Sullivan grinned. “A man after my own heart. You mind if we record this?”
Ray glanced at the recorder with a gleam in his eye. “No problem. Let’s go up to the porch, though, and get out of this sun.”
The porch had a complete set of wicker furniture that managed to appear weathered and expensive at the same time. Tobias sank into an armchair with a plush cushion as Ray went to the door and warbled, “Barbara, they’re here. Bring out the lemon water, sweetheart.”
He glanced back at Tobias and Sullivan. “My wife. She’s home all day, so she keeps an eye on things around the neighborhood.”
“Hello!” A woman shouldered the door open while holding a tray with tall glasses full of ice and a big pitcher of water. She was short and plump with curly graying hair and a wide smile. “I hope you’re thirsty! I’ve brought enough for everyone. My, it’s already hot out. This weather, I tell you.” She smiled at them all, her cheeks pink and round.
She was basically Mrs. Claus, Tobias realized, thanking her for the glass of water she passed to him. All she needed was a red velvet dress with white fur hems.
“No trouble at all,” she said, patting him on the knee. She handed a glass to Sullivan as well. “I like your hair, Mr. Detective. It’s downright adventurous.”
Sullivan was startled into a laugh by that, and Tobias did his level best to pretend that it wasn’t an attractive laugh at all, no matter how soft and warm it was. “Thank you. It pays to be adventurous in my line of work.”
“Oh, I imagine it does.”
“Now, Barbara, leave the young men alone.” Ray shook his head and tugged his wife onto the loveseat beside him. It creaked under their combined weight. “They’re here to talk about murder. It’s not a cheerful subject.”
Tobias noted dryly that Ray looked every bit as enthusiastic as Barbara did. Sullivan must’ve had the same thought, because he sounded amused as he ran through his spiel for the recorder. When that was done, he said, “Well, before we get to the murders, do you think you could tell me a little about the people who lived there?”
“We didn’t know them that well, I’m afraid,” Barbara said. “Larry—that was his name—was...how to put it?”
“He was an ass,” Ray said bluntly.
“Ray! Goodness,” Barbara admonished. She looked at Sullivan and Tobias apologetically. “He was though, a bit.”
“How so?” Sullivan asked.
“Full of himself,” Ray explained. “Pompous. You know the type. Puffed up a lot. Needlessly so, in my opinion.”
“He wore a sport jacket to an evening wedding,” Barbara whispered to Tobias, still loud enough that everyone heard her anyway.
“I see,” Tobias said.
“Next day, he bragged about having been invited,” Barbara continued. “Held Ray up at the mailbox for ages talking about it.”
“Like it’s any great compliment to be invited to one of Carole-Anne’s weddings,” Ray said. “Anyway, Larry seemed to have forgotten that we’ve been to three of them now, including the one he’d been at, a point he did not appreciate me making.”
“She’s on husband number five,” Barbara murmured to Tobias. “Such a shame.”
“That’s too bad,” Tobias managed.
“Was there anything in particular that Larry was pompous about?” Sullivan asked. “Did he ever mention work?”
“We didn’t really speak to him much,” Barbara said. “Neighborhood events only. I seem to recall there was an incident at a barbecue. He got into a tiff with someone over parking, I believe?”
“It was Wayne,” Ray said. “They got into it over all those cars that were always parked in front of Wayne’s house.”
“The cars?” Sullivan asked.
Barbara nodded. “Lots of them. Parked up and down the street at all hours—”
“Black sedans,” Ray interjected.
“—and always these big men coming in and out of the place—”
“Wore sunglasses,” Ray interrupted. “Sometimes at night, even. Ridiculous. Although I suppose it makes more sense now, why he thought he needed a bunch of bodyguard-types.”
“—and Wayne and Larry got downright loud about it.” She leaned toward Tobias and spoke with that same stage-whispered confidentiality as before. “It was very dramatic.”
“That was the last time Larry came to a neighborhood function, I think,” Ray said, squinting like he was trying to remember.
“He went to a lot of them before that, though?” It struck Tobias as odd that a guy involved in small-time crime would be interested in neighborhood functions in the first place. “Was he interested in meeting women at the barbecues?”
“Lord, no,” Barbara said.
“He had a girl.” Ray took a sip of his water. “I did not approve of the way he spoke of her, did not approve at all.”
“Can you be more specific?” Sullivan asked.
“He kept talking about her...ah, attributes.”
“Attributes,” Sullivan repeated.
Ray huffed. “I asked what she was like and he told me her cup size.”
“Ray, please,” Barbara said in a low voice.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” Ray gave Sullivan and Tobias knowing looks.
“I thought he had a daughter too,” Barbara said quickly, shifting the conversation back. “But she turned out to be the maid’s girl. All that horrible news about the search when she went missing.”
“Was this her?” Sullivan asked, holding out the school picture of Nathalie.
Barbara and Ray both slipped reading glasses on and took turns holding the picture out at arm’s length to squint at it. They both nodded.
“She would sit and read on the porch,” Barbara said. “Saw her from time to time on one of my walks.” She gave Tobias a sweet smile. “I take walks around the neighborhood. For my blood pressure, you know. Sometimes I’d wander that direction.”
She would’ve had to wander pretty close to the gate to notice someone on the porch. Tobias suspected that Barbara was bored out of her mind.
“Did you ever meet Larry’s girl?” Sullivan asked. “The one with the, uh, attributes?”
Ray shook his head, but Barbara said, “I did, once, about five or six years before the murders, back when she first arrived. To welcome her to the neighborhood, I took over a coconut cake of Hanna’s—Hanna’s our cook, she’s
