Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(48)
“You don’t think your mother believes in you? Thinks you’re pretty and smart?” Josie asked.
“What does she say? I’ve embarrassed her again.” She stood up from the bed and faced Josie. “No. That’s not what she’ll say. I’ve disgraced her and her good name. That’s fine. I’ll just live here where I won’t bring her so much goddamned shame.”
She turned from Josie and faced the wall, hands on her hips, her shoulders rigid. Josie ran her hands over her face. She was frustrated, tired, and in a drunk man’s house in a foreign country. She wanted a bourbon and her own bed.
“You know how hard it’s been for your mom to work her way up to the job she has now? A woman serving as a respected police officer in a town like Artemis? There’s a group of men in town who still expect their wives to serve them dinner barefoot. Your mom’s worked her ass off to get where she is, and it wasn’t to prove something to herself. It was to make a better future for you. Then she has to sit back and watch you piss it all away on some drug dealer who’s playing games with your mind. You’re a pawn in his game, Teresa.”
Josie forced herself to quit talking. Teenagers were way past her area of expertise. The last thing she wanted was to make her so angry she would refuse to leave her father. At the same time, she was tired of watching the girl run all over Marta.
Teresa walked over to the candles and stood staring down at the flames. She ran a finger through the fire several times, each time spending longer in the heat. “Half the shit my parents say isn’t even directed at me. They use me to get to each other.”
Josie stared at the girl’s back and could think of nothing to say.
“You know where Enrico went after he got bail? He left. He went to hang out with that jerk at the pawn shop. No ‘thank you.’ Nothing.”
“This is what I don’t get. Who is the one person who stands by you, day after day, and still only wants what’s best for you?”
Teresa turned finally to face Josie. “So, why are you here? Did you come to take me home?”
TWELVE
After Josie and Marta had left for the river, Otto met Skip at the morgue, where he quickly confirmed the body was that of Juan Santiago. Afterwards, Otto stopped back by the office and picked up the absence record for Santiago on Josie’s desk. He stared at the paper, the words a meaningless blur, and allowed his frustration to surface. The timing for Teresa’s escapades couldn’t have been worse. Josie and Marta were both needed at the department to work the murder investigation and to help monitor the growing threat of flooding in Artemis. He couldn’t help imagining what he would have done had his own daughter pulled the same stunt at that age. And, truth be told, he thought Marta needed to yank a knot in the kid’s rope before she ended up pregnant, or worse. But most of all, he was more worried about Josie than he cared to admit to anyone.
He rattled the paper in front of him, trying to get his thoughts focused on the job at hand. He had to get the apartment printed and searched. He called Delores on his cell phone and left a message on their answering machine at home that he would be late for dinner. He finally read the address again, then folded the paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He walked downstairs, wincing at the pain in his knees, lamenting a second-floor office. He gave Lou the address of Santiago’s house and said he was going to check it out.
“You know who the landlord is?” he asked.
Lou leaned back in her seat and coughed. Otto saw the pack of Marlboros sticking out of her purse and considered saying something, but fought the urge. Mind your own business, he thought.
“That’s Junior Daggy,” she said. “Realtor?”
“Yeah, I know him. Junior can take a ten-minute conversation and stretch it to sixty.”
Otto drove to Junior Daggy’s Realty, located next door to Dillon Reese’s accounting office. Otto parked and waved at Dillon through his office window. He was standing in the waiting area smiling as an older lady talked. He waved back over her shoulder.
Daggy’s realty office window was covered in black-and-white printouts of houses, land, and business property for sale throughout West Texas. Otto figured it had to be a rough way to earn a buck. The area wasn’t exactly booming.
Otto entered the front door and found Junior leaned back in an office chair, feet propped on his desk, phone held to an ear with one hand, snapping a ball on a string back and forth against a paddle with his other hand. He wore a seersucker shirt, beige dress pants, and huarache sandals. Average height, with a slight paunch, he was deeply tanned with shaggy gray hair growing over the top of his shirt collar. When Otto entered, Daggy sat up and said a quick good-bye to his phone companion, flung his paddleball on the desk, and came around to shake Otto’s hand.
“How you doing, Otto? Haven’t seen you in ages. How’s your lovely wife?”
Otto shook Junior’s hand, smoothing his hair down and adjusting his gun belt out of habit. “Delores is doing just fine. You and Karen okay?”
Daggy nodded. “Yes, sir, never better. Celebrating thirty years in September. Got married in South Carolina so we’re headed east to renew the vows. That ought to get us through the next thirty years, don’t you think?” He pointed to a chair in front of his desk and went on to describe Charleston and all the reasons he and his wife loved the area. After ten minutes of nodding and attempting to redirect the conversation, Otto finally cut him off.