“Tricia was a dummy, just like him. So was that fool she went and married. It was his fault they got killed. All those speeding tickets and his drinking. So they give him a truck.” She laughed. “Idjits. That’s who they give a truck to.”

I said, “Tricia had trouble in school.”

Her glare said she was starting to doubt my intelligence. “That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“What kind of trouble?”

She sighed. “When she even bothered to go to school, she hated reading, hated ‘rithmetic, hated everything. We were in Arizona back then and mostly she snuck away and ran around the desert with bad influences.”

“Where in Arizona?”

Instead of answering, she said, “It was hot as hell. My husband’s big idea, he was gonna grow cactuses because he heard you could make big money growing cactuses and selling ’em to tourists. ‘Be easy, Margie, no water, just keep ’em in pots till they’re big enough.’ Yeah, and make sure the dog don’t eat ’em and die from spikes in the guts, then you have to set up a stand on the highway and breathe all that heat and dust and hope some tourist’ll bother to stop.”

She gave her empty cup another glance. “I sat at that stand day after day, watching people speed right by me. People going somewhere.”

She pouted. “Guess what? Even cactus need water.”

She held out her cup. I got her a refill.

“So Tricia grew up in Arizona,” I said.

“And Nevada and Oklahoma and before that we lived in Waco, Texas, and before that southern Indiana. So what? This ain’t about where we lived. It’s about Randolph and the bad thing he did.” She pressed forward against the table, bosom settling on grease-spotted blue plastic.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s talk about that.”

Her lips folded inward, tugging her nose downward. Her blue eyes had darkened to granite pebbles. “I told him don’t be hanging with that little monster. Now, all our lives is turned to shit.”

“Troy Turner.”

“Mister, I don’t even want to hear that name. Sinful monster, I knew he’d get Randolph in trouble.” She finished the refill, squeezed the cup and folded it over, placed her hand over the misshapen wad. Her mouth trembled. “Didn’t think it would be trouble like this.”

“What scared you about Troy?”

“Me? I weren’t scareda that little shit. I was worried. For Randolph. ’Cause he’s stupid, does whatever you tell him.”

“Is Troy stupid?”

“He’s evil. You wanna do somethin’ useful, sir? Tell the judge that without bad influence Randolph never woulda— never coulda done anything like this. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it ’cause Randolph’s lawyer said you weren’t necessarily on our side.”

“I’m on no one’s side, Mrs. Sieff. The judge appointed me so that I could— ”