Desmond didn’t know what to say. The last time he’d been with this hapless couple, they’d told him touching stories about Pauline Anderton and her final days. Admittedly, they’d mentioned a few scenes in restaurants, a drunken fight with a neighbor who was now dead, but nothing quite so tawdry as this. He was tempted to tell Chloe to turn off the camera, but it didn’t seem right to stop them just because they were contradicting themselves. He put down his file, popped one of the hard candies into his mouth and tried to crack it in half with his teeth. It was this portion of Anderton’s life, and the years leading up to it, that still didn’t make sense to him. If her behavior was bordering on violent, it had to mean she was unhappy—with herself, her life. Perhaps with her decision to scrap her whole career and move to this undistinguished part of the country. That was one way to make sense of it in light of what he already knew. He made a note: she wished she’d gone back to singing after her husband died.

Mrs. Walsh sighed and sipped. “We always thought Margo would be the first one to go, what with the Alzheimer’s and the cancer and the heart problems and that kidney thing.”

“Didn’t she have diabetes?” Mr. Walsh asked.

“Probably. And Paulie was strong as an ox. You never know how your life is going to change and rot. The kids are the only things that remain unchanged, innocent for eternity. That’s why I love them so. I think Pauline was jealous of them, them staying so young and her getting fatter and meaner every day. She blew up like a balloon at the end there.” Mrs. Walsh puffed out her cheeks and thrust her chest forward and seemed to expand on the sofa. “It got so she could hardly fit through doors.”

“Now wait a minute,” Desmond said. “I’ve seen pictures of her from her last years, and there’s no indication she was that fat.”

“Oh, she knew how to hide it,” Mrs. Walsh said. “I’ll give her that. She’d wear cute little sweaters so you couldn’t tell.”

Mr. Walsh nodded in agreement. “We didn’t hold any grudges against her, even after she ruined that Christmas party of ours. By the time we got back from Arizona that winter, she was dead and Margo and Carter had moved on to Florida, which was where Margo always said she wanted to live. I guess it was a good thing they took in Paulie after all because she ended up leaving them some money.”