“Who’s she consoling?”
“Ethel Fox,” Bree said. “Sydney’s mother. She and Connie are friends.”
“How’s the mom taking it?”
“Disbelief. Devastation. Shock. Sydney was her only daughter. Her husband passed ten years ago, and her son lives out in California. I don’t know what she’d do if your aunts weren’t here.”
I put my arm around her shoulder, and we followed Naomi and Patty up into the house. Aunt Connie kept her home spotless, but it was by no means a cold or sterile place. The furniture was warm and cozy, and there were pictures of her and her friends and her children, Pinkie and Karen, everywhere. I couldn’t find one where my aunt wasn’t beaming or hugging someone.
Like I said, she never, ever met a stranger.
I could see Aunt Connie in the kitchen, wearing pink bunny slippers and a matching pink bathrobe and whisking eggs in a steel bowl. The air smelled of bacon, garlic, onions, and coffee. Suddenly I was ravenous and very tired. I wanted nothing more than to eat, then go next door and sleep.
Patty, Naomi, Bree, and I all went into the kitchen. Aunt Hattie was th
ere too, sitting at the table and holding the hands of an older white woman with wispy gray hair. Dried streaks of tears showed on her cheeks, and she seemed to be staring off into nothingness, unaware of us.
“Sydney was the sweetest little thing, Connie,” Ethel Fox said in a weak voice. “So pleasing when she was a girl.”
“I remember,” Aunt Connie said, nodding to us.
“She was finding herself, I think, after the divorce,” the older woman went on. “So happy, and looking forward.”
“You know that’s true,” Aunt Hattie said. “She was doing good. A daughter to be proud of.”
Patty swallowed hard and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Fox. Sydney was such a fine, fine person, I…”
The dead woman’s mother seemed to break from her trance. She turned her head slowly to look at Stefan’s fiancée, who was fighting back tears.
“The police said she was shot ’cause of you,” Ethel Fox said in a flat, grieving tone.
Patty’s hands flew to her mouth and she choked out, “I wish it had been me. I swear to you, I never…I loved your daughter. She was my best friend here. My only friend.”
Ethel Fox got up slowly, staring hard at Patty, and for a second I thought she might strike her. Instead, she opened her arms and embraced Stefan’s fiancée, who wept on her shoulder.
“I know you loved her too,” Ethel Fox said, rubbing Patty’s back. “I know you loved her too.”
“You don’t blame me? And Stefan?”
The old woman pushed away from Patty and shook her head. “Sydney believed he was innocent as much as you do. We talked about it just the other day. She said Stefan didn’t have the kind of heart to do something that dark to anyone, much less to a boy he cared so much about.”
Aunt Hattie fought not to break down.
Aunt Connie wiped her own tears on her forearm, said, “Ethel, you hear me now. Our nephew Alex here is gonna find Sydney’s killer, just like he’s gonna find Rashawn’s. You mark my words, he’s gonna make them pay. Isn’t that right, Alex?”
Every eye in the room was on me. In the short space of time I’d been in Starksville, the town had revealed dimensions more ominous than I remembered. Deep inside, I wondered whether I was up to the task of figuring out who killed the Turnbull boy and, now, Sydney Fox. But they were all looking at me with such hope that I said, “I promise you, someone will pay.”
Aunt Connie broke into her toothy grin and then poured the beaten eggs into a black frying pan with a hiss. “Sit down now, I’ll finish up.”
“Sydney was right,” Aunt Hattie said. “Whoever killed that boy had a dark heart, and my Stefan does not.”
I realized she was directing the comment at me. Had Naomi told her what I’d said earlier in the day, about owing my allegiance to the victims?
Before I could respond delicately, Ethel Fox said, “You ask me, there’s only one heart black enough around here to kill a boy like that. You ask me, that Marvin Bell’s involved somehow.”
The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
My aunts evidently could, though.