The Investigator (Letty Davenport, #1) (35)

“We need to talk to Brody,” Letty said.

“He ain’t here. And he don’t call himself Brody.”

“Then we need to talk to you. We’re . . . from the government,” Letty said.

“Cops?”

“No. I’m a researcher for the Department of Homeland Security.”

From the ensuing silence, it seemed likely that the voice’s owner was thinking it over. Then she said, “Okay.”

The woman who opened the door was thin, narrow-shouldered, dressed in tights and a plain blue T-shirt. Her blond hair hung loose down her back and showed a dark-brown part. She had suspicious brown eyes and a scattering of acne around a long, sallow face.

“Stony took off in June, ain’t seen him since. Hasn’t called,” the woman said.

“Do you guys share a checking account?” Letty asked.

The woman snorted. “If I ever saw him around my checkbook, I’d shoot him,” she said.

The woman’s name was Kaylee Turner. She had two children with Stony Rivers, both in school, and worked nights in a Stripes convenience store. “Stony takes off every once in a while. He’s been gone for a long time, this time. When I heard the gate open, I thought it might be him. I don’t get many visitors and he always comes back.”

“We actually need to talk to a man named Rand Low, who used to hang out with Stony . . .” Kaiser said. He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of a hand.

Turner snorted again. “Hang out is not exactly what they did. Rand was driving stolen cars for some gang that was selling them in Mexico. Stony knew about it, might even have driven a couple himself. When the cops grabbed them, Stony agreed to talk about it in court. If Rand knew where Stony lived . . .” The thought hung her up, then she blurted, “Shit! You think Rand found him?”

“You think Rand would hurt him?” Kaiser asked.

“Hell yes. Rand is a killer,” Turner said. “The people around him, they’ll kill you, too. That crazy posse of his.”

“Did you and Stony share a credit card or anything?” Letty asked.

“No, we kept our money separate. I want the kids to eat. He’d spend every damn dime, if I let him. Which I don’t.” She turned back to the house, then said, “Come on in for a minute. It’s hot out here. I want to look for something.”

Letty and Kaiser followed her inside. The trailer was cool and neat enough, but smelled like SpaghettiOs flavored with cat urine. A gray-and-white cat was sitting on the back of a couch, staring at them; didn’t move. At the far end of the trailer, Letty could see an old exercise treadmill, and beyond that, through a door, the corner of an unmade bed.

“Give me one minute,” Turner said. She was back in less than a minute, carrying a plastic cube filled with envelopes. “I throw Stony’s stuff in here. He gets letters and bills and shit . . .”

She dug around in the bin, pulled an envelope, then another, both unopened. She handed them to Letty and said, “Credit card statements. He had a bank account with Wells Fargo, but he got those statements on his cell phone.”

Visa card. Letty said, “Uh, he’s your husband. I suspect it’d be technically better, legally, if you opened them.”

“Give them over here, then,” Turner said. Letty handed the envelopes back to her, and she ripped them open, glanced at the bills, and handed them to Letty. “The last two months, he hasn’t charged a single fuckin’ thing. That ain’t right. That fuckin’ Rand probably took him.”

Letty waited.

“Somebody killed him,” Turner said. She put her hands to her face, squeezed. Then, “Maybe . . . Maybe he’s still out there? Maybe he’s hiding someplace where he can’t use his charge card?”

“Maybe,” Letty said. “Kaylee, we’re doing this research, maybe we’ll find him. Do you know any names, people in Rand Low’s posse? Anything would help.”

“Well, I know two for sure. Max Sawyer, not a bad guy. He loves his guns. He might have shot some people, that’s the rumor, but . . . he never gave me no trouble at all. If he was gonna try to fuck something, I believe it’d be a .30-30. Then there’s Victor Crain, he is a bad man. He once caught me back by the washing machine when Stony was out in the yard with the grill, pushed me into a corner and put his hands on everything I got. Handsome man, though. Max was not a bad guy, but he and Vic was best friends, which I could never figure out. They were both in Rand’s posse, Vic was in the car-stealing gang. This was back before Rand went to prison.”

“What do you know about this posse? Was it just guys playing with guns? Was it political?” Letty asked.

“Yeah, they played with guns. They all had guns. They talked about being tactical, they wanted everybody to buy four-wheel-drive pickups with big tires so they could go cross-country. They talked about being white people, which seemed a little crazy to me. You’re white, so what? You know? That’s like saying you eat pork chops. I always thought they were like pretend Nazis. They have this little sticker they put on their car bumpers. Blue sticker with a green triangle on it, pointing up. I guess it was supposed to be a mountain. They were like an outlaw motorcycle gang, but with trucks.”

“Was there a woman with them?”

“Everybody had a woman. Or at least said they did. If you didn’t, it was like you were queer . . . They had this thing they did, joking with each other. They’d be talking about women they knew and they’d snap their fingers and point down to the ground, like they were telling some chick to drop down to her knees and blow them. I told Stony if he ever really did that to me, he best be wearing his armored jock strap ’cause if he weren’t, I’d kick his junk off.”