Someone to watch over me

into his small car for the rest of the drive.
    “I want you to get the children outside and ask them to show you what they do in the garden,“ Walker told Lily. “Do you have a good supply of riddles to keep them busy?“
    “I can think of a few,“ Lily said.
    As it was, the whole family was outside weeding and watering when they arrived. Lily dutifully cornered the children while Howard asked Eugene, Roxanne, Harry, and Robert to come in the house.
    “What’s this about?“ Roxanne said. “We’re very busy.“
    “It’s about your husband’s death, Mrs. Anderson. Please come inside quietly.”
    They all perched on chairs around the big table in the kitchen. Walker said, “Robert, tell everyone what the girl hobo with the violin told you.”
    Robert, looking extremely uncomfortable, said, “Lily told me that they’d said a man meeting Mr. Anderson’s description had propositioned them. I went to the leader of the group and asked this question—what did he offer you for your ‘services’? The leader told me he’d offered them fresh vegetables. Showed them a satchel full of baby carrots, red lettuces, and white radishes before they told him to get lost.”
    Roxanne’s eyes were wide open, her face a mask of anger. “My vegetables,“ she said, through clenched teeth.
    “Robert, tell Mrs. Anderson what her brother said to you.”
    It was agony for Robert, but he spoke up. “Eugene said that nobody could get away with stealing from his sister. He was speaking of the girl hoboes.“
    “But I believe he was speaking of someone else as well,“ Howard said. He looked at Eugene, who was busy fidgeting with the salt shaker on the kitchen table and wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.
    “Eugene?“ Roxanne said softly, putting her hand over his.
    After a moment of silence, Eugene leaped from the chair and headed for the back door.
    Roxanne, her voice pitched low, in the tone of the mother of mothers, said, “Eugene. Don’t you dare open that door. Sit back down.”
    He turned and stumbled back to the table and slumped in his chair. Grabbing his sister’s hands, he said, “I killed him, Roxy. I didn’t mean to, but I did it.”
    Walker said gently, “Tell us what happened, Eugene.”
    In a shaking voice, still staring at his sister, he told what he’d done. “I was sitting out there in the dark late that Saturday night with my pellet gun, waiting to catch the girl hoboes stealing the vegetables. I meant to sneak up on them and fire the pellet gun in the air to scare them into never coming here again.“
    “And who did you see?“ Harry Harbinger asked. “We’re your friends. You can tell us.”
    “Donald. He was picking Roxy’s vegetables.“ Roxanne bowed her head in despair.
    “I was so angry,“ Eugene went on, a little more calmly. “I put down the pellet gun and went around the other side of the house, where I thought he’d go. I followed him clear down to town. There was only moonlight and it was hard to keep track of him in the darkness, what with him in his dark suit and hat. When he hurried along the railroad tracks, I stayed well back.“
    “Where did he go?“ Walker asked.
    “To the little shed where that woman in the red dress who hangs around town, smoking and flirting, takes her customers. It’s hidden in the woods up above the tracks. I’d seen her take a man in there months ago, when I was looking through the woods for mushrooms for Roxy to sell. I know all about which are good ones and bad ones.“
    “You do, Gene,“ Roxanne said, with a slight smile.
    “I waited about half an hour, and when he came back out with the satchel, I called to him. I was gonna say that if he ever did this again I’d tell Roxy about his stealing and whoring.“
    “What did he say?“ Harry asked, in his kindly, soothing voice.
    “I never got to speak to him. There was one of those old metal-handled oars on the ground and he picked it up and ran after me, swinging it at my head. I’m not very fast anymore, ever since I broke my ankle two years back, so I dodged and got behind him and knocked him to the ground and took away the oar. I’m slow, but I’m stronger than he was. I held the oar tight, and then I saw a flash of light as he pulled something out of the satchel that he still had with him. It was a knife, I guess for that woman to cut up the vegetables. Roxy’s kitchen knife. He’d stolen that as well.”
    Roxanne put her hands over her mouth for a moment. “I thought one of