Prologue

The Little Friend opens with a description of the events surrounding the day Robin Cleve died, twelve years earlier. One Mother's Day, the family, which included Aunt Tat, Aunty Libby, Aunt Adelaide, Robin's mother Charlotte, and Charlotte's mother Edith (called "Edie" by her grandchildren), gathered at Charlotte's house for dinner, which was being prepared by the Cleves' housekeeper, Ida Rhew. Charlotte's husband Dix was away duck hunting. Robin, then nine years old, was playing outside; his sisters, four-year-old Allison and infant Harriet, were outside as well. Charlotte suddenly felt something was wrong. The screams of neighbor Mrs. Fountain brought Charlotte outside, where she found Robin strangled and hanged by a rope on a low branch in a tree on the edge of the yard.

Chapter 1: the Dead Cat

Twelve years later, circumstances of Robin's death remain a mystery. He died of strangulation and was probably murdered, though...