“Can we get you some coffee, or anything?” asked Huck.
“Sure.” I almost never refuse.
Melissa and Huck passed each other.
“Hi, Melissa. How's it going today?”
She regarded me with the sort of look you'd expect a girl to give her parents, when she knew she'd pissed them off, and was going to be defensive about it.
“Fine.”
We were all still standing. Permitted in the house, but not welcomed. We get that a lot, and it's pretty understandable. It's also pretty uncomfortable.
“Mind if we sit down?” With the offer of coffee, it was reasonable.
“Go ahead,” she said.
There was a woman singing, obviously a recording, coming from the music room. It sounded kind of old, and not in English. Vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it.
“Is that French she's singing?” Just killing time until Huck got back with the coffee.
Melissa rolled her eyes. “It's Edith Piaf.”
“Oh, sure.” I remembered. “Boy, I haven't heard her for a really long time.”
Silence.
“Iowa City, in the dorm. About '64 or so.” I smiled. “Long time.”
Huck returned with the coffee, in time to hear most of the conversation. She gave me a pretty genuine, if weak, smile. “Black for both of you, right?” From last night.
“Yep.”
“So, you're here to tell us all about Toby?” Kevin asked, sarcastic as ever.
“Well, as much as we can,” said Hester.
I began, “You all know we arrested Toby this morning.”
Silence, interrupted by footsteps on the main stair. Hanna came around the corner. “Oh!”
Melissa explained why we were there. Hanna stood in the doorway.
“Do you know why he was arrested?” I asked.
“You said it was trespassing,” said Melissa. “That's about all we know, except that you pointed guns at him, and scared him nearly to death. That really wasn't necessary.”
“Well,” I said, “Toby broke into the funeral home last night, and drove a stake through Edie's chest.”
That hit most of them pretty hard. It was meant to.
Hanna said something along the lines of “Oh my God, what did he do that for,” and promptly sat on a small bench just inside the door. Huck just looked stunned, Melissa sat abruptly on the couch, saying to Huck that that explained the closed coffin at the funeral.
Kevin, on the other hand, didn't have any visible reaction at all.
“Why are you accusing Toby of that?” asked Melissa. “He couldn't any more do such a thing.”
I held up my hand. “We have witnesses. He was seen. He had cuts on his fingers from the broken glass. The soles of his shoes matched the footprints outside the broken window. And,” I finished up, “he told us so. Without prompting.”
“I just can't believe it,” Melissa said, with the tone of someone who simply didn't want to. “That's so, so, gross. Disgusting.”
“Why can't they leave her in peace?” asked Hanna, much more to the point.
“Did you know this last night?” asked Huck.
“When we talked?”
I shook my head, and Hester said, “It hadn't happened yet.”
“Anyway,” I said, “we'd like to talk to each of you for a few minutes at a time, if that's all right.”
“About what?” asked Kevin.
“The case in general,” I said.
Kevin said, calmly, “I think I'll just leave, now, if nobody minds.”
“You might want to stay,” I said. “We've got some interesting stuff.”
“Really?” He said it with that same cynical tone he always seemed to use, but he stayed. The hook was being scrutinized by our fish.
“Yep. I think so. Like I just said, we busted Toby, and now you all know what for. When we got him, he was also very wired,” I said, “and as a direct consequence, he's en route to the Mental Health Institute at Independence, for detox.”
I swear every one of them winced.
“I feel for him,” said Huck. “Believe me, it doesn't get easier as you get older.”
Melissa and Hanna both nodded. Kevin just stood there, being as much of a nonparticipant as he could.
“Not for detox for me,” Hanna said. “I went in for being 'rebellious' and 'uncontrollable.' Well, according to my parents.”
“We were there at the same time,” explained Melissa. “Up on four. Where the crazy kids go.”
Four was the floor where those who needed close attention were kept. It was interesting to find they were bound by another common experience.
Melissa spoke in a soothing voice. “Take your Thorazine, dear, like a good girl, and mommy will like you better.”
“But, I've found happiness in depression.” That came from Hanna, doing a passable little girl impression, and both Huck and Melissa nodded.
Huck chuckled. “But Doctor, if I'm manic-depressive, how come I'm never manic anymore?”
“Well, at least in detox,” said Melissa, “he'll be back here in three days. Seventy-two and out, the detox shuffle.”
An intergroup conversation was starting, off subject, and I thought Melissa was deliberately orchestrating it.
“I hate to interrupt,” I said, “but could we get back on track?”
“If you can show us the track to get on,” said Melissa, “sure.”
It was time for the punch line, before we lost their curiosity.
“Okay. How about this? Toby was there when Dan killed Edie,” I said.
I took a sip of coffee, just to appear totally in charge, and the clunk when I put the cup back down seemed to resound throughout the house.
Melissa broke the silence. “That can't be right.”
“Why not?” interjected Hester.
“Well, he just couldn't. He followed Edie around like a little puppy,” said Melissa.
“That's right,” said Hanna. “They weren't in love, but I think he was.”
“It was an accident, anyway,” said Kevin, with a tone of dismissal. “Nobody meant to really kill her.”
Every eye in the room was on him.
“Well, you know,” he said, talking to Melissa and Huck more than us, “it was just Dan and the pheromone thing. He messed up, that's all.” He looked around, and spread his hands, palms up. “I don't know what all the fuss is about, it was just an accident.”
It was working.
“How do you know that?” Kevin and I locked gazes again. “How do you know?” I asked again. Quietly. Always quietly.
“Toby told me.”
“He did? When?”
He shrugged. “That morning.”
“What,” asked Hester, “did he say?”
“He said, 'Well, it was a mistake.' That's what he said.”
“Want to explain that a little more?” asked Hester.
“Look, lady,” he said, “all I know is this. About three-thirty that morning, Toby came into my room and woke me up and said that Edie was having a little problem. He wanted me to help get her to her room.”
“And?”
