Mrs. Roth frowned at Mel and demanded, "Close those curtains. We've seen enough."
"Come along when you're both ready," Mel told them. "I'll be waiting in the hall for you. There are questions I need to ask. Take all the time you need."
Mel sat down by the door, simmering. He should try to see this from Mrs. Roth's viewpoint. She'd lost her only child. But why did she have to be so rude? Not only to him, but to her husband.
He only had to sit there for a few minutes before the couple emerged.
Mrs. Roth was pale, but composed. Mr. Roth was still mopping at his eyes.
"I'm taking you to my office in an unmarked police car. You'll be more comfortable there," Mel said. "I'd like to interview you and find out what your son was like." As they entered the elevator, Mel added, "I'd like to speak to each of you separately. Mrs. Roth, could I order you some coffee or tea while you wait?"
"I'm not waiting. We'll be interviewed together."
"I'm sorry, but you will have to wait," Mel said firmly.
"Then orange pekoe tea with sugar," she snapped.
When she'd settled irritably in the outer office, Mel offered Mr. Roth coffee, which Roth accepted numbly. Mel waited for the man to speak.
"He was our only child — we adopted him," Mr. Roth said softly. "Aggie couldn't have children. I must apologize for her behavior. You mustn't think she doesn't care that Denny is dead. She's simply keeping her armor on — she's good at that."
He teared up again. "I loved the boy from the first. It was a little harder for Aggie. I think she thought adoption wasn't quite 'nice' and that it suggested something was wrong with her. It might have been better if we'd taken a little girl instead. But he was such a good boy. I taught him to play softball. I took him to circuses. I helped him with homework. I…"
He couldn't go on. Mel handed him a box of tissues and went to look out the window for a few moments until Roth said, "I'm sorry. What else do you want to know?"
"Did Denny make friends easily?"
"Of course. Aggie and I made sure of that. She did the room-mother things, made him take dancing lessons, which, surprisingly, he liked. She threw wonderful birthdays and let him invite all his friends. And he always had lots of them. He was happy until…"
"Until what?"
"Until he decided out of the blue that he wanted to know who his biological parents were. Aggie was appalled. He always knew he was adopted but never seemed to care until two years ago."
"Did it hurt your feelings?" Mel asked.
"Not especially. I suspected it might happen when he grew up. I myself was adopted and had wonderful parents, and I never cared who actually sired me."
"Did you or your wife know who Denny's biological parents were?"
"No. The adoption agency offered to tell us the available adoptee's ethnic background. We didn't care."
"How did your wife take this idea of Denny's interest in finding his genetic parents?"
"She hated it. She felt that all that we had done for him had been wasted. She considered it a personal betrayal."
"Did your son have any enemies that you know of?"
"No. Until he got this bug in his ear about finding his 'real' parents, he had nothing but friends. It changed him. It became an obsession and he dropped all his friends to pursue it."
Mel's interview with Mrs. Roth didn't surprise him. First, she was outraged that she had to wait so long, "And the girl who served me tea never came back with the sugar I'd asked for."
So Mrs. Roth had also been rude to the young secretary who brought her tea, Mel thought.
"Well, it's time for your husband to sit around now. Tell me about Denny."
"He was such a nice boy. And we treated him as if he were a prince. He had everything he wanted. Good, expensive clothing, a generous allowance. We even bought him his first car when he turned sixteen and paid the taxes and registration fees for him."
"And then?"
"He took up with the idea of being an actor, of all things. I explained how hard it was to be an actor. All those interviews and classes, and the sort of competition there was. Every good-looking young person in the world wants to be an actor or actress. Very few of them succeed. But he wouldn't listen to me. He actually moved out of our home to stay in some dismal apartments. Can you imagine?"
"What did your husband think of this?" Mel asked.
"He stayed out of it, saying Denny was an adult and had to make his own decisions. And it just became worse."
"In what way?"
"He came home for a Thanksgiving dinner and told us he'd decided he wanted to find his 'real' parents. 'Real' is the word he used. We were his real parents. We'd raised him from the day he was only two days old. I felt as if he'd stuck a knife in my chest."
"Did your husband agree?" Mel asked.
"No. He said the same stupid thing. Denny was entitled to do so, if it meant so much to him."
"Did Denny succeed in finding out anything?"
"I have no idea," she said. "And I don't want to know. If this is all you need to ask us, we need to get on with arranging the funeral. We have three plots in a cemetery here in Chicago we bought while we lived here. One for me, one for Harry, and one for Denny. Someday we'll be there with him again. And we need to know where his things are. His clothes, his books, his checkbook so we can cancel the account."
"They're in boxes. They'll be delivered to your hotel as soon as you want."
"Today," she said firmly, standing up and heading for the door. She stopped briefly, and said, "You will tell us who killed him when you get around to finding out, won't you?"
She didn't even wait for an answer — just slammed the door on her way out.
Mel was simply glad she was gone. During Mrs. Roth's rant, he'd had an insight that might prove worthwhile. He knew exactly which pile of paperwork it was in. The one that he thought he'd never need again. He went looking for it.
Twenty-two
When Jane and Shelley left the needlepoint shop, Shelley suggested they stop somewhere for lunch.
"We're on our last caterer tonight for the dress rehearsal and have to feed quite a lot of extra people. The whole cast and crew. Props people, lighting people, even the scene painters and their teacher will be there."
"Do you think you have caterers for tonight who can cope well?" Jane asked.
"Only if we do it in the lobby, which the college has approved. In fact, most caterers like to feed a real meal to a couple of hundred people rather than the snack suppers they've done so far. That's the real test of their skills."
"We haven't tried Chinese catering, so for lunch, let's go to that Chinese restaurant we always like," Jane suggested. "They have the best jasmine tea I've ever tasted."