“Living room’s for company.” In what Eve now saw as her nobullshit way, Mrs. Golde hefted the pitcher, poured out glasses. “This is sassafras tea, and it’s good for you. It’s my grandma’s recipe.”
“My granny makes that.” Delighted, Peabody accepted a glass.
“Does she now?”
“Yes, ma’am.” After a sip, Peabody grinned like a child. “It’s got to be the same recipe, or close to it. It really takes me back.”
“What’s your name, girl?”
“Detective Peabody. My granny’s a Norwicki.”
“Polish.” On a wide, beaming smile, Mrs. Golde pointed an approving finger. “My grandma was, too. A Wazniac. She died just last year. A hundred and eighteen. Went skydiving two weeks before she slipped off in her sleep. Can’t say better than that.”
“No, ma’am.”
Eve supposed this was living room conversation, but they didn’t have time for it. “We have a few follow-up questions,” she began. “We believe Jerald Reinhold will target someone else.”
“I kept thinking, I don’t know, he just had some sort of break-down. But after I heard about Lori, what he did to her.” Mal stared down at his hands. They held steady, but his voice shook. “I don’t know how he could do that. I don’t know how he could do what he’s done.”
“He’s a spoiled, good-for-nothing whiner, and always has been.”
Mal rolled his eyes toward his mother. “Ma.”
“Actually, I’d like to hear your opinion, Mrs. Golde.”
After sending her son a smug look, Mrs. Golde nodded at Eve. “You show some sense. I watched him grow up, didn’t I? His ma and I, and Davey’s ma, too, we spent a lot of time together, or handling each other’s boys. My Mal’s a good boy, and it’s not bragging to say so. He had his times, sure, and he got slapped down for them when he needed to be.”
“Still happens,” Mal muttered but with a smile.
“Always will. I’m your ma, birth to earth. Davey here, he’s a good boy. Not that his ma and my own self didn’t slap him down a time or two—and still will,” she added, jabbing a finger at him. “Barb and Carl, they were good people, and they did the best they could with that boy. But he was born a whiner, and he never did grow out of it.”
She plucked up a carrot stick, waved it. “Somebody else’s fault always with him. Never appreciated anything they did for him, and always found fault. Maybe I could say they indulged him more than they should, but he was their only chick, and they did their best by him. Worked with him on schoolwork, even hired on tutors when he didn’t do so well. Boy wanted to play ball, so Carl—and the man, bless him, wasn’t much of an athlete—he spent hours throwing the ball or chasing it with Jerry. I remember when these two, Jerry and that Joe Klein, swiped candy and comic discs from down at Schumaker’s, we all—Barb, Davey’s ma, and Joe’s and me—we all dragged these boys in there to make it right.”
“Worse day of my life,” Mal mumbled.
Mrs. Golde’s expression clearly transmitted she was fine with that. “Davey and Mal here, they were shamed and sorry, and rightfully. That Joe, he was mostly shamed and sorry he got caught, but Jerry? He was mad.”
“He was,” Dave confirmed, and took a cookie. “He went off on me. He said I’d screwed the whole thing up. He punched my guts out before Mal pulled him off.”
Mrs. Golde’s finger ticked between the two men. “You never told me that.”
“Ma, I can’t tell you everything.”
“Hah.” Her sniff was her opinion on that. “Jerry apologized to the Schumakers, sure, had no choice with his mother holding him by the ear and seeing he did. And when a rock went through Schumaker’s store window one night a couple weeks later, I know Jerry’s the one who threw it.”
“You don’t know that, Ma. And we weren’t there. I swore to you then, and I swear to you now, we didn’t do it.”
“I’m not saying you did. If I thought different, you still wouldn’t be sitting down easy. Barb knew it. She didn’t tell Carl, but she told me. Sitting back in the kitchen, and shedding some tears over it, too. Couldn’t make him say he did it, but she knew.”
“Is Schumaker’s still there?”
“Fifty-one years, same location. Frank and Maisy.”
Eve noted it down. “What I want from you is the names of anyone you can think of he has something against, he had trouble with, who he complained about. Going back. I don’t mean just recent problems.”
“I hope you’ve got a lot of time,” Mrs. Golde said, and helped herself to a sandwich bite. “Because that boy stacked up grudges like a kid with building blocks. I’d be one of them.”
“He’s not going to hurt you, Ma. I’d kill him first.” Mal’s face went fierce as he turned to Eve. “I mean it.”