“I learned my grandfather had died a week after his funeral, and that he had left me money. And a request that I use it to better myself.”
He set the glass back down. “I loved my grandparents, and he’d died without me being there. They’d stood by me when no one else had. My grandfather made one request of me. He and my grandmother never judged me, and he’d made that one request.”
“You enrolled in college.”
“I did. It occurred to me that I’d been marketing myself and very well, so I aimed there. I got out of the life, and got an education. When I graduated, I went home. I didn’t intend to see my parents, but I wanted to visit my grandfather’s grave. I even took my diploma to, well, to show him. My mother found me there. A small community, Lieutenant. Someone saw me, recognized me, told her, and she came. She hugged me, and she wept, and she asked for my forgiveness.”
When his eyes filled, Mosebly pressed his fingers to them. “I can’t tell you what that meant to me. She asked me to come with her, talk to my father. It was harder for him, but we reconciled. We made peace with each other. When he got sick, I went home to help. And we found something more than peace, we found family again. When he died, I was with him, as I’d been with my grandmother when her time came.
“She, my grandmother, left me everything. The house and land, her life insurance. Everything. So when my father died, and I convinced my mother to come live with me, I used the money I’d saved, money given to me, to make her a place where she could be comfortable, where we could be family. Where I could take care of her.”
“You gave her a home,” Roarke said, “here. With you.”
“Yes, and she enjoyed the city more than either of us expected. The arts, the restaurants, the parks, the pace. Until. Until she became ill.”
Once again, he looked at the photo above the fireplace. “It was slow at first. It’s a creeping, vicious disease. When I couldn’t care for her any longer—her mind … It’s so cruel when the mind fails before the body. I couldn’t care for her any longer, I found a place that could, and would care with compassion. I was with her when she died, but she didn’t know me.”
He pressed his lips together. “She hadn’t known me for the last eight years of her life.”
“That must’ve been painful.”
“I think of the day she came to my grandfather’s grave and put her arms around me. I think of evenings we shared, before her mind betrayed her, playing gin rummy, her telling me stories of her misspent youth, as she called it. Stories about my father, my grandparents. The Christmases we shared, and the dinner parties we hosted. I have good memories.”
Eve brought another picture up on her ’link, handed it to Mosebly.
He looked baffled for a moment, then simply delighted. “Is this my mother? It’s Mom. Oh my God, it’s a mug shot.” More tears spilled as he laughed. “She told me, but I didn’t actually believe … She was a preacher’s wife, and a good one. Not stiff-necked, not, well, preachy, but a good one. She changed her life. She bettered herself. But look at her here, so young, so screwed up, so pissed off!”
“Could we look around your house, Mr. Mosebly?”
“You want to—oh, search more than look around. You have to be sure. I’ll give you a tour, and you can look wherever you like. You can go through my electronics if that’s helpful, or anything else.”
He rose. “I’d like to ask a favor, when you’re sure.”
“What’s the favor?”
“Could I have a copy of that photo of my mother? I know it’s a strange request—a mug shot. But it’s a moment in time—I didn’t believe her when she’d said she’d been arrested and why, and that made her change her life. Now I do, and I’d like that moment in time.”
“When I’m sure,” Eve told him, “I’ll get you a copy.”
13
Roarke waited until they’d reached the sidewalk, started down it, then slid an arm around Eve’s waist.
“It’s understandable you’re disappointed.”
“That’s not really the word. Well, okay, I’m disappointed we didn’t find Hobe and Covino in the basement so we could get them out. I’m not disappointed Jim Mosebly isn’t a whacked-out, mommy-freak killer.”
“He strikes me as a very good man. One still carrying some of the scars from the era and its mores when he grew up.”