“You’re missing out on this ice cream.”

“Enjoy, Lita. So you don’t know if Marie ever lost an infant when she was around twenty?”

“Nope. I never remember seeing Marie actually pregnant. She’d always scoop ’em out before she got big. Least that’s what she claimed she did. Maybe she was just taking my money and having a good time. I wouldn’t have been surprised. Hell, that’s what I would’ve done.”

“Would it have been possible for Marie to have lost a baby and you not know about it?”

“Sure. By the time Marie was twenty, she was on her own, living up North. Following in the footsteps of all those crazy sixties hippies. Miss Flower Child complete with tie-dyed T-shirt and love beads, always living in one commune or another, fucking her brains out. Those were her words, not mine. She’d come home from Berkeley, I’d ask her what she learned. She told me she learned how to fuck her brains out. I told her she didn’t need college to learn how to do that.”

“So she could have lost a baby and you wouldn’t have known.”

“Yep.” Lita licked her cream-soaked lips. “I think she woulda told me about it, though. She sure as hell told me about everything else—all the drugs, all the sex and the orgies. She screwed everyone and everything—alone, in groups, guys, girls, students, professors, anything that breathed. She went from one commune to another. And when she couldn’t find peace in sex, she went from one god to another. Then she found Jesus, left Berkeley, and became a nurse.”

Lita stopped talking and appeared to be lost in thought.

“Wanna know the truth, Detective? Marie did better than I did. She’s adding to this world; all I ever did was take, take, take. Not that it was my fault, nobody ever gave me anything. So I just took it. Deep down in my heart, I’m really proud of my daughter. I tell her that, too. I tell her I was a shitty mother and that I’m proud she overcame my deficiencies to make something more of herself than just a libertine woman.”

“What did Marie say when you told her that?”

“Just smiled. She doesn’t say too much. Too busy reading me the Bible. I don’t mind. I can use all the help I can get.”

Marge was writing so fast her hand started to cramp. She took a deep breath and said, “Did Marie seem preoccupied with children lately?”

Lita shook her head. “Nope.”

“Did she mention anything about her past abortions by any chance? Any guilt, maybe?”

“Nope.”

“Do you recall if she had any guilt?”

“Girl never seemed guilty to me. But I’m not one to look for guilt. I never feel guilty about anything. Life’s too short for guilt.”