“Hi. Are you waiting for Mario?” asked a man.
“We are. Do you know where he is?” asked Milo.
“He was here the other day with the kids. My wife and I have been checking in on them every day. It was just awful what happened with Clementine. We were all shocked.”
“It was terrible. Did you see a couple of men take Mario away?” asked Griff.
“I wouldn’t say they took him away. He waved at me saying he was headed to the store and said everything was fine and he’d be back soon. Are the kids okay?”
“Sorry, what’s your name?” asked Griff.
“Tobey. Tobey Sanderson. We’ve lived next door for five years now. My wife and Clementine were friends.”
“Is your wife home? Could we speak with her?” asked Milo.
“Sure. Let me go get her.”
Neither man said anything just waiting patiently for the woman to come over with her husband. She was heavily pregnant, rubbing her belly. It made both Griff and Milo smile.
“This is my wife, Jemma.”
“Jemma, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Griff and this is Milo. We’re trying to help Mario and the kids understand what happened here.”
“It would sure be great to understand what came over Clementine,” said the woman.
“Was she behaving differently?” asked Milo.
“Very. I hadn’t had time to speak directly to Mario but we, all the girls in the book club, were worried about her.”
“Why?” asked Milo.
“She wasn’t showing up. She’d call and say she was coming but then didn’t show. When we tried to call her, it would just go straight to voicemail. We’d see her in the neighborhood or on the porch and she would ask us to not say anything to Mario.”
“Did you ask where she was during that time?” asked Griff.
“We did. We’re nosey that way,” she smirked. “Clementine just said she was working on something for Mario and the kids. We left it alone after that.”
“That’s helpful,” said Griff. “Were there other things she didn’t show up for?”
“Definitely. The kid’s school bake sale, the PTA meetings, almost everything that she would normally come for.”
“This is all helpful,” said Griff. “Something drove her to do what she did and we’d sure like to know what that was.”
“Well, we’ll let you guys do your thing,” said Tobey. He grabbed his wife’s hand and started to walk back over the yard to his own home. Then his wife stopped and turned to the men.
“Oh. I just remembered something. About four or five weeks ago, Margery, a neighbor down the street said she was downtown and saw Clementine walking into the River Rouge Casino.”
“Was that unusual?” asked Griff.
“Very. Neither she nor Mario ever gambled. Never. They didn’t participate in the football pools, you know the ones where you buy squares for a few bucks. They refused to buy lottery tickets. They wouldn’t even play cards where there whether there was betting or no betting.”
“Why?” asked Griff.
“Her father nearly ruined her family with his gambling. She was adamantly opposed.” The couple turned and left them. Griff stared at Milo, shaking his head.
“I don’t think Clementine was opposed, brother. I think she’d fallen big time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
