Survival Clause, стр. 49

The older woman nodded. “She was waiting tables, and maybe she did some other things, too, to pick up a little extra money…”

The bookshelves were full of what looked like old, leather-bound reference volumes, and issues of Car & Driver magazine for at least the past couple of decades. I ran my eyes over the photographs ranged on the fireplace mantel.

A black and white wedding picture of a young man and woman in what I guessed were the late nineteen-sixties garb must be Mr. and Mrs. Drimmel. Jacob was big and broad-shouldered in a suit and tie, while his petite wife tried to make up for the difference with a bouffant hairdo that probably owed some of its height to a pair of socks or the heel of a loaf of bread balanced on her head underneath the hair. Her shoes were slingbacks with skinny, two-inch heels and toes so pointy they could have served as deadly weapons. They both looked solemn and a little scared, like the future was a scary place. And seeing as how they probably got married during the worst of the Vietnam War, who could blame them?

A later photo of a brown-eyed girl with the big hair of the nineteen-eighties had to be Laura Lee; probably a high school graduation photo. She was more striking than pretty, with a slightly oversized nose she might have grown into before she died, but that rather dominated her face at the tender age of eighteen or so.

“Who told you about the other things?” Grimaldi wanted to know. “The police?”

“Jacob,” Mrs. Drimmel said. “I guess he heard about it from the police.”

“But Laura Lee hadn’t talked to you about it herself?”

I glanced over my shoulder as Mrs. Drimmel blushed. “Maybe she had. Just in passing, you know? That once, this guy—this trucker—had gotten the wrong idea and made a pass—”

This was a polite euphemism for soliciting sex, I assumed.

“—and Laura told him she’d go with him for fifty dollars, and that it was the easiest fifty bucks she ever made.”

I turned back to the mantel and the pictures. There was no wedding photo for Laura Lee and Frankie, so either they must have eloped, or the Drimmels had taken it down after Laura Lee died. They had no reason to remember Frankie fondly, I guess.

There was a snapshot of an older Laura Lee holding a bundle containing a baby, though, with a slightly older child standing next to them. I leaned closer and squinted.

“…nothing I could do!” Mrs. Drimmel said. “She was an adult, and I didn’t have any money to give her. I knew Frankie would be angry, of course, but he was in prison, and anyway, it was his own fault for getting himself arrested and leaving her with nothing…!”

“Did she name any of these men?” Grimaldi wanted to know. There was no point in pursuing Frankie’s anger with Laura Lee, since he’d been in prison when she died and couldn’t have killed her.

Mrs. Drimmel shook her head. “She said it was easier if she didn’t know their names.”

I could well believe that. I abandoned the picture of Laura Lee and her kids, and went on to the next photograph. And found myself face to face with a face I knew.

My jaw dropped. “Excuse me.” I picked up the photograph and turned to them. Mrs. Drimmel stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence. Grimaldi looked annoyed. I ignored it. “Is this your grandson?”

Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “That’s Curtis. Laura’s boy.”

I looked at Grimaldi. She looked back at me.

“Frankie’s black,” she said.

Mrs. Drimmel looked surprised. “Yes’m.”

“You didn’t check?” I asked Grimaldi.

She shook her head, looking chagrined. “It never crossed my mind. If there’d been an arrest photo attached to the file I pulled, I would have noticed, but…”

But there hadn’t been. Obviously.

Mrs. Drimmel was looking from one to the other of us. “Does it matter?”

Grimaldi pulled herself together. “Not to your daughter’s murder, no. He wasn’t involved in that. But for the others, the profile indicates someone Caucasian.”

Mrs. Drimmel blinked. “Oh.”

“Most of the victims have been Caucasian,” I explained, as I put the picture of Curtis back on the mantel and drifted toward them. “The couple that haven’t been were light-skinned. It indicates a white killer.”

Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “I don’t imagine it would matter to Laura what color someone was. She married Frankie, and he was black. Her boyfriend before Frankie wasn’t.”

“Who was her boyfriend before Frankie?” Grimaldi wanted to know. It was hard to believe the police hadn’t covered that back then, but maybe she just didn’t remember the details.

“You wouldn’t know him,” Mrs. Drimmel said. “His name was Noah.”

“Trent?”

She gave me a look of surprise. “How d’you know?”

“Someone mentioned him,” I said, avoiding Grimaldi’s accusing stare. “It was in a different context. Nothing to do with your daughter.”

Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “Why would you wanna know about Noah? That was a long time ago.”

“Just tying up loose ends,” Grimaldi said lightly. “Noah Trent, you said? Where can I find him?”

“The cemetery down in Sweetwater,” Mrs. Drimmel said. “Killed himself around ten years ago, Noah.”

Grimaldi stared at me. I grimaced. In the silence, we heard the faint music and clanging of metal on metal from beyond the wall. “Is that your husband?” I asked.

Mrs. Drimmel nodded. “He’s picked up an old car he’s working on. I never thought he’d retire—he worked until he was seventy-two—and now that he has, he’s still at it.”

I smiled. “Was that his job before he retired?”

“Diesel mechanic,” Mrs. Drimmel said, and shook her head. “I should have figured he wouldn’t be able to leave it alone. I thought after he retired, he’d settle in to play golf and tool around the house, but no. He went out and found himself an old car to tinker with. But at least he’s doing it here, so I get to see him more.”

Good for Mrs. Drimmel.

Grimaldi shot me a look and pushed to her feet. “Thank you for your time,