I sat with Peggy who rocked Cookie in her lap, the little bow on the top of her head gone missing in the fracas. Petunia perched on Peggy's other side, nudging the nervous little dog every once in a while with her wet nose. Crew and Robert talked at the entry to the sitting room while a stretcher wheeled past, Ruth's silent form laid out on it as the paramedics took her away.
"Still out cold," Crew said, nodding to Peggy. "You're okay, Mrs. Munroe?"
"I will be, dear," she said, patting my hand that rested on her arm, "with help and time. Horrible woman. She and Peter, too." She shuddered. "I don't know what happened to those two to make them so hateful. They were my Daniel's family, you know. There was a time I would have loved to call them my own. We weren't blessed with children, you s
