“Really?”
“I mean, I came up with it, of course, but you were the only one nice enough to call me by it. Everybody else thought it was silly. Your mother included.” She smiled, her teeth white against her tanned, lined skin. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt, rolled up to the elbows, revealing muscular arms, a long scar on one of them. To Robin, she had the look of a farmer or a rancher or maybe a lifelong surfer.
“How did you know my mom?” Robin said.
Her bright eyes shimmered. “We were in a foster home together, years ago,” she said. “And then we reconnected once she’d settled down. She saved me from a terrible situation. Gave me money for my education. Got me on my feet.”
“So you were friends,” she said, “when you both were kids.”
“Yes,” she said.
Robin took another sip of her coffee. She leaned forward, wanting to ask the question, but fearing the answer at the same time. “What was she like?”
“She was the kindest person I’d ever known.”
“Oh thank God.” Robin exhaled, relief spreading through her.
“Like there was ever a question?”
“It’s just... Someone asked me about her past recently. They thought she... Well obviously they had her confused with someone else.”
“I don’t understand.”
Robin swallowed. “They thought she’d associated with some unsavory types when she was a teenager.”
“Well,” Nicola said, winking, “they must have been talking about me.” She laughed—a startlingly loud, shrieking laugh that seemed to pop out of nowhere, far too hearty for the situation or the surroundings. Whereas Nicola’s smile was disarming, her laugh was downright off-putting, and Robin could feel people staring at them. Her face flushed a deep red.I am having breakfast in a hospital cafeteria with Robert De Niro fromCape Fear.
After a time, Nicola calmed herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But that just tickled me. The idea of your mom, hanging out with some criminal...”
Robin relaxed. “It is kind of ridiculous.”
“I mean, what? Was she pals with a drug dealer? I mean... could you even imagine your mom smoking a joint?”
Robin giggled. “Not a drug dealer, just—”
“A prostitute?”
They were both laughing now.
“Numbers runner? Carjacker? Hired killer?”
“Okay,” Robin said, laughing harder. “Okay, I see your point.” They laughed together for quite a while, Robin growing used to Nicola’s shrieks, along with the other cafeteria patrons. It did something, laughing with another person like that. It bonded you.
Once their laughter died down, Robin leaned in close and said it. “I spoke to this guy. He was making a podcast about these killings in the ’70s.”
“Quentin.” Nicola said the name like it was a rotten piece of meat in her mouth.
“You know him?”
“Met him. Don’t like him.” She leaned in. “Don’t trust him. At all.”
“Yeah?”
She glanced around the cafeteria and nodded slowly. “He said something, Robbie. It made me very suspicious.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about being in your parents’ neighborhood the night they were shot.”