“Not well. I knew her, but she wasn’t a lifer.” She must have read the confusion on my face because she added, “Your mom didn’t grow up here. Moved here after she had a kid or two. Once you keep having kids, well, you don’t always get out much. Dawn talked about your mom though. She liked her.” Marjory was the type of woman who didn’t smile and still came across as warm. A nearly impossible feat. “They seemed to have a special relationship, Dawn and your mom, like an art-appreciation thing. I was surprised when I heard she confessed, your mom.”

“Who did you suspect?”

“Oh, well, Dawn had lots of admirers. She brought me a lot of business, that girl. She wasn’t sleazy or anything. She was, well, she was beautiful, but also a decent person. She wasn’t loud, but she’d talk to people. I always told my cook to make sure he walked her out ’cause there were lots of young men interested in her. Older men too. Even the priests enjoyed talking to her. I always assumed the cops were covering for one of their own or your mom was covering for her boy. I got two daughters and I would serve time for either of them girls.”

That image of Rodney again. Most of his face hidden by his hair, his mouth dripping in blood.

I glanced at Emily. She was lifting her shirt and wiping her mouth with it. Sundae bowl empty. My time was up. “Um, is there anything else you can tell me about Dawn’s admirers?”

“She used to sketch on napkins for the customers. She sketched animals or she’d do their portrait on drink napkins. Ooh, they ate that up with a spoon.”

The bell on the door jingled.

Marjory’s eyes lit up as she glanced over my shoulder. “Hiya, Chrissy!” she said, smiling for the first time, a smear of red lipstick on her front tooth.

A woman was opening the door with her backside while cradling a baby in a blanket. Gray hairs fell loose from her floppy ponytail as she nuzzled the baby. Her wide, wrinkled face was made pretty by her happiness.

Marjory danced around the counter to greet the lady. “What’d you bring me, lady girl?” She did a hop and clap in place, then reached out for the baby. “Oh, looky look. Look at you. You are so, so, so precious. Gimme.”

Marjory lifted the baby over her head, and the blanket dropped to the floor.

Not a baby. That’s not a baby.

The paws were huge. There were black markings like exclamation points all over its body. It wore a diaper.

“Is that a tiger?” Emily said, dumbfounded and suddenly beside me, her hand slipping into mine.