Survival Clause, стр. 48
The face was as round and friendly as Millie Ruth Durbin’s, and of around the same vintage. Seventy, give or take a year or two. She had white hair, cut short into soft little curls, and she was dressed in a pair of pink velour pants and a matching T-shirt. They brought out the roses in her cheeks.
The eyes were blue, and they went big when Grimaldi flashed her badge. “Oh, Lord. My kids. Something’s happened to my grandkids—!”
“No.” Grimaldi held up a hand, and stopped Mrs. Drimmel in mid-shout. “No, ma’am. Nothing’s happened to anyone. Not recently. It’s about your daughter.”
“You found him,” Mrs. Drimmel said.
“No. I’m afraid not. But there’s been another murder…”
She sighed. “You’d better come in.”
She stepped back. Grimaldi crossed the threshold into a foyer paved with yellowed marble. I took a better grip on Carrie’s seat, and followed.
Mrs. Drimmel looked askance at us. Grimaldi looked official, in her dark suit and with her badge. I didn’t, in my blouse and flowery skirt and with a baby in my hand.
“The babysitter canceled,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course, but I didn’t want Grimaldi to seem unprofessional for showing up with a woman with a baby. And there was absolutely no way I’d leave Carrie alone in the car. Not even a police car with the doors locked.
Mrs. Drimmel nodded, as if my statement had actually made sense. “Have a seat. Through there.”
She gestured to the room to the left of the foyer. It turned out to be a formal living room, with wall to wall carpet covering the floors—another thing I’d change if I were renovating this place—and a fireplace flanked by bookcases, with a mantel full of what looked like family photographs.
Grimaldi waited for Mrs. Drimmel to take a seat on one of the chintz chairs before she lowered herself to sit on the sofa. I took a seat next to her and put Carrie and her carrier on the floor.
“Pretty baby,” Mrs. Drimmel said, peering at her.
“Thank you.” I stared at her, for some sign of prejudice over the fact that I was sitting here with a brown baby, but there was none visible. “She takes after her daddy.”
Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “I can see that she don’t favor you much.”
The niceties over with, Grimaldi cleared her throat. “I’m Tamara Grimaldi. I took over as chief of the Columbia PD in January.”
“We heard what happened to Carter,” Mrs. Drimmel nodded.
“You probably also heard that there was another woman found at the truck stop down by the interstate a couple of days ago.”
“My husband mentioned it. But that’s the sheriff’s job, isn’t it?”
“We’re working together,” Grimaldi said blandly. “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your daughter, Mrs. Drimmel. Or more specifically, about your son-in-law.”
“Frankie?” She sounded surprised. “I haven’t seen him in donkey’s years.”
“But they were still married when your daughter died.”
“Sure.” She nodded. “Frankie was in prison then, though. No better than he ought to be, Frankie. I told her over and over, she oughta leave him, that one day he was gonna come to a sticky end, but instead of Frankie, it was Laura who died…”
She trailed off.
“I’ve looked at his prison record,” Grimaldi said, yanking the conversation back on track. “There was no question at all that he wasn’t the one who killed her.”
She hadn’t presented it as a question, but Mrs. Drimmel shook her head. “No. He wasn’t violent, Frankie. Never raised a hand to her, or to the kids. Just lazy and weak minded. Couldn’t be bothered to work for a living when taking other people’s stuff was easier. But he wasn’t violent.”
“Would you happen to know where I could find him these days?” Grimaldi asked. She obviously wasn’t convinced by Mrs. Drimmel’s description of Frankie. “He finished his parole from the last time he was in prison—he was living in Birmingham at the time—but that was two years ago, and there’s no record of him anywhere at the moment. I’ve looked, but I can’t find him.”
“We haven’t seen him in longer than that,” Mrs. Drimmel said, frowning. “Jacob—that’s my husband—warned him not to come around here no more, asking for handouts. That musta been five or more years ago.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
Mrs. Drimmel shook her head. “That’s when he went to Birmingham. I gave him a hundred dollars from my rainy day fund and told him he’d better not come back, or Jacob’d whop him.”
I guess Jacob didn’t share Frankie’s laziness and weakness, if he could whop his son-in-law when necessary.
“So Frankie went to Birmingham five years ago,” Grimaldi picked up the story.
Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “That’s the last we’ve seen of him. He don’t write and he don’t call.”
“No contact with his children?”
“Not less’n he wants something from them,” Mrs. Drimmel said. And added, “He never even tried to get’em back after Laura passed. Told us we could keep’em, and with his good wishes.”
She shook her head. “I don’t hold with a man who won’t step up and take care of what needs doing.”
“You were taking care of them when Laura Lee died,” Grimaldi nudged.
I got to my feet with a murmur and drifted toward the fireplace. Mrs. Drimmel gave me a distracted nod. “That I was. Frankie had finally gone too far and gotten himself caught and thrown in prison, and Laura had the hardest time making ends meet. We offered to help her, but after all the things we’d said about Frankie—”
She didn’t finish the sentence, but it wasn’t necessary. I could read between the lines, and I’m sure Grimaldi could, too. Mr. and Mrs. Drimmel had given Laura Lee a hard time about getting involved with Frankie, and when they turned out to be right, pride had made her refuse their help.
“So she took a second job at the truck stop at night,” Grimaldi