The innocent usually act as guilty as the guilty.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Deputy Madigan, this is Officer Dancer.”

She didn’t correct him.

“Your name?”

“Tabby Nysmith. Tabatha. Bobby never caused any trouble. No drugs or drinking. He was just into music. Only complaint was a party one time. Kinda loud. Can’t believe he’s dead. What happened? The news didn’t say.”

“We aren’t sure what happened, ma’am. Not yet.”

“Was it gangs?”

“Like I say, we aren’t sure.”

“The nicest guy, really. He’d show Tony, he’s my oldest, these fancy guitars he had. He had one that Mick Jagger played years ago, he said. Bobby’s daddy worked with them and the Beatles too. Or that’s what he said. We didn’t know, how would you know? But Tony was in heaven.”

“Did you see anybody here recent you never saw before?”

“No, sir.”

“Anybody he had a fight with, loud voices, drug activity?”

“Nope. Didn’t see anybody here last night or this morning. Didn’t see anything.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yessir.” She pressed out her cigarette and lit another one. Dance noted from the butts by the door that she at least had the decency to step outside to smoke, to keep from infecting the children. She continued, “It’s hard for me to see his place.” She gestured at the windows in the front of her trailer, obscured by bushes. “I’m after Tony Senior to trim the bushes but he never gets around to it.”

A look toward Dance, a smile.

Men …

“Would your husband have seen anything?”

“He’s on the road. Truck driver. Been away for three days. No, four.”

“All right then, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”

“Sure, Officer. Will there be a funeral or anything?”

“Couldn’t say. Good day to you.” Madigan was loping back toward the trailer but Dance turned the other way, followed the woman back to her trailer and her brood.

“Excuse me.”

“Uh-huh?”

“If I could ask a few more things?”

“I’m sorry. I really have to get back to the kids.”

“How many?”

“What?”

“Children?”

“Oh. Four.”

“I have two.”

Tabatha smiled. “I heard this, like, expression. Diminishing returns. I don’t exactly know what it means but I think of it having two kids sets the stage, you know? You can have ten more and it’s not a whole lot worser.”

“Diminishing returns” probably wasn’t what the woman meant but Dance grinned understandingly. “Two is fine for me.”

“But you work.”

The tiny sentence carried a lot. Then Tabatha said, “I really don’t know much else than what I told that man.” She looked at Dance’s trim figure, pressed jeans and her sunglasses, whose frames were the color of canned cranberry sauce.

A whole different world.

And I work.

“I left Sheryl and Annette watching the little one.”

The woman kept walking, fast for her bulky frame. She drew hard on the cigarette, then paused to crush it out carefully. Smokers did that in California, the land of brushfires.

“Just one or two questions.”