Baus said, “Ms. Diamond, try not to get hysterical.” And she wanted to leap across the kitchen table, grab him by the throat.
She turned to Morasco. “There’s a mistake. There has to be.”
He shook his head.
“Where’s this gun that my mother supposedly owns?” she said. “I want to see it for myself.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Why?Why can’t I see it?”
“It’s being held as evidence.”
“What?”
“The gun Detective Baus is talking about,” Morasco said. “The one registered to your mother. It’s the same gun that was used to shoot them both.”
AFTER THE TWOdetectives left her house, Robin went looking for Eric. She shouted his name a few times downstairs, then headed up to the second floor and did the same, louder, her throat aching from it. For a few, unbalanced moments, she actually thought he might have left her—jumped into his car and sped away as she was being questioned by police.
But then she saw Eric from the bedroom window. He stood in their backyard with his back to the house, facing their small garden, his shoulders slumped and sad in his somber blue dress shirt and black pants, dressed for the funeral minus his suit jacket.What are you doing out there? What are you thinking about?She hurried downstairs and outside into the heat, her heels sinking into the dirt. It wasn’t until she got closer that she realized that he wasn’t slumped in thought. He was on his phone, texting.
He spun around when she said his name. Dropped the phone in his shirt pocket too quickly. “Hi,” he said. “Did the questioning go okay?”
Robin’s gaze fell on the phone, glowing beneath the cloth of his shirt, as though it were trying to interrupt. “Why did you leave?”
“I... I didn’t really think I was needed, and—”
“My mother owned a gun.”
“What?”
“The gun that killed my dad was registered to her.”
“That’s crazy. There’s got to be some mistake.”
“That’s what I told them.”
He shook his head. “Your mom would never—”
“I know.” Robin felt numb and battered, her mind assaulting her with thoughts she didn’t want to have. The call from that podcaster.Ask your mother about April Cooper.That Inland Empire Killers movie, the teenage actress on her TV screen, her gun spewing bullets. Her father on the phone, his last night alive. The sadness in his voice. Her father, whom Quentin Garrison had told police he’d wanted to reach. As an expert...
Had Quentin Garrison tracked down Dad? Had he told him to ask Mom about April Cooper? Had Dad asked her? And if he had, was her answer the reason why he’d sounded so sad over the phone? Was her answer the reason why she’d left the house?
Was her answer the reason why they’d both gotten shot?
Robin shut her eyes. She wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but she needed to come back.
Eric said, “After the funeral, let’s talk about this more. We know your mother better than those cops do. And if they’re on a lead like that, I think we might be better off hiring a private eye.”
“Maybe.”
He stroked her face, kissed her forehead. In her entire life, Robin had never felt so entirely alone. “I’d better finish getting ready,” she said.
Robin turned and walked inside, thinking back to the half second when she’d come up behind her husband, how it had appeared toher as though every molecule in his body had been directed into that phone.
Texting as though his whole world depended on it. She didn’t know to whom.
Robin didn’t know anyone in her life. Not a single living soul.