'Hard alone,' I said.
'You have no idea,' she said.
'Maybe I do.'
'He was nothing like that. It almost seems as if from the time he was born, he was angry and defiant and just exactly what I didn't want him to be.'
'Tell me about him,' I said.
She started to cry. I waited. After a while, she stopped.
'What was he like?' I said.
'He was a bully,' she said. 'My son, a bully. And he played football in school.'
'Not a good thing?' I said.
'God, no. I think it's a brutal and dehumanizing game. All these loutish young men trying to hurt each other on the field, while the girls jump around and cheer and show their legs. It is frightful.'
'What position did he play?' I said, just to be saying something.
'I don't know. I don't know anything about football.'
'Did you ever see him play?'
'No.'
'How was he academically.'
She shook her head.
'He had no interest in the life of the mind,' she said.
'Who taught him to shoot?' I said.
'Shoot?'
I nodded.
'I don't know,' she said. 'Certainly there have never been guns in my house.'
'A woman living alone?' I said. 'Not even for protection?'
'I would rather be killed,' she said, 'than take a life.'
'No boyfriends, or uncles, or anyone that might have taught him?'
'No.'
I nodded. We were quiet. A fat yellow cat came around the corner of the store and jumped up onto the table. Wilma picked him up and put him in her lap, where he curled into a fat yellow ball and went to sleep.
'Where might he have gotten the guns?'
'I don't know,' Wilma said. 'I know nothing of guns.'
'Maybe the other kid got them,' I said.
'Jared Clark?'
I nodded.
'I don't know. I barely know him.'
'He was pals with your son, wasn't he?'
'I don't know.'
'How did you come to get Alex Taglio for a lawyer?' I said.
'My father.'
'Your father recommended him?'
'Yes.'
`And your father's name is Grant?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Hollis Grant.'
'He lives in town?'
'Yes.'
'How's he know Taglio?'
'I don't know,' Wilma said. 'I suppose he asked one of his attorneys.'
'He has attorneys?' I said.
'My father is a very successful man,' she said. 'Grant Development Corporation.'
'In town?' I said.
'He lives here. His business is next town over.'
