He pulled open the blinds. “It’s a one-way mirror.”
The tiny room beyond the glass was furnished with a table and three chairs, the walls a soothing color of green. Helen was sitting on the far side of the table, leaning back against the wall, staring at the ceiling. Her hair was chopped short, her ropey muscles prominent beneath her scratched and battered skin, her callused hands black around the nails, but the face was still the same: prominent cheekbones, full lips, and hauntingly beautiful eyes. The same smoldering look, Pat thought, that had always driven the boys crazy. “Is it okay if I go in alone?”
Madison spread his hands in mute apology. “I’ll have to tape the conversation, but I’d sure appreciate anything you can get her to say about the murder.”
Pat stepped through the adjoining door, face to face with her sister for the first time in ten years.
“Hello, Helen.” She leaned down and put her arms around the older sister she had once idolized. Helen’s body remained stiff as a block of wood. “It’s so good to see you. You look so”—the word “good” caught in her throat—“different. Who did your hair?”
“The Green M&M,” Helen replied, showing no surprise at her sister’s sudden appearance.
Don’t go there, Pat thought, lowering herself onto a chair. “It looks nice.”
“Do I know you?”
Oh . . . my . . . God!
“It’s me. Pat.” It came out sounding more like a question then an answer. “Your sister.”
Helen smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Of course! Cleo! You look just like Mom.”
The words etched the surface of Pat’s ego like bitter acid, but she plowed ahead. “Helen, do you know what’s going on?”
Helen beamed. “We need to do this more often, Cleo. Why haven’t we kept in touch?”
Pat fumbled through her mind for the right response. “I write all the time. Don’t you read my letters?” But as she said it, she could see the stacks of newspapers, fliers, and unopened mail that littered Helen’s home. Of course she never read them. “Never mind. The police need to know what you saw, then we can leave.”
Helen stared at a crack in the wall, her head moving sinuously as her eyes followed the trail through the concrete. She murmured to herself. To Pat it sounded like, “no message there.”
“Did you see what happened?” Pat repeated, though she wasn’t sure Helen was listening. “What happened to your neighbor? You need to tell them.”
“I can’t talk about it,” Helen answered, her eyes still on the crack. “It hurts my stomach.”
“Listen, you need to cooperate. This is real, Helen. It’s not an adventure in your mind.”
“We’ll get in trouble.”
We. “Forget about Bobby for a minute. The police just want to know what you saw. Then we can go.”
“We like it here.” Helen smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Wipers keep on slappin’ time . . . ”
Pat glanced at the mirror. What did Madison expect? She reached across the table and took her sister’s hand. “Helen, what’s happened to you?”
Suddenly, as if Pat had reached out and flipped a switch, her sister came back. “Cleo, why are you here?”
Pat exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “I’m worried. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” She turned toward the mirror. “Would you like to talk to the detective?”
Right on cue, the door opened and Madison stepped into the room. “Hello, Helen. How are you this morning?” He dropped his notebook on the table and sat down. “Can you tell me what you remember about yesterday morning?”
Bobby leaned down, so close Helen could feel his breath on her cheek. Go ahead. Tell them.
Helen took a deep breath, forcing air into her lungs until they ached with the expansion. “I heard Lupe. Howling.” She stopped, not sure what else to say.
Detective Madison nodded. “That’s Bebe’s dog, right?”
Helen sighed. Why did she always have to explain? “She’s a wolf, not a dog. Canis lupus, not Canis familiaris.”
Detective Madison scratched a line through the word “dog” on his notepad and wrote: Lupe = wolf. He flipped the pad around so Helen could read it.
Relieved that he understood, she nodded.
“What time was this? Morning or noon?”
She hesitated, trying to remember how to tell the difference. “After breakfast, I’m sure. I had Cheerios with low-fat milk. Cheerios are heart-healthy. It says so right on the box.” She caught Cleo’s eye, sensing some irritation. “What?”
“We know about Cheerios, Helen.”
Detective Madison leaned forward. “Why was the wolf howling?”
“She doesn’t howl in the mornings. She usually howls at night. All the dogs join in. It’s eerie.”
The detective nodded, absently clicking his pen, a Cross Matrix, red with a rolling ball. “Did Bobby see anything?”
Bobby nudged her shoulder. He wants to know why Lupe was howling.
Helen nodded. “He saw Lupe trying to get into the house . . . pawing at the glass door. The glass was banging against the frame so hard I was afraid it would break. I yelled at her. I said, ‘Get away from there, Lupe. You’re not allowed inside.’ Bebe never lets her in the house.” She smiled at Cleo, who was pretending to be Pat, then at the detective, who was pretending to be a secretary. “Lupe just looked at me, then went back to pawing. Fuzzball started throwing herself against the fence and barking, but she always does that, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
Bobby circled around behind the detective, reading his notes. Tell him about Bebe.
Bobby knew what other people expected; it was something she had always loved about him. “I saw Bebe. She was leaning against the glass door, her mouth open, but she
