Wolfe knocked on the neighbor’s door with his knuckles, squinting in the afternoon sun. There was no response.

Wolfe knocked harder, knowing the old lady had to be home. There was a single beat-up car in the driveway that looked like it couldn’t even handle ‘once a week to church on Sundays,’ and Wolfe hadn’t seen any other cars in the driveway in months.

Still no answer, and Wolfe wondered if maybe she had died.

He snorted. It would be far from the first time I’ve dealt with a corpse, but at the same time, it’ll be funny to be able to call the cops and have them deal with it for once. That’ll be new.

The door snapped open, and the same woman from before—judging by the eyes—stared up at Wolfe. She had a general ‘sunbaked’ look, with light-brown skin that was wrinkled, like she wanted to win a dog show for best shar pei. She was a good foot shorter than Wolfe, roughly five-two, and she wore a dress that could be a damned botanical guide, it had so many floral patterns.

The two stared at each other for a few moments before the old lady chuckled. “Finally decide to give in and get some help with your garden?”

Wolfe snorted. “No, I can handle that. I’m here on behalf of Emmett Private Investigations, and I need your statement in the case of People v. Timo.”

The old lady glanced over her shoulder, then shuffled out of the house and closed the door behind her. “Talk quietly, please.”

Wolfe blinked, confused by the odd turn of events, but he couldn’t see a problem. If the old lady wanted to give her statement outside, he didn’t care.

“So, you’re a private dick, huh?” she said, smiling. “I wondered what you did for a living, but I guess that makes sense, based on your social skills.”

Wolfe laughed—he always appreciated a good quip, even at his expense. “Look, uh”—Wolfe glanced at his paperwork again—“Patricia Timo, I need to get your statement in regards to Mr. Timo’s voluntary manslaughter.”

“Call me ‘Grammy,’ or ‘Ms. Timo,’ but not ‘Patricia.’”

Why do people tell you how to get under their skin? Wolfe wondered, but he decided not to be a dick about it. “I just need the statement please, Ms. Timo.”

Before she could answer, there was a creak of wood from inside, and a young, feminine voice called out, “Grammy? Where are you?”

Ms. Timo cracked the door open. “I’m on our front porch, honey, talking to our neighbor.”

“The one with all the dead flowers you’re always going on about?” the girl asked.

“The very same,” Ms. Timo said.

The door pulled back to its limit, and a girl, roughly eleven or twelve based on her size and awkward proportions—the same rough age as Lucy—stared out at Wolfe. It was obvious she and Ms. Timo were related. They had the same tan-olive skin, and their eyes were an off shade of gray blue.

“This is Shannon, my granddaughter,” Ms. Timo said.

Shannon’s eyes roamed up and down Wolfe, obviously taking in his suit. “Are you a lawyer?” she asked out of nowhere. “Are you here about my parents’ case?”

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Before Wolfe could answer, Ms. Timo stepped in front of Shannon. “Honey, this is adult business. Please go inside and take care of your assignments, okay?”

Shannon’s face went red. “I’m grown up enough and can handle hearing what’s going on. I should know—they’re my parents! I haven’t heard from them in months!”

“Go inside,” Ms. Timo said more forcefully, and Shannon flounced back into the house.

“Let’s take a walk,” Ms. Timo said, and Wolfe, irritated by the delay but unwilling to argue, followed her as she shuffled down the driveway and out onto the sidewalk that meandered through the neighborhood.

“I just need to know what happened that night,” Wolfe said.

“Keep your voice down,” Ms. Timo said again. “She’s following us, I’m sure.”

Wolfe glanced back and saw some bushes a house back rustling. He doubted Shannon could hear anything, but he humored the old lady, lowering his voice again. “Please, just tell me about the case so I can get out of here and you can get back to whatever you were doing.”

Ms. Timo exhaled long and slow, took a deep, shuddering breath, and then spoke in a low voice. “My son called me, after… after he found his wife in bed with another man. Shannon was already at my house, and no one was there when it happened, except him. I drove over after he told me, telling Shannon to stay at my house.”

“What did you find when you got there?” Wolfe asked, making notes as she talked.

“I found him, sitting at a table in the kitchen, a pistol in front of him. He was shaking, shaking so much. I know he didn’t mean it… he had only fired a single time.”

Wolfe glanced at the file. Mr. Timo had been charged with the murder of his wife. Wolfe kept taking notes.

“Did he say anything?” Wolfe asked.

“My son said he wished he could take it back. He said it’d been one moment… one moment when he’d lost control. He regretted it more than anything. I know he wasn’t lying.”

Wolfe was silent for a moment, then asked, as gently as he could manage, “Did you see… his wife?”

Ms. Timo looked back again, and Wolfe glanced with her, to see Shannon following, still a house behind. She spoke in a whisper. “Only very briefly. Some things… some things you can’t unsee, and I didn’t want to see any more than I had to. It was as bad as the time I saw my own brother die to a monster six drop nights ago. Some things I don’t want to look at longer than I have to.”

Wolfe nodded, jotted a last few notes, and closed his file. “Thank you, Ms. Timo.”

She was silent for a few moments as she continued to shuffle forward. Wolfe was about to leave when she spoke again. “Shannon is home-schooled, you know.”

“What?” Wolfe asked. “I don’t care how you teach your kid… Why are you telling me this?”

Ms. Timo continued. “She used to go to public school, years ago, and then she was home-schooled but at least made it to the Church of Uriel every couple of days. Now… Now she has no one. No family, no friends.”

Wolfe had the sinking feeling he knew what was coming.

“Can she… visit with your daughter?” Ms. Timo asked.

Wolfe laughed. “I don’t have a kid. That’s my girlfriend’s younger sister, Lucy. I don’t care if she visits as long as Shel—my girlfriend—approves it. But you know I’m a deckbearer, right? You’ve seen my cards hanging around the backyard? The Infernal ones?”

Ms. Timo nodded. “I do, and I have. More importantly, though, I see that you’re always nice and respectful to your girlfriend. I want Shannon to have friends. But I also want her to have a good example of a relationship that works before… before she finds out about her parents. They were always fighting, and this situation, well… I just want her to see that some people can make it work.”

Some old bag wants to use my relationship as an example for her kid? She’s got to be crazy desperate.

“Look, just ask Shel, okay?”

A tiny bit of Ms. Timo’s good humor returned. “I see who wears the pants in the family.”

Wolfe laughed and shook his head. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Ms. Timo shook her head, too. “I can tell that you get it… Sometimes life is just so horrible, you have to joke about it. I hear that doctors and lawyers and cops all have really black humor, because what else can you do?”

Wolfe nodded, almost involuntarily. He couldn’t deny that a lot of the time, he used humor to take the depressing edge off.

“Speaking of horrible… I really can help with your garden.”

“So that’s what this is all about,” Wolfe said, and he shook his finger in her face. “If Shel says your granddaughter can visit, and if she does some afternoon when everyone is here, I won’t mind if you come putter around my back yard.”

“So kind, so generous.”