Drayco looked over at the trash can in his kitchen filled with empty bottles of Manhattan Special, an assortment of beer cans, and takeout boxes with congealed food clinging to the containers. They were piled upward into an overflowing trash pyramid like Giza monuments with the mortar cracked and the stones tumbling down the sides.
Rena had been formally charged with Jerold’s murder. The police found a key to Jerold’s storage unit in her possession, for starters. When they confronted her with the facts—they also found traces of Jerold’s blood in the trunk of her car and her fingerprints on the gun that was tracked to Jerold—she seemed eager to talk.
Boasted, more like it. Down to the disposable raincoat, the gloves, and shoe covers she wore. And why she washed the knife clean, to make it look like Maura was destroying evidence when the police showed up. She didn’t know Maura was going to pick up the knife, but even better.
Drayco glanced at the box of caramels Halabi had sent to Drayco’s townhome. Peace offering or gentle jab, he wasn’t quite sure.
He changed the channel on the TV remote but ended up back at C-Span, where it had stayed most of the week. Mind-numbingly boring and no local news, which he’d been trying to ignore. His neglected piano called to him in vain—after starting and stopping the same Chopin sonata ten times, he’d given up.
The phone rang, and he almost didn’t answer, thinking it was another meeting with Halabi or the FBI or the TSA or the FTC. He’d talked so much about Maura, Rena, and the Zamorras over and over, he was ready to go MIA.
But it was someone quite unexpected. After hanging up and making a few additional calls, he hopped in his car, made a stop at Ashley’s house to pick up his passenger, and drove to the detention facility. Lauralee wanted to meet her mother in person for the first time.
As they waited in the lobby, Drayco asked, “That watch you lifted from the store. Did you take it because you saw Rena wearing one just like it?”
Lauralee’s smile was brief and bitter. “Yeah. When I saw her smoking, I took that up, too.” She sighed. “All this time, I resented my adoptive parents. I always felt more like a missionary project than a daughter. But at least, they cared and didn’t abandon me.”
Drayco briefed Lauralee on Rena’s traumatic childhood and her mother’s murder. “When the police questioned Rena, she said her elderly grandmother told her girls are useless and only boys matter. She said she hated that old woman, and it’s not women who don’t matter, it’s old people with dried-up souls and hearts turned to dust.”
“Is that why she married that elderly guy? Just so she could divorce him and kill him later?”
“That’s what she says. With the added benefit of his rather large estate.”
“But why kill Jerold? I mean, Ashley told me about his gambling and that lottery swindle thing. I don’t get the murder part.”
“Because he was getting careless—the gambling debts, sending lottery letters to women in his own neighborhood. She confronted him with a gun and forced him to call Maura, who she framed for his death.”
He noted the shadows gathering over Lauralee’s face. “Are you sure you want to do this? You can still back out.”
She straightened her drooping shoulders and smoothed out a wrinkle in her dress. “I want this. I have to do this.”
He wasn’t sure how much more he’d tell her. At least not right now. Certainly not that he’d found out Rena knew Lauralee was her daughter and never contacted her. Whether it was another symptom of Rena’s callous nature or inability to love anyone, it was hard to say.
Drayco asked, “Looks like it could take several more minutes before they take us to see Rena. Need a smoking break?”
She shook her head. “I suppose I should try to quit. It doesn’t seem nearly as glamorous as it once did.”
He studied her posture—so straight you could raise a flag up her spine. He imagined a flag that read “Free Lauralee.” But he liked the new glint of purpose he saw in her eyes, and as the deputy came to escort them, he had a feeling that no matter what happened with Rena, Lauralee would be just fine.