According to testimony at the time from the girl’s mother, Delphine “Dee” Robinson, Sweet was abusive throughout the relationship, leading Natalie Robinson to end the relationship about a month before she was killed.
Delphine Robinson died earlier this year at age 75 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive lung disease.
Neighbors say Delphine kept to herself in the decades following her daughter’s death.
“She rarely left the house after that,” said one neighbor, who declined to give his name. “Losing a child in such a horrific way—how do you ever get over something like that?”
Daryl tapped the screen. “Oh, great, Carver did his time at San Quentin,” he said with genuine enthusiasm.
Still reeling from what we’d just read, I asked, with considerably less enthusiasm, “Why’s that great?”
“I know a guy. He can get information on anyone who’s been in the system, but he’s especially connected locally.”
“He can get this information legally?”
Daryl wrinkled his nose and brows simultaneously, as if trying to understand the word.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. Whatever it took to protect my family, I would do, even if it meant illegal Web searches and pepper spray.
After several minutes more of searching and emailing, Daryl scrawled an address on a Post-it. “Carver’s former cellmate, a pedophile named Ernesto Marino, goes by Ernie. My guy couldn’t find a home address, but either Ernie or his girlfriend gets takeout from here nearly every afternoon.” He handed me the Post-it. “Seems he has a real weakness for bacon-stuffed waffles.”
35
I gave Audrey the last immunosuppressant from the old bottle and left three pills from the recent refill with Daryl. Just in case.
After hugging Leo as tightly as he allowed me, I pressed a folded piece of paper into Audrey’s hand.
“My new number,” I explained. “Call me for any reason, even if it’s just to tell me something silly Lester did.”
“He is silly,” she said, but she offered no smile.
I hesitated. “Do you want me to stay?”
“Are you going to find Daddy?”
“I’m going to try my hardest.”
“I want you to find Daddy.” Her eyes burned with a faith I hadn’t earned, and I pulled her closer to avoid that look. Still, I meant it when I whispered in her ear, “I will. Promise.”
Daryl offered me the use of his ten-year-old Honda for the sixty-mile drive to San Francisco.
I entered the diner in the Mission District through a red door and asked the staff about Ernie. Daryl’s intel was solid: Ernie was a regular—he usually ordered bacon-stuffed waffles with whipped cream, an extra side of syrup, and two maraschino cherries—and he never missed a weekend.
Though I wasn’t hungry, especially after the waiter described Ernie’s usual order, I rented my prime spot facing the door by asking for a grilled cheese sandwich.
Thirty minutes passed, then forty-five. The waitress eyed me as I nursed my tap water, and I sensed she was preparing to ask, for the second time, if there was anything amiss with my sandwich. The diner was packed and my space at the counter therefore precious. I forced myself to take a bite of my food, even less appealing now that the cheese had congealed.
Picking at my sandwich and distracted by the crowd, I didn’t notice the blonde in the blue cardigan until she was at the door, red takeout bag clutched in her left hand.
I abandoned the grilled cheese and walked quickly to the register, slapping the check and a twenty on the counter.
“What did that woman order?” I asked.
The man behind the counter reached for my check to make change, but I shook my head. I pointed toward the spot the blonde had occupied only seconds before. “What was in the bag?”
“Bacon-stuffed waffles, whipped cream, side of syrup, two cherries.”
Damn it.
I left my change and hurried out the door.
Once I spotted the woman in the blue cardigan, I worried she would hop into a car. She remained on foot.
Because she carried the takeout bag and wore wedges, the blonde was slow and easy to follow, but I stayed half a block back. I resisted the urge to rush the woman right there on the street. It wasn’t her I needed.
As the crowd started to thin slightly, the blonde in the blue cardigan stopped so suddenly I thought she might topple off her shoes. The brief pause before she looked over her shoulder allowed me the second I needed to tuck myself into the entryway of a pawn shop.
Had the woman guessed she was being followed, or was this routine behavior? Living in a big city, picking up takeout for a former felon, might make her more cautious than most.
I twitched with impatience. Nearby windows offered reflection, but they were too smudged to be helpful. In them, the blonde was one piece of the shapeless crowd.
Five seconds. Ten. I couldn’t be sure the blonde had moved on. She might still be on the street, looking behind her for the strange woman who had followed her out of the diner. But I couldn’t take a chance on losing her. I stepped back into the throng.
The woman had disappeared.
Frustration bubbled up inside me, but I forced it down. She couldn’t be more than a few seconds ahead. My faster stride would swallow any gap between us.
At the end of the block, I still didn’t see her. I looked left, then right. Had she gone into one of the stores I had just passed? I didn’t think so, not with a bag of glop-topped waffles growing soggier by the minute.
I covered another half a block before I saw her again. Even with the bag she carried and the wedges she wore, the woman had started walking more briskly.
I quickened my own pace. I kept to the edge of the crowd, near the storefronts that might provide me temporary refuge in case she looked over her shoulder again.
The blonde turned a corner, and I followed. She crossed the street, and I did the same.
A group of about a dozen tourists surged between us. The woman looked over her shoulder once more, but I easily slouched behind a tourist.
A few minutes later, the group broke off, and the boutiques, bakeries, and thrift stores became glass-walled apartments. The woman slowed, and I expected her to duck under one of the red awnings.
She continued walking, less hurried now, her steps labored but steady. In those shoes, her feet must’ve been throbbing.
When the blonde crossed the street again, I forced myself to drop back. The crowd had thinned further, and there were fewer places to hide.
She turned another corner. A couple of seconds behind, I almost missed her as she climbed the steps of a Victorian row house. She didn’t knock but instead used a key. This was her home.
In one of the windows on the second story, I saw the woman hand the red bag to a man fitting Ernie’s description. He wore a baseball cap that he kept tugging over his forehead. Nervous habit?
Beside him, a small boy pulled on a backpack before disappearing from view.
Seeing Ernie with that boy made me very angry.
A second later, the woman and the boy emerged from the Victorian’s door.
They got in a car, and I waited until it had crawled down the street before climbing up the steps to have a talk with a convicted pedophile.