Live to Tell (Detective D.D. Warren, #4)(19)

“No, ma’am. Patrick didn’t beat his family. Maybe he should’ve with the younger one. Lord knows I watched that kid provoke his father time and time again. But Patrick held his temper. He was a good man. In church, he would pray for patience. He knew what he was up against.”

D.D. exchanged glances with Phil and Alex. “What do you mean, ‘what he was up against’?”

“The younger son, the adopted child, he was trouble. Face of an angel, soul of the Devil, if you ask me.”

“The youngest child was adopted? The boy?” D.D. flipped through her notes. “Oswald?”

“Ozzie’s mother died when he was three years old. Guess folks didn’t find her until months later. All that time, he lived in the apartment with her body, eating every last piece of food in the cupboards, including flour, cardboard, powdered lemonade. Denise told me when the social workers tried to take him away, the poor child broke down and started screaming uncontrollably. He spent some time in a psychiatric unit for little kids. I never knew they even had such a thing.”

This was news. D.D. could feel both Alex and Phil leaning forward. She kept her eyes on Miss Patsy. “Know the name of the hospital where they admitted the child?”

“Someplace in Boston. He was there until last year. They brought him home once they moved here.”

“Sounds like you and Denise spoke quite a bit,” D.D. probed. “She come over often? Maybe join you for iced tea on the porch?”

Miss Patsy nodded easily. “Sure. This summer she came by couple of times a week. Sometimes she brought me cookies, maybe a pie. She’s a very gracious woman, Denise. And yes, she was probably looking for a little time away from the family.” Miss Patsy held up a hand. “Not saying that she and her husband were fighting. But she worked all day, then came home to three kids, one of them right demanding. Can’t blame the woman for seeking out a little iced tea and adult company, can you?”

“Probably not. Denise ever mention any … extracurricular activities? Maybe she and Patrick weren’t fighting. But maybe she’d met someone who’d caught her eye, or he’d found someone who caught his eye. These things happen. Maybe Denise was looking for a little womanly advice?”

“Never mentioned it,” Miss Patsy said, folding her hands on her lap. There was a moment of silence, then Miss Patsy regarded D.D. straight in the eye. “Did Ozzie do it? Rumor mill is the whole family was slaughtered like chickens. Always thought that boy would do something terrible one day. Though maybe,” she sighed, “not as terrible as this.”

“Miss Patsy, what makes you think Ozzie might be capable of doing something like murder?”

Miss Patsy sniffed a little. “Heavens, what to mention? Boy was up and down, up and down the street all day, sunup to sundown if they’d let him. At church, he still had to attend the toddler room, ’cause he couldn’t make it through the service. Had the worst case of fidget you ever did see. Rolling up his pant legs, rolling down his pants legs. Sitting up, sitting down, shifting right, shifting left. Never saw a child so ready to burst out of his own skin.

“And no sense of boundaries. Child would walk through your front door without knocking if you left it unlocked. Several of the neighbors kept finding him in their yards, sitting on their patio furniture as if he owned the place. Then there was the incident with him and Mr. Harding’s barbecue. Boy said the grill turned over by ‘accident,’ but I gotta say, I wouldn’t put it past him to dump hot coals on a wooden deck. When he felt slighted, he could be cruel. Did I mention the squirrels?”

“You haven’t mentioned the squirrels.”

“He liked to throw stones at them. I yelled at him more times than I could count to leave the poor squirrels alone. Then you know what he did? I caught him one day in my own backyard, yanking a squirrel off the bird feeder. Guess he’d crept up on it while it was eating. Why, he grabbed it by its tail, whipped it around two or three times, then slammed its head into the feeder post. Terrible, terrible thing. Blood everywhere. He just stood over the poor creature, and smiled.

“Normal boys don’t smile like that, Mrs. Detective Sergeant. Normal boys don’t lick the blood off their hands.”

D.D. couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Apparently, neither could Phil or Alex. “When … when did this happen?” she ventured finally.

“May, or maybe June. Beginning of summer, we’ll say. Ozzie wasn’t allowed out of the house alone after that. Mostly, his older brother, Jacob, came out to keep tabs on him. Now, Jacob’s a good boy. Strong and fast. Good arm, I’m told. Makings of a first-rate quarterback, to hear his father speak. Jacob seemed to be able to keep Ozzie in line.”

Miss Patsy paused, seemed to realize she had just spoken of Jacob in the present tense, and caught her breath in a small hiccup. “Oh,” she said, and that one sad word spoke volumes of a family that did not exist anymore.

D.D. gave the woman a moment. She took another sip of her iced tea. She was almost done with her glass; Alex and Phil were as well.

Alex leaned forward, seemed to have something to say. D.D. nodded slightly and he cleared his throat.

“Miss Patsy?” he asked gently.

The old woman turned her gaze to him.

“Were you home last night?”

“Yes, sir.”