In Death 22 - Memory in Death

mistreat you now?”
    “Am I wrong, Bobby? Is something wrong with my memory?”
    His breath shuddered out softly. “No. She used to say, used to tell me that youthe kids she took inwere lucky to have someone offer them a decent home. Care enough to take them, to teach them manners and discipline and respect. That’s what she said it was when she locked you up. Consequences for unacceptable behavior. Things would be a lot worse if you were on the streets.”
    “Did you buy that, Bobby?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe some. She never hurt me.” He turned his head now, met Eve’s eyes. “She never treated me that way. She said it was because I did what I was told. But I didn’t, not always. If she
    caught me, she’d usually laugh and say, ‘Boys will be boys.’ It was the girls she … I don’t know why. Something inside her. She hated her mother. Used to tell me we were lucky to be rid of the old bitch. MaybeI don’t know maybe her mother did those things to her. It’s a cycle, right? Isn’t that what
    they say about abuse? It’s a cycle.”
    “Yeah, it often is.” Maybe that comforted him, she thought. “What about you, Bobby? Did you cycle around, take care of your mother? She must’ve been a hardship on you. New wife, new business, and
    here’s this demanding woman, prying into your life. A demanding woman with a big pile of money stashed away.”
    His eyes filmed over for a moment. Tears he blinked away. “I don’t blame you for saying it, thinking
    it. And you can put on record that I’ll take a Truth Test. I’ll take one voluntarily, as soon as you can arrange it. I want you to find who hurt her.”
    He took a long breath. “I loved my mother, Eve. I don’t know if you can understand, but even knowing what she was, what she did, I loved her. If I’d known what she was doing, I’d have found a way to
    make it stop. To make her give the money back, and stop. That’s what I want to do. Give the money back. You have to help me get the money back to the people she took it from. Maybe it won’t make it right, but I don’t know what else to do.”
    “Yeah, I can help you with that. How would you have made her stop, Bobby?”
    “I don’t know. She’d listen to me. If she knew I was really upset, she’d listen to me.” Now he sighed a little. “Or pretend to. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know how to tell Zana all this. I don’t know how to tell her this is true. She’s already been through so much.”
    “She was tight with your mother.”
    “They got along. Zana gets along with everyone. She made a real effort with my motherit takes one.” He tried another smile.
    “You know, women get tight in a certain way. When they do, they tend to tell each other things they might not tell a man. Could it be your mother told Zana about what she was doing?”
    “Not possible.” He tried to sit up straighter, as if to emphasize his point, and cursed the restriction of his broken arm. “Zana’s… she’s scrupulous. I don’t know anyone as intrinsically honest. She might not have argued with my mother about it, but she’d have been horrified, and she’d have told me. We don’t have secrets.”
    People said that, Eve knew. But how did they know the other party didn’t have secrets? How did they know there’d been full disclosure?
    “Zana the type to keep her word?”
    His face was full of love. “Probably cut off a finger before she’d break it.”
    “Then she’d be in a tough spot if she’d given your mother her word not to tell you, or anyone.”
    He opened his mouth, closed it, and Eve could see him wrestling with this new possibility. “I don’t
    know how she’d have dealt with it. But she’d have told me, at least after my mother was killed. She’d never have kept that to herself. I wonder where she is.” His fingers began to tug at the sheet. “I thought she’d be here by now.”
    “I’ll check in a minute, make sure she’s on her way. They say when they’re springing you?”
    “Not before tomorrow, but I’m pushing for that. I want to salvage something of Christmas. It’s our first, probably told you that. At least I bought a couple of things here, so Zana will have something to open. Man, thishow did you put it? Oh, yeah, this sucks out loud.”
    Reaching into the pocket of her coat, Eve brought out a little bag. “Thought you might like these. Cookies,” she said as she put the bag in his good hand. “I figure they might not run to