“I’d love some.” It was late, and she was elderly. Sugar and caffeine would buy him more time with her. “Do you have a way to contact either of the Pines?” he asked before she could start up her monologue again.

She went toward the fridge and got the milk out. “Well, I thought I did. As soon as I got off the phone with the young lady at your law firm, I tried the number Coral Lee left. It’s not connected anymore. I thought for a moment she must have passed on. She was very ill. But Lexie surely would have contacted me about the funeral. More likely it’s off because of money troubles, so an inheritance would be an answered prayer. Is it enough money to be useful?”

She had bright black eyes, shiny as buttons, and she hardly paused for breath or answers.

“I can’t give you specifics, but it’s a comfortable amount. Can I see the phone number?” he asked. “When did she give it to you?”

“Why, it must be five or six months back, at least. When she was staying here. I have a guest room, you know. . . .” As she told him every detail of her small apartment’s layout, she opened a kitchen drawer and got an old-fashioned paper address book, the kind with three-hole punch pages that could be changed out. It looked almost as old as she was. She flipped through the crackly, yellowed pages, then set it down in front of him, wishing aloud that she had a two-bath unit instead of just a half bath in the front. Coral Lee had had to come through the master to shower.

The address was for the old house with the carport, the one he’d so recently visited. A phone number was crossed out and a new one had been written above in fresher, brighter ink. Area code 762. Was that Georgia? It was probably a burner, but he took a picture of the whole page anyway and sent it in a text to Gabrielle that said, CLP’s most recent number. What’s this area code? Cell phone? Traceable?

While he was doing this, Mariah got out a pan and poured milk into it, not measuring, talking on, unchecked. Something about a cat now. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten there.

At the first sign of a pause, he put in, “Does Lexie have any close friends around here? Or in her old neighborhood?”

She was adding Dutch cocoa and sugar to her pan, again not measuring, but she paused to say carefully, “You know Lexie had some troubles.”

He nodded, grave. “I am familiar with her history.”