“People who are only interested in the Blooms because they’ve been shot.” She said it patiently, warmly. “I don’t mean to cause offense.”
The limousine passed them, Robin Diamond and her husband inside. Quentin stared at it. He couldn’t help himself. He hoped she wasn’t staring back. “No offense taken,” he said.
“I know you’re just doing your job.”
“I’ve been here since before the home invasion, ma’am,” he said.“I spoke to Mitchell Bloom when he was alive. I believe I was one of the last people to do that.”
The woman’s lips parted, but she said nothing. Her bright eyes drilled into him.
“We only spoke once but he seemed like a very good man.”
“Why did you speak to Mitchell? Why are you out here?”
Quentin exhaled. “Can I get your name, please? Can I buy you lunch? I promise I’ll tell you everything, if I can just get a few moments of your time.”
The woman bit her lip. She gave Quentin a long appraising look, as though she were trying to read his mind. The silence went on for an uncomfortable while. And when she finally spoke, it felt like a victory. “Don’t worry about buying me lunch,” she said. “I’ll pay for my own.”
HER NAME WASNicola Crane, and Quentin followed her in his identical rental car to Ruby’s Diner—a place with Formica tables and orange vinyl booths and waterproof menus thick as doctoral theses. In snooty Tarry Ridge, this place stuck out like a dollar bill in a stack of hundreds, and it made Quentin like Nicola Crane for choosing it. They sat across from each other at a booth next to a window and exchanged business cards—Nicola’s consisted of her name, a phone number, and a P.O. box in Philadelphia—and quickly dove into the menus. “I think I may eat every meal here from now on,” Quentin said.
Nicola smiled. “You could do worse.” She pushed her menu aside. “I’ve been spending a lot of time here, since... well, for the past two days.”
The waitress sauntered up to the table—a bored blond teenage girl who wore a Breitling watch with her polyester uniform. “Whatcan I get you two?” she said, flatly, “you two” clearly a feeble attempt to sound homey and welcoming.
Quentin guessed she was a rich Tarry Ridge high schooler, and the summer job was some sort of bug up her parents’ collective ass having to do with learning the value of a dollar. “What would you recommend?” Quentin said.
She yawned. “Everything’s okay.”
Quentin ordered a stack of blueberry pancakes, a side of turkey bacon, and coffee. Nicola asked for coffee and cinnamon raisin toast, with cream cheese and strawberry jam.
The waitress smiled at her. “That’s what you ordered last time,” she said.
“Comfort food.”
When the waitress left, Nicola said, “So... is your podcast about Mitchell’s work in psychotherapy?”
“Not exactly.” Quentin took a sip of his water. “This is going to be a little hard to explain.”
The waitress returned with their cups of coffee, a creamer, and a stack of sugar packets. Nicola poured around five fingers of cream into her cup, stirred it in.
Quentin waited until the waitress had left before he spoke. “I’m doing a podcast on the Cooper/LeRoy murders.”
She took a delicate sip of coffee. If the names were in any way familiar beyond their historical significance, it didn’t show on her face. “You spoke to Mitchell as an expert, then? I know he did quite a bit of research on mass murderers when he was working on Wards Island.”
“No, ma’am,” Quentin said. “I was asking him about Renee.”
Nicola’s eyes widened. “Pardon?”
“I’m not telling many people about this. Not yet. But you seem like you might be able to solve this for me.”
“Solve?”
Quentin weighed it all out in his mind—the promise he’d made to George Pollard, the potential knowledge Nicola Crane had. “A man contacted our station,” he said, exhaling slowly. “He’d seen Mrs. Bloom in a video. It was on the website Robin works for. They talked about Mother’s Day movies...”
“Yes,” she said. “I saw it.”
The waitress was back with their food. She set the plates down with a condescending smile, the diamonds on her Breitling glinting. “Anything else I can get you two?”
“No thanks,” Nicola said.
