o’clock and time for me to go pick up Mary Pat and
Jake.
“Are the children ready to go?” I asked when Kate
answered the phone.
“No, I’m keeping them home today,” she said and
her voice was cool.
I was immediately apprehensive. “Is something
wrong?”
“Did you speak to Cal like I asked you?”
“Absolutely. Don’t tell me—?”
“I’m sorry, Deborah, but I am not going to have Jake
treated the way Dwight used to treat Rob.”
109
MARGARET MARON
“
“You must know that when they were kids and Dwight
went over to play with your brothers, half the time he
wouldn’t let Rob come.”
I heard Rob’s voice protesting in the background and
heard Kate say, “Well, that’s what you told me he did.
Isn’t that why he’s not taking this seriously?”
Rob’s reply came faintly, “Kate, honey, that’s what
kids
“Not in this house,” Kate said firmly, and I knew she
was laying down the law to both of us, and probably to
Mary Pat, too, if the child was within hearing distance.
“Kate, I’m so sorry,” I said, “but unless you spoke to
Dwight yesterday when he came by for Cal, he doesn’t
know anything about this.”
Cal had only been half listening, but when he heard
me say that, he froze and guilt spread across his face.
At her end of the phone, I heard the baby begin to
cry.
“Look, I promise that Mary Pat and Cal will include
him today,” I said, fixing Cal with a stern look. “Let me
come and get them. You need the break, okay?”
There was a long silence, then a weary, “Okay, but if
I hear—”
“You’re not going to hear,” I promised.
As soon as I hung up, I called Dwight’s mother and
when Miss Emily finished exclaiming over those body
parts she kept hearing about on the local newscast—
“And now a whole body?”—I asked if she could pos-
sibly drop by Kate and Rob’s and offer to sit with little
R.W. during his morning nap so that Rob could take
Kate out for an early lunch. “I’ll keep the children over-
110
HARD ROW
night, but she sounds as if she could stand to get out of
