Wrecked (Josie Gray Mysteries #3)(36)
On the drive to the junkyard, Josie called her friend, and local philanthropist, Macon Drench and arranged to meet with him at his house late that afternoon. It was a conversation she dreaded, but she saw no way around it.
Next, she called the security company to check on the time frame for fixing her system and finally reached the manager. Josie tried to keep her cool as she explained the break-in at her home. The man apologized and described the malfunction as a “crash and smash,” as if naming it would excuse the system breakdown. He promised to have someone there in forty-eight hours to reassess and provide their best upgrade. She demanded a faster time frame but he said they were booked with installations that week. He assured her that he would send someone to review the outside of the house and e-mail her an estimate.
She had no idea how much the new system might cost, but a bank loan was worth the peace of mind she hoped to gain. Thoughts of loans and credit card debt ran through her head as she calculated just how much money she might be able to pull together.
It didn’t take long before her thoughts snapped back to the ransom. To Dillon. She wondered if he could see the sun. Criminal investigations and true-crime stories involving kidnap victims often described them locked away in closets and boxes, and she tried to block the persistent image of his body lying contorted in a small, airless place, or kneeling before a man with a gun. She imagined him praying that she would come through with the money that would save him from losing his arm. Instead all she could manage was a visit to a junkyard to talk with an eighteen-year-old kid? She had not felt so lost and alone since her father died over twenty years ago. The grief filling her head signified the loss of control, of everything she cared about, and she could do nothing to stop the pain.
As she reached the opening in the junkyard fence, she realized she had virtually no memory of the drive. She turned off the engine and sat with her hands on the steering wheel, staring at the dashboard, struggling to remember why she had driven all the way out there. She couldn’t remember what questions she had planned to ask, and had to open her steno book that lay in the passenger seat. But she had to focus. She needed to be a cop now, not a civilian. Dillon needed her to use her skill, not have some damned breakdown. After a few minutes of reading through her notes she took a deep breath. She got out of the car, walked up to the door, and knocked.
Hector Follet pushed open the door and walked down the front steps to meet Josie. She felt a rush of cold air from the dark trailer and could hear music playing from somewhere inside.
“Yes, ma’am? What can I do for you?”
“I’d just like to talk with you a few minutes. I hope you can help me answer some questions I have.”
He looked wide-awake and earnest. He looked like a kid who wanted to help, to belong, but with no resources to make that happen, his life stunted by a father who cared more about making a buck than raising his kid.
“Do you want to come inside?” he asked. “I could get you some iced tea.”
“That would be great.”
Inside, the trailer was tidy, uncluttered, and, surprising to her, decorated and comfortable. John Wayne memorabilia hung on the walls, from signed photographs and movie posters to items that seemed to have been collected from old Western movie sets.
Josie noticed a Lee Marvin poster hanging behind the TV stand and smiled. “I used to watch his movies with my dad.”
“Who’s your favorite Western actor?”
“Clint Eastwood, no doubt.”
“He’s good all right, but Alan Ladd was best. You ever see Shane? Best movie ever made.” He smiled and turned to the refrigerator, pulling out a glass pitcher half-filled with tea. “It’s fresh. I brew a pitcher every day.”
He washed his hands and dried them on a towel hanging over the handle of the oven door, then removed a tray of ice from the freezer and put three cubes in each glass.
“Sugar?” he asked.
Josie smiled. “No, thanks.” There was something about the kid that broke her heart. He had mastered the art of blending in, of appearing insignificant, staying out of trouble. It was a skill lousy parents everywhere taught their kids so that attention was diverted from whatever criminal activity the parent was involved in.
She followed him to the living room, where he sat on the couch and she sat on the love seat opposite him. They discussed movies for a while longer, and he brought out a collection of arrowheads that had supposedly been collected by one of the gunfighters on the set of the John Wayne movie True Grit.
Finally Josie said, “I have to know more about your dad, Hec.” She was surprised that he didn’t appear nervous or resistant this time. He just bobbed his head like a compliant kid.
“I haven’t heard from him since he left. His lawyer called once and told me he was in Houston. I don’t know if that’s true.”
“You can’t call him?”
“No phone.”
“You don’t have a phone here?”
Hec pointed to the beige wall phone hanging in the kitchen. “I got a phone, but Dad doesn’t. We don’t have cell phones. Dad don’t like them.”
“Nobody else has talked to him?”
He shrugged. “My family’s all from Georgia. He’d never go there. My grandma calls and asks about him. Nobody knows anything.”
“What do you know about the Medrano cartel?”