“I’d rather jump him face-to-face,” Virgil said. “Why don’t we . . . Wait, here he comes.”

The Steam Punk van turned the corner, slowed when the driver saw Virgil, then pulled into the driveway. Osborne got out, carrying a grocery sack, and asked, “What’s up?”

“We need to talk,” Virgil said. “Can we go inside?”

“Sure. If it won’t take too long. I’ve got an appointment to make arrangements for Mom. I’ve got to buy a coffin. Can you believe that?” His voice pitched up; stress leading to a crying jag. “The medical examiner is done. God knows what they did to her. I don’t want to know . . .”

“It’s tough,” Virgil said, as they walked to the door. “I’ve seen enough of it to know. We can’t tell you anything but that we’re sorry.”

Osborne unlocked the door, led them inside, put a couple of packages in the freezer section above the refrigerator, opened the main compartment and got a bottle of Dasani water, and offered bottles to Virgil and Jenkins. They both accepted because it established a friendlier mood, even only a fake one. In the living room, they all sat, and Virgil said, “I talked to some people in Florida today, and they said that you’d be inheriting from your mother.”

Osborne nodded. “Yeah, probably, although I think she gave some money to the church.”

“She was going to give money to the church? Do you have any idea how much?”

Osborne shook his head. “No, not exactly. I don’t think she was planning to give them all of it . . . I’d get something.”

Virgil and Jenkins glanced at each other: the interview wasn’t going exactly as they’d foreseen. “So . . . did that bother you? That a good bit of it was going to the church?”

“No, not especially. I don’t worry much about money—what’s gonna happen is gonna happen,” Osborne said. “I miss Mom, though. That didn’t have to happen. The guy who killed her . . . If I knew who it was, I’d think about killing him myself.”

“Not what you usually want to tell a couple of cops,” Jenkins said. “Now if he gets run over by a car, people are going to be looking at your front bumper.”

“Okay, so I’ll back over him,” Osborne said.

Virgil said, “Listen, Barry, the reason we’re asking is, we’re looking for a motive. You could get a couple of million, from what we hear. That’s a motive.”

“C’mon,” Osborne said. “How many people do you know who’d kill their mom for money?”

“A few,” Virgil said.

“But it’s rare, I bet.”

“But it happens,” Virgil said.

“You know where I was for some of those shootings,” Osborne said. “I couldn’t have done it, you know that.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily have pulled the trigger yourself,” Jenkins said.