Decker checked his watch. Plenty of time before the Sabbath started. He kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Honey, can you do me a favor? I’ve got to run somewhere. Can you tell Grandpa I’ll come help him in the barn in about an hour?”

“Sure. What is it?”

Decker held his daughter’s shoulders. “Cin, you see the news promo on TV? The one of Lourdes Rodriguez getting her baby back?”

The teenager’s face lit up. “She’s got Caitlin back?”

“Yep,” Decker said. “Watch the promo if you can get away from the hen party. It’s really touching. And then pat yourself on the back. You deserve as much of the credit for their reunion as anyone else on the case.”

Cindy’s eyes moistened. “That was a real nice thing to say, Daddy. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’d make a good detective, wouldn’t I?”

“You quit college, you’re dead.”

“Just tossing out ideas, Dad.”

“Save your tossing for salads.”

Lita Bellson sat in the sunroom, eyes upon a drawing of a pair of stick figures holding hands. They were girls, wearing triangles for skirts, their faces aglow with smiling mouths disproportionately large for the heads. Decker tiptoed over to the wheelchair and placed his hand softly upon Lita’s shoulder.

“Nice, sunny afternoon,” he said.

“Nothing but sunshine,” Lita said. “I hate it. I hate Los Angeles. Weather never changes. Like this place…like my life now. A curse to live this long. Now, with Marie and Leek gone, I’m all alone…double fucking curse. I wish I was dead. Even spumoni ice cream don’t mean much to me anymore.”

“It all comes around in a circle, doesn’t it, Lita?”

“I guess. Life and death…death and life. One big fucking circle.”

“I suppose someone might think there was biblical justice in your living all alone in your waning years,” Decker said. “The one who abandons in the end gets abandoned. Some people might find that…interesting.”

Lita didn’t speak for a long time. When she did, it was barely above a whisper. “I never abandoned anyone. He took her from me. I just didn’t bother to put up a fuss. Felt I owed him that much…for all the misery I put him through.”

“Lots of affairs, Lita?”

“I never painted me as a virgin. Not to anyone, certainly not to Henry.”

“Henry, your first husband.”

“My only husband. I never married Marie’s father.”

“What was Henry’s last name?” Decker asked.

“Henry Tollan. Nice guy. He couldn’t live with me, couldn’t live without me. Finally married me. Thought a child would change my ways. It didn’t. It never works that way.”

“Why didn’t you put up a fuss when he took her? After all, Henrietta was your daughter, too.”