Don't Cry Now by Joy Fielding

said.
    â€œPardon?” Bonnie was sure she’d heard him incorrectly. Had Sam really asked about his mother’s car?
    â€œWhere’s her car?” Sam repeated.
    â€œI guess it’s still on Lombard Street,” Bonnie told him, the words emerging slowly.
    â€œThat’s an expensive car,” Sam said. “The police can’t impound it, can they?”
    Bonnie didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t given a thought to Joan’s car. “I don’t know what the procedureis,” she said, glancing at Rod, who looked as confused as she was.
    Sam shuffled aimlessly, his eyes refusing to linger more than half a second in any one spot. “Is Lauren home?”
    â€œShe’s upstairs.”
    â€œYou told her?”
    Bonnie nodded.
    â€œSo now what?” he asked.
    â€œI’m not sure,” Bonnie admitted. “The police will be here soon….”
    â€œI should get going,” Haze announced instantly, hands reaching for the door, as if the police were already at his back, guns drawn. “I’m real sorry about your mom, Sammy. Catch you later, man.” The front door opened and closed, a hint of cool April air grappling with the stale scent of marijuana.
    â€œI have nothing to say to the police,” Sam said.
    â€œI don’t think you have any choice in the matter,” Rod told him.
    â€œLook, what are you doing here, anyway?” Sam looked from his father to Bonnie and then back again to his father. “I mean, you came, you saw, you delivered the bad news—ding dong, the witch is dead—so you don’t have to stick around here anymore, do you? You can go back to your new home and your new family and forget all about us for another seven years.”
    Bonnie felt the scene around her starting to unravel, like a skein from a fat ball of yarn. Ding dong, the witch is dead?
    â€œSam?” a thin voice called from the top of the stairs.
    All eyes looked toward the pale young girl who stood trembling on the upstairs landing.
    â€œDid you hear what happened?” Lauren whimpered, eyes unfocused as she moved slowly down the steps, as if in her sleep. “Did you hear what happened to Mommy?”
    Â 
    â€œIt’ll be a few days before we get the final report back from the medical examiner,” Captain Mahoney was saying, his large body all but overpowering the delicate blue-and-gold living room chair in which he was sitting. Sam, fidgeting and looking bored, and Lauren, not moving and barely breathing, sat across from him on the pink silk sofa, while Bonnie perched at the end of a dining room chair that Rod had brought into the room. Both Rod and Detective Kritzic remained standing, Rod by the large brick fireplace, Detective Kritzic in front of the stained-glass windows.
    â€œWhat do you want to ask us?” Sam said.
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw your mother?” Captain Mahoney asked.
    â€œLast night.” Sam tucked a strand of wayward hair behind his right ear. “I went in to say goodnight to her at around two o’clock.”
    â€œAnd how did she seem to you?”
    â€œYou mean, was she drunk?”
    â€œWas she?”
    Sam shrugged. “Probably.”
    â€œWhat about you, Lauren?” Detective Kritzic asked, her voice gentle and soft.
    â€œI went in to kiss her good-bye this morning before I went to school.”
    â€œI thought it was a P.D. day,” Captain Mahoney interjected, eyes on Bonnie.
    â€œI go to a private school,” Lauren told him.
    â€œDid your mother say anything to you about her plans for the day?”
    â€œShe said she had an open house this morning, and that she wouldn’t be late.”
    â€œDid she sound anxious or worried about anything?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid she say anything about meeting with Bonnie Wheeler this morning?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid she say anything about wanting to warn Bonnie Wheeler that she