“I’d rather you didn’t talk to my daughter,” Lyla said.
“Talk to me about what?”
Tiffany had come into the yard the same way as Cork, from the side of the house and soundless. She carried a graduation robe, a satiny green and gold, the high school colors.
“Charlotte Kane,” Cork said before Lyla could respond.
“I don’t want you talking to him,” Lyla said.
“Do you think I have something to hide, Mother?”
“This is not our business.”
“Oh, spare me,” Tiffany said.
Mother and daughter locked eyes, glares slamming into each other like wrecking balls.
“Very well.” Lyla said it as if instead of capitulating she were granting her daughter permission. She yanked off her gardening gloves and walked to the house.
Tiffany laid her gown over the back of a black wrought iron lawn chair.
“Graduation tomorrow night, right?” Cork said.
“None too soon,” the young woman replied.
“Big plans?”
“University of Hawaii in the fall.”
“A program there you like?”
“Yeah. It’s called the get-the-hell-out-of-here-and-stay-warm program. What do you want to know about Charlotte?”
She didn’t ask with a lot of interest, and Cork figured she was only talking with him because she knew it would irritate her mother.
“I’ve been told you were pretty tight.”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“You spent a lot of time together?”
“What’s a lot?”
“Why don’t you just tell me about you and Charlotte.”
Tiffany was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a light blue sweater. The sweater seemed a little warm for the day, but it was a good color for her, and showed her figure well. She looked bored with the questions.
“We did some things together. Partied a little.”
“She partied with Solemn Winter Moon for a while, too, then broke up with him. Any idea why?”
“He got to be creepy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Always accusing her of seeing someone else.”
“Was she?”
“Until she went out with Solemn, she didn’t have a boyfriend. Her father was against it or something. I think she just got tired of Solemn. He could be weird sometimes. Moody as hell.”
“Did she get along with her father?”
“Who does?”
“Did she talk about him?”
“Not much.” A moment passed in which Tiffany seemed to be contemplating deserting Cork. Instead, she surprised him. “When we first got to know each other, just after she moved to Aurora, sometimes we’d spend the night at her place, a sleepover, you know. After a while, if we did one, we did it over here.”
“Why was that?”
“Her old man was creepy.” She seemed to like that word.
“In what way?”
“Always sneaking around, watching her. We’d be in a room talking and I’d look up and there he’d be, lurking in the doorway. She told me she thought he listened in on her phone calls. He was always giving her the third degree, where was she going, who was she going with.” A deft sweep of her hand and she flipped back a strand of blonde hair that had blown across her cheek. “It’s funny, though. She could say whatever she wanted to about him and her aunt, but let anyone else say anything and she went ballistic. She could be weird, too.”
But not creepy, Cork guessed.
“Did she ever talk to you about suicide?”
“No way.”
“Did she talk about things that were important to her?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Life, love, plans after high school.”
“She just wanted to get away from here. Like that was a news flash.”
“Solemn’s been charged with her murder. What do you think?”
“Maybe he killed her. The jealousy thing and all.”
“Suppose Solemn was right, Tiffany. Suppose Charlotte had been seeing somebody else. Any idea who it might have been?”
“If I were you, I’d talk to Dr. Kane.”
“Why?”
“He was, you know, like her shadow. If he did listen in on her calls, he probably knows a lot he hasn’t said.”
“Was she close to her father?”
“What’s close?”
“Did they show affection? Give one another kisses, hugs, that kind of thing?”
“I don’t remember. What difference does it make?”
“I just wondered if you ever saw anything between them that might have made you a little uncomfortable.”
“Saw anything?” It took a few seconds before she divined the true intent of his question. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ewwww. Now you’re getting creepy.”
“Just a couple more questions,” Cork said. “You were at the New Year’s Eve party out at Valhalla. I saw your name on the list your dad’s people put together.”
“So?”
“Did your parents know you were going?”
“Oh yeah, like they’re going to let me go to an unchaperoned blowout at Valhalla. I told them I was at Lucy Birmingham’s house for a New Year’s sleepover, okay?”
“Did anything creepy happen at Valhalla? Between Charlotte and anybody?”
“Solemn and Charlotte argued a little. Nothing serious. That’s it. Excuse me, but I have a lot to do for tonight. Are we done here?”
Cork could see she was finished with him in her own mind and would probably give him nothing more. “I guess so.”
She picked up her graduation gown and went into the house.
Cork stood a moment in the garden that Lyla Soderberg had created. Roses dominated. They hadn’t bloomed yet, but Cork was sure they would. Lyla had a way with roses, knew what made them grow. She seemed on less certain ground when it came to a family. But in that, Cork knew, she was not alone.
22
Cork left his Bronco parked in front of the Soderberg house and walked the quarter mile up North Point Road to the old Parrant estate, a huge thumbnail-shaped plot of land at the end of the peninsula, surrounded by cedars. Cork lingered on the drive, which was lined with peonies, and he took a good long look at the imposing house. An undeniable power emanated from all that dark stone, but it seemed to Cork a joyless energy, with anger at its heart. He thought about Judge Robert Parrant and his son. The father a brutal man, the son even worse. Violence,
