The breeze picked up Aubrey’s mother’s short hair and ruffled it, and made the flowers rustle on their forms.

“I don’t know you,” she said after a moment. “I’m Lucyfay Hamilton.”

“Mrs. Hamilton, I’m Bobo Winthrop. I didn’t kill your daughter.”

She stared at him wordlessly. She had Aubrey’s eyes, he thought, but she was smaller all over than her daughter. She was only ten or twelve years older than Bobo, and if she had not been so sunk in grief, she might have appealed to him on a personal level, a realization he found shocking and confusing.

“That’s what the sheriff in your county tells us,” she said. From her tone and demeanor, he had no idea if she believed in his innocence or not.

“I heard you all didn’t want me to come to the funeral, so I thought I’d come today to pay my respects,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone else would be here.”

“After that man ruined the funeral yesterday, I wanted a quiet time to spend with my daughter,” Lucyfay Hamilton said, turning back to the grave. “Did you hear about that?”

“Yes, a friend of mine was here. I heard. And I’ll leave you to your private time.” He turned to go back to his truck.

“You can stay,” she said. “I’ve said everything to her I had to say.”

Bobo had no idea how to respond to that. He shifted from foot to foot. “I really loved her,” he offered.

“That’s what she told me. ‘Mama, he loves me, and he treats me better than anybody ever has,’ she said.”

“You were in contact with her?” Bobo said. “I’m sorry . . . somehow I thought that she was out of touch with you all.”

“She was out of touch with her father and Macon,” Lucyfay Hamilton said. There was a ghost of a smile on her lips. “Never with me.”

“She didn’t talk to her father because of her first husband?”

“And his really, really stupid death as a bank robber? And his scumbag buddies? Yes, that might have had something to do with it,” Lucyfay said dryly. “We raised her the best way we knew how. She had to work on the ranch. She went to church. She wore nice clothes. Did she tell you my husband runs his family ranch, sits on the board of the bank?”

“No, ma’am.” His bit his lip before he could say, She told me you were dead.

“And then she let his stupid friends talk her into ‘avenging his death’—yes, that’s the way they put it—by contacting you.” Clearly, she was not able to say “seducing you.” She turned away from him, to her car. “Well, she paid for her gullibility and her careless way with men. At least she had some happiness with you before she was murdered.”