Daylight (Atlee Pine #3)(112)
“Oh, yeah, I’ll give you his address and then phone him to make sure he’s okay with talking to you.”
“Can you do that now?”
“I can see this ‘personal’ matter is important to you.”
“It is. Very important.”
He wrote an address on a piece of paper, slid it across to her, and then picked up the phone.
It rang twice and then Wilcox said, “Hey, Dick, it’s Tyler Wilcox, how you doing? Right, good, good. Well, I ain’t had a chance to do much fishing, and last time I went only thing I caught was the flu.” Wilcox chuckled at his joke as Pine watched him impatiently.
“Look, I got an agent from the FBI here, an Atlee Pine and her associate. They want to talk to you about a family that used to live around here a long time ago. Yeah, a Leonard Atkins and his wife. And his daughter. Right, okay. That sounds good. Thanks, Dick.”
Wilcox hung up and looked at Pine. “He’d be glad to see you. Lives about ten miles from here. Put that address in your GPS and you’ll get there.”
“Did he say anything else?” asked Pine.
“He said he knew Atkins, and he’ll be glad to talk to you about it.”
“Well, thank you very much for your help.”
“Always glad to help fellow law enforcement.”
They walked out and Blum said, “What do you think Roberts can tell us?”
“Hopefully, everything.”
CHAPTER
72
THERE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN a greater contrast between the Atkinses’ old homestead and Dick Roberts’s place.
It was a neatly constructed log cabin with window boxes where fall flowers popped out in burgundy and gold. The grass was healthy and trimmed, and the flower beds were well laid out and meticulously weeded and pine mulched. A metal carport next to the cabin housed a new-looking cobalt blue Ford F150 pickup truck. Smoke was coming out of the stone chimney on this chilly day.
As they pulled up and got out they could hear a dog baying. When they walked up the pea-gravel drive to the house, the front door opened and a large white-and-tan basset hound bounded out and continuing its baying.
A man appeared in the doorway.
“That’s Rosie,” he said. “She sounds all ferocious but give her a sec and she’ll roll over to get her belly rubbed.”
A moment later Rosie did just that. Pine knelt down and performed the rub while Rosie wagged her tail and smiled up at her.
“You folks come on in,” said the man.
“You’re Dick Roberts?” Pine rose and walked toward him as Blum and Rosie followed.
“In the flesh.”
Roberts was in his early seventies, around Pine’s height, lean and wiry with silver hair and a mustache of the same color that drooped around the edges of his mouth. He had on faded denim jeans, old leather boots, and a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows showing muscled forearms.
He had the eyes of a cop, thought Pine. Observant, suspicious, expectant.
They followed him into the house. The front room held a fire-place, which was glowing warmly and invitingly. On the wooden mantel were pictures of people, probably family and friends, Pine surmised. The furnishings were old, but they were well built and looked comfortable. A colorful rug covered part of the plank floor. A gun rack with an over-under shotgun and a deer rifle hung on one wall. There were some pictures and framed photos on the log walls. Everything appeared neat and clean and well organized to Pine’s eye. She hoped his memory was just as clear.
“You folks want some java? Just made a fresh pot.”
“Yes, please,” said Blum, and Pine nodded.
He got their drinks, and they settled into chairs around the fire while Rosie plopped down next to Roberts’s feet and promptly fell asleep. He gently stroked her head and said, “You can’t train a basset hound. No better scent dog in the world, in my opinion. But that’s why you can’t train them. No manner of obedience lessons can stand against their natural scent instincts.”
“Well, she’s very cute,” said Blum.
“We keep each other company,” said Roberts, settling back with his coffee.
“Is it just you and Rosie here, then?” asked Blum.
He nodded, his eyes crinkling a bit in sadness. “My missus died two years ago. Out of the blue. Alive one night and dead in the morning.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Blum. “Sudden loss like that is impossible to make sense of.”
“But you got to go on living,” said Roberts. “And we had a lotta good years together. Just not as many as we thought we’d have. We raised us a passel of kids and they’re all doing good. And they don’t live that far away. Three in Atlanta, one in Macon, and one over in Tennessee.”
“I’m sure having them close by is very comforting,” said Blum.
He nodded and then looked at Pine. “Len Atkins?”
“I understand that you know him?”
“That’s right.”
“Is he still alive?”
“That I don’t know. He’s long since moved from here.”
Pine’s spirits plummeted. “We went out to where he last lived. The trailer. Now it’s just full of snakes.”