He didn’t see any point in calling ahead to ask whether this was a good time to drop by and talk to Pierce. There’d never be a good time.

Pierce’s parents lived in the west end of Promise Falls on an older, tree-lined street. It was a two-story home that, while not run down, needed attention. The grass was overgrown, the shrubs crying out for a trim. The woodwork around the doors and windows could have used a coat of paint.

Duckworth parked at the curb, walked up to the door and rang the bell. It took Pierce’s mother—Duckworth remembered her name was Ruth—nearly a minute to come to the door. She peered through the window first, then opened the door a crack.

“Ms. Pierce, it’s Detective Duckworth.”

“Oh, yes, hello,” said Ruth Pierce. She opened the door far enough to admit him, as though opening it wider would allow unseen forces to invade the house. “Forgive me. You wouldn’t believe the people that show up. Awful, awful people. Not quite as many as there used to be, but they still come.”

“I’m sorry,” Duckworth said.

“People can be so cruel. The ones that want to make fun of him, to laugh at his misfortune. They’re no better than whoever did this to him.”

“They can be pretty awful, it’s true.”

As he stepped into the house, he sniffed the air.

“That’s scones,” Ruth Pierce said. “They just came out of the oven. Craig loves my scones and I try to do whatever I can to make him happy. Would you like one? With some jam?”

Duckworth felt his resolve weakening, not unlike that time, on another investigation, when he arrived to question a woman just as she’d finished baking banana bread. There were some things one could not say no to.

“That sounds wonderful,” he said.

“It would give us a chance to chat before you go upstairs to talk to Craig,” she said. “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it? Talk to Craig.”

“I do, yes.”

“He probably knows you’re here. He sits and looks out the window a lot of the day.”

Her eyes drifted northward. If Craig kept an eye on the street, his bedroom had to be right above their heads. It occurred to Duckworth that there wasn’t a sound coming from up there.

As if reading his mind, his mother said, “I’ve got the TV hooked up in there but he almost never turns it on. Mostly he’s on his computer. Come to the kitchen.”

Duckworth followed her, and the scent of scones. He took a seat at the kitchen table as Ruth transferred the scones from a cooking sheet to a plate. “I love them when they’re still warm,” she said.

“Absolutely,” he said.

“You look like you’ve lost some weight.”

“A little.”

“Isn’t your wife looking after you?”

Duckworth chuckled. “It’s because she is looking after me that I’ve managed to lose it.”

She shook her head. “That’s no way to live, denying yourself the pleasures of life.” She briefly froze, and then her chin began to quiver. “Oh my poor, poor boy.” Her body shook with one brief sob. “There are so many pleasures he’ll never know.”