shade of pinkish-blue. Lena realized the woman matched the living room perfectly.
Grace spoke. 'I appreciate your not interrogating Mark last night, Chief Tolliver. He was very upset.'
Jeffrey said, 'It's understandable that he would need some time to recover from what happened.'
Teddy Patterson snorted at this. Lena was not surprised. Men like Teddy Patterson did not think that people needed to recover from things. He was actually more like Lena in that regard. You dealt with it and you got over it. Or, at least you tried and did not whine about it.
'Is his sister around?' Jeffrey asked. 'We'd like to talk to her, too.'
'Lacey?' Grace said, putting her hand to her necklace again. 'She's at her grandmother's right now. We thought it would be best.'
Jeffrey asked, 'Where was she last night?'
'Here,' Grace answered. 'She was taking care of me.' She swallowed, looking down at her hands in her lap. 'I don't usually ask her to stay with me, but I had a very bad night, and Teddy had to work.' She gave him a weak smile. 'Sometimes the pain gets to be too much for me. I like having my children around.'
'But Mark wasn't here?' Jeffrey said, even though that much was obvious.
Her face clouded. 'No, he wasn't. He's been a bit difficult to control lately.'
'He smacked up his sister a while back,' Patterson told them. 'I guess you got that on his sheet. He's a real shit, that boy. Nothing good coming from him.'
Grace did not make a sound, but her disapproval traveled through the room.
'Sorry,' Patterson apologized. He actually looked contrite. Lena wondered at the hold Grace had over her husband. In the space of a few short minutes, she had subdued the man.
Patterson said, 'I'll go fetch Mark,' and left the room.
Lena caught herself running her tongue along the back of her teeth again. For some reason, she could not speak. There were questions to ask, and Lena knew that Jeffrey wanted them to come from Lena, but she was too preoccupied to focus. Her goal was to get out of this trailer and away from Teddy Patterson as quickly as possible. The truth was that even with his wife sitting three feet away, and Jeffrey right beside her, Lena felt scared. More than that, she felt threatened.
Lena tried to take her mind off the claustrophobia she was feeling. She stared off into the kitchen, which was roomy but not large. Strawberry wallpaper lined the walls, and there was even a clock with a strawberry on it over the kitchen table.
Grace cleared her throat. 'Mark has had a bad time lately,' she said, picking up where she had left off. 'He's been in and out of trouble at school.'
'I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Patterson,' Jeffrey said. He sat up on the couch, probably to establish a sense of rapport. 'How about Lacey?'
'Lacey has never been in trouble a day in her life,' Grace told him. 'And that's the God's truth. That child is an angel.'
Jeffrey smiled, and Lena could guess what he was thinking. Usually the angels were the ones who committed the most heinous crimes. 'Is she dating any boys?'
'She's thirteen,' Grace told him, as if that answered it. 'We don't even let boys call the house.'
'She couldn't have been seeing anyone on the side?'
'I don't see how,' Grace answered. 'She's home from school every day when she's supposed to be. Whenever she goes out, it's always with a group of her girlfriends and she always comes back in time for her curfew.'
Lena could sense Jeffrey trying to catch her eye, but she ignored him.
He asked, 'What time is her curfew?'
'School nights we don't let her go out, of course. Fridays and Saturdays, nine o'clock.'
'Does she ever sleep over with anybody?'
Grace looked as if she had just realized that Jeffrey's interest in Lacey was more calculated than she had originally thought. The look was similar to the one Dottie Weaver had given Lena just hours before, but there was far more menace in Grace Patterson than there had been in Dottie Weaver.
She demanded, 'Why are you asking so many questions about my daughter? It was Mark that little girl pointed the gun at.'
Jeffrey said, 'Dottie told us that Lacey and Jenny were friends.'
'Well…' she began, the hesitancy still there as she obviously tried to think a step ahead of Jeffrey's questions. Finally, she said, 'Yes, they were friends. Then something happened and they stopped hanging around each other.' She shrugged. 'I guess it's been a few months since that happened. We haven't seen Jenny around for a while, and I know Lacey hasn't gone over to her house.'
'Did she tell you why?'
'I assumed it was some silly little disagreement.'
'But you didn't ask her?'
Grace shrugged. 'She's my daughter, Chief Tolliver, not my best friend. Little girls have their secrets. You can ask your ex-wife about that.'
He nodded at this. 'Sara said Lacey's a great kid. Very smart.'
'She is,' Grace agreed, and she seemed pleased to have her daughter complimented. 'But, it's not my place to pry if she's not ready to talk about it.'
'Maybe she wouldn't mind talking with someone else about it?'
'Meaning?'
'Do you mind if I talk to her?'
Grace gave him another sharp look. 'She's a minor. If you don't have cause, you can't talk to her without my permission. Is that right?'
'We don't want to talk to her as a suspect, Mrs. Patterson. We just want to get some idea of what state of mind Jenny Weaver was in. We don't really need your permission for that.'
'But, I've just told you that Lacey hasn't seen Jenny for a while-probably since Christmas. She wouldn't have any idea about this.' Grace gave a polite but humorless smile. 'I do not want my daughter interrogated, Chief Tolliver.' She paused. 'By you or by Dr. Linton.'
'She's not suspected of any wrongdoing.'
'I want to keep it that way,' she said. 'Do I need to call the school and tell them that she is not to talk to anyone without either her father or me in the room?'
Jeffrey paused, probably thinking that she knew a hell of a lot more about the law than they had initially suspected. Schools were very friendly with law enforcement, and since administrators served as in loco parentis while the kids were on campus, they could allow interviews.
Jeffrey said, 'That's not necessary.'
'Do I have your word on that?'
Jeffrey gave a quick nod. 'All right,' he said, and Lena could hear the disappointment in his voice.
'We'd still like to talk to her,' Jeffrey said. 'You're more than welcome to sit in on an interview.'
'I'll have to talk to Teddy about that,' she told him. 'But we can both
