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Henrietta Riding, or Titta as she liked to be called, was a young woman probably twenty years Neda’s junior. She wore her hair short and had a small ring through her nose and a piercing through her upper lip. All in all she didn’t look anything like her big sister, and I was curious to hear her life’s story, and so were Odelia and Chase as they took a seat across from Titta in Cup o’ Mika, the popular coffee shop on Norfolk Street.

Marge had been right, of course. You don’t meet grieving relatives in that old police station, even though Uncle Alec, in a final attempt to out-argue his sister, had offered his own office for the interview.

“I was a troubled teen,” Titta began as she took off her leather jacket and placed it next to her on the bench. They’d taken a seat near the window, where they could watch the world go by, and still enjoy one of the excellent coffees Mika is rightly famous for.

I’m not a coffee aficionado myself, of course, so I take Odelia’s word for it. She’d chosen the venue, since she is a big coffee fan, and so is her hubby.

“A troubled teen?” Odelia prompted.

“Yeah,” said Titta, who’d drawn up one leg under her bum and looked a little sad. “Always getting in some kind of trouble. Drugs, vandalism, getting involved with a bad crowd. So my dad finally had enough and kicked me out—sent me to a boarding school in upstate New York. More a reform school for girls. I thought I’d hate it, and I did, but it was also what saved me. If I’d continued down the same road, I probably wouldn’t be alive today. But while I was there, Dad decided it wasn’t enough that he’d kicked me out of the house, he also decided to disown me. Especially afterI managed to get in trouble again, in my first year. I’d met a boy, and gotten pregnant and we ran away together. We made it to the Canadian border when police found us and brought us back. At least they brought me back, Frank was sent to prison—I was still only fifteen at the time, you see, and he was nineteen. Anyway, Dad felt enough was enough, and didn’t want anything more to do with me. He still paid for the school, but he effectively cut me out of his life.”

“You never saw your dad again?”

“No, I didn’t. I spent the next three years in that school, and when I finally graduated Dad had one of his lawyers contact me. He offered me a choice. Either go to college, which he’d pay for, or accept a lump sum and never darken his doorstep again, as he so eloquently put it. I chose the money, and ended up drifting around for a while, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I finally hooked up with Frank again, and we set off for India. Only Frank had a different idea of what to do once we got there. He wanted to live off my money and score drugs and party. I wanted to stay clean and make something of myself. So we split up, and I traveled to Nepal but got stranded in Banbasa.”

“Banbasa?” asked Chase, who’d been jotting down notes.

“North of India,” Titta explained. “I ended up staying in one of the orphanages up there, and since I’ve sometimes felt like an orphan myself I fit right in. So I never left, and have been helping out there, doing what I can. And for the first time in my life I felt at home. It’s been themaking of me. I found purpose and something to dedicate my life to.”

“So what brought you back?” asked Odelia.

She shrugged.“I wanted to visit my sister. I’d heard Dad had died, and tried to get in touch with Neda, but she wouldn’t acknowledge me. So I just figured I’d drop by and talk to her in person.” Her face crumpled. “Only turns out I was too late.”

“When did you arrive from India?”

“Three days ago. I’m staying with a friend in Brooklyn. I tried to get in touch with Neda again, and when that didn’t work I was planning to drive down here and just show up on her doorstep. But then my friend saw the news about a woman being robbed and killed, so…” She tapped the table with her finger. “Now I’m really all alone in the world.”

“Why didn’t Neda respond to your message, you think? Did you fall out?”

“Dad must have poisoned her mind against me, that’s the only thing I can think of. She was twenty years older than me, and by the time I was born, she was in college in Boston and then got a job in Philadelphia for a couple of years, so we never saw much of each other. She came home for the holidays, but less and less. For most of my childhood it was just me and my dad, and we never got on. He was a strict disciplinarian, and I rebelled against that. The fact that he blamed me for the death of my mom also didn’t help.”

“Your mom died when you were little?”

“She died in childbirth,” Titta explained, “so I never knew her. She was in her early forties when she got pregnant, and even though my dad told her not to carry the pregnancy to term, she refused to get rid of me. She died three days after giving birth from an infection. Which Dad blamed me for.” She shrugged. “A hell of a sob story, huh?”