Peggy’s smile dimmed, just slightly.She folded her hands in her lap, bracing herself.“He’s gone then.”
Ulrike nodded.“Just after midnight.Peaceful.I was with him.”
Peggy exhaled — not quite sorrow, not quite relief.A soft resignation.“Well.That’s that, then.I won’t pretend it’s a shock.He was slipping in and out like a porch light with a dying bulb.Poor man fought as long as he could.”
She tilted her head toward a photo on the wall — a slightly younger Leo, upright and white-haired, with a mischievous grin.“He used to drive me to the harbour at five a.m.in summer so we could watch the fishing boats come in.Never wanted me to tell the others — thought it made him look romantic.He liked his reputation as a curmudgeon.”Her lips quirked.“I’ll miss him.”
For a moment, her voice trembled.She steadied it with a quick sip of water, then fixed her sharp gaze on Marcus.
“You’re a lawman.”It wasn’t a question.“I can spot them from a mile.”
“Guilty,” Marcus said, a little sheepishly.
“I knew it.You all have the same polite look, like you’re about to ask whether anyone saw a suspicious person lurking near the gardenias.”She leaned in.“So ask me properly, dear.Why are you here?”
Marcus glanced once at Ulrike, who gave an encouraging nod.
He cleared his throat."I'm sorry to say… Leo's daughter, Jennifer, also died this evening.Not by natural causes."
Peggy froze.
Then her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh.”
Her eyes brimmed, not from sentiment — from shock, the kind that strikes deeper than expected.
“That poor girl,” she whispered.“Good heavens.Murdered?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Peggy sat back, rattled.“I… well.I didn’t like the way she treated her father — God knows I didn’t.But she was obviously an unhappy soul.And no one deserves… that.”
Ulrike reached over, rested a hand over Peggy’s.“We know.”
Peggy shook her head, gathering herself.“You know, she did visit once or twice.Years ago.When we first moved in here.Leo couldn’t stop talking about how clever she was — top of her class, top of her profession, whatever it was she ended up doing.Finance?Yes, that’s it.He was so proud.”Peggy’s expression tightened.“Then she hit thirty and did what all the thirty-year-olds do now — goes to see a therapist.Next thing you know, her father — herfather— is a manipulator, a narcissist, a controlling tyrant who ruined her ability to have meaningful relationships.”Peggy snorted.“As if anyone’s had meaningful relationships since the cellphone.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow.“You think the therapist put those ideas in her head?”
“I think,” Peggy said crisply, “that some therapists earn their money by finding problems where none exist.Jennifer adored her father until someone told her not to.And after that… nothing.No calls.No visits.And Leo — he’d pretend not to care, but he did.Of course he did.He cared deeply.I’d go so far as to say it was a wound that never ever healed.”
Marcus let the silence sit a moment.“You were angry about it.”
“Angry?”Peggy huffed.“I was furious.The ingratitude!That man paid for her college, her degree, her first apartment.And then she cuts him out like an expired coupon.”
Marcus nodded slowly, filing the information away.“Was anyone else angry?As in… publicly?”
Peggy’s eyes lit with sudden recollection.“There was something.Yes.It made the papers — theBoston Chronicle, I think.”She wagged a finger at the ceiling as though chiding her memory.“Jennifer’s firm supported some local charity — very nice people, wanted to buy a little transporter bus to take lonely old folks out on day trips.Picnics, museums, the coast.”
“Sounds like a good program,” Marcus said.
“It was.They needed fifty thousand to buy the van.Jennifer arranged the funding — her firm donated the whole amount.”Peggy pursed her lips.“Then someone found out she refused to see her own father.That she was… unashamed of it, apparently.And the charity sent the money back.”
“Returned the donation?”Marcus asked, surprised.
"Oh yes.Caused quite a scandal.They said they didn't want any association with someone who'd done that to her family.Not when… what did they call it?Elder abandonment.That’s it.Not when elder abandonment was such a problem.I remember thinking it was absurd — turning down money that could do so much good.But some people…” Peggy gave a short, pointed shrug.“Some people are unbending.Sprung of the oak, not the willow, that’s what mygrammawused to say.Once they decide a thing is wrong, nothing moves them. Mind you, you ask me, Jennifer was that type of soul herself.Maybe she… kind of met her match with someone a little bit too like her.”
Marcus leaned back slightly, thoughtful.“Maybe so.”
