After a time, Nicola calmed herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But that just tickled me. The idea of your mom, hanging out with some criminal . . .”

Robin relaxed. “It is kind of ridiculous.”

“I mean, what? Was she pals with a drug dealer? I mean . . . could you even imagine your mom smoking a joint?”

Robin giggled. “Not a drug dealer, just—”

“A prostitute?”

They were both laughing now.

“Numbers runner? Carjacker? Hired killer?”

“Okay,” Robin said, laughing harder. “Okay, I see your point.” They laughed together for quite a while, Robin growing used to Nicola’s shrieks, along with the other cafeteria patrons. It did something, laughing with another person like that. It bonded you.

Once their laughter died down, Robin leaned in close and said it. “I spoke to this guy. He was making a podcast about these killings in the ’70s.”

“Quentin.” Nicola said the name like it was a rotten piece of meat in her mouth.

“You know him?”

“Met him. Don’t like him.” She leaned in. “Don’t trust him. At all.”

“Yeah?”

She glanced around the cafeteria and nodded slowly. “He said something, Robbie. It made me very suspicious.”

“What did he say?”

“Something about being in your parents’ neighborhood the night they were shot.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“I mean, he could have just been snooping, like journalists do, but—”

“Did you tell the police?”

She smiled. “I am the police.”

Robin stared at her. “You are?”

“Don’t look so surprised. Gray-haired ladies can be cops too. And yes. I spoke to an irritating detective from the Tarry Ridge Department.”

“Baus.”

“Bingo.”

“Try Morasco next time.”

“Thank you. That Baus is a jackass.”

Robin forked some scrambled eggs into her mouth and choked them down. She took in the tanned face. “I can’t believe you’re the same CoCo,” she said.

Nicola took a bite of her donut. “Life rides some of us harder than others.”

“No, no. I didn’t mean that,” Robin said. “I just can’t believe you’ve been in touch with my mom, after all these years.”

“I’m good at tracking people down,” she said. “And I’d never have let your mom slip away.”

Robin thought of her father, the anchor. “I’m sorry you couldn’t stay with us.”

“Listen, I never had any hard feelings over your dad not letting me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Well . . .”

“If Mitchell hadn’t said no, I’d never have gone to the Police Academy, never would have made detective or met my darling ex-husband or seen as much of the world as I have,” she said. “Hell, if he’d said yes, he’d probably be long gone, and your mother and I would be in that house, pulling a Grey Gardens and . . .” She shook her head. “I’m an idiot,” she said quietly.

“What?”

“I’m so very sorry about your dad.”

“It’s okay.”