The Devil Went Down to Austin (Tres Navarre #3)(76)

"Listen, Tres. I've had a lead for a couple of days now, but I wasn't sure what to do with it. I was afraid you'd say I was crazy, grasping at anything. I know Lopez would accuse me of that. After going to Faye's, I decided to do a little paperdigging. I spent the last hour at the Travis County Courthouse."

"Jimmy's search," I said. "The birth certificates."

"As near as I can tell, that's a big blank. No birth certificates with Clara Doebler as the mother for the years in question. At least, nothing on file. Nothing legal."

"But?"

"Dwight's story," she said. "About Pena's parents."

"The car accident."

"I made some calls. It wasn't easy, but I found out the parents lived in Burnet County. I talked to a deputy out there who knew them, remembered the accident. According to this guy, there was nothing suspicious. The parents were coming back from a Christmas party late at night. The road was icy. They'd been drinking. They swerved off a sharp turn in a hill. End of story. The police did a thorough check on the car, and no tampering was found. The deputy said the Heismans were good people, said he never thought much of the son, but Matthew had been away at college at the time.

Nobody seriously suspected him of any complicity."

"The Heismans?"

"That was their name. The search I did a couple of days ago, Tres, when I was trying to dig up dirt on Pena's past... I hit a brick wall—no records at all before he was eighteen.

My deputy friend says Matthew took back his birth name, even changed his Social Security number the day he turned eighteen—a kind of 'screw you' present to the Heismans. It'll be a hard job to confirm that his birth name really was Pena."

I stared at the lines of Middle English in my book. "Pena is about as old as me."

"It may mean nothing," Maia cautioned.

"Sure."

"Might be worth talking to Dwight Hayes, see if he knows any more."

"Sure."

"But given Matthew Pena's age, we know one thing."

"Sometime after 1967," I supplied, "Matthew Pena was adopted."

CHAPTER 32

Mrs. Hayes was exactly where I'd left her, on her couch under the portrait of Jesus.

Her dress was pistachio green today, and she had no child to fan her. Otherwise she looked no different than she had Sunday night.

"Dwight went out for a moment, Mr. Navarre," she said. "But please sit down."

Grimy sunlight streaked through the windows. Jesus gazed toward the dead moths in the light cover on the ceiling. I could hear the two older kids, Chris and Amanda, playing fulltackle freezetag in the front yard.

"Only two little lambs today?" I asked.

Mrs. Hayes' makeup suggested a scowl, but there was no life to it—just paint.

"Matthew called me yesterday," she said. "He told me Dwight lost his job because of you."

I tried to remind myself she was just a frustrated mother looking out for her son. She didn't know all the things I had to deal with. And Jesus was looking at me, too. Despite that, I had the overwhelming urge to crack her rosy image of Matthew Pena over her head like a cascaron.

"Don't worry," I told her. "Losing that job might be the best thing for Dwight. Cutting the apron strings."

It took her a moment, but the metaphor sunk in. She didn't seem to like it. "I don't appreciate your tone, young man. If you were one of my children ..."

She looked out the window at a flash of metal. A gray Honda was turning into the driveway.

"But never mind," she said. "Matthew Pena was good to my boy."

"You ever deal with foster children, Mrs. Hayes?"

Her eyes traced an imaginary box around me. "Occasionally I help a child from GardenerBettes."

"GardenerBettes, the juvenile home."

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Just a case I was working on. A child I think was adopted. I think it might have been locally."

"How long ago?"

"Oh, years. Thirtyplus years."

There was an archipelago of tiny brown moles on her rounded shoulders. I imagined a laser burning them off, one by one, as I waited for her reply.

"I couldn't help you," she told me. "The life expectancy for adoption agencies is not good. The one you're looking for probably would not be around anymore."

"Probably not," I agreed. "A shame. This particular placement didn't work out too well.

The adoptee in question turned into quite the little coldblooded killer, Mrs. Hayes.

Someone I'm sure you wouldn't admire. No one you'd want your son to work with."

Her eyes became small, amber points.

Dwight came up the sidewalk, his backpack on his shoulder. He stopped to chew out Chris and Amanda, who were throwing rocks at each other, then came inside.

He looked from me to his mother, read the tension immediately. "Goddamnit, Mother.

Leave him alone."

He tossed a plastic drugstore bag onto the table.

Mrs. Hayes raised her eyebrows. "You will not speak in that way, Dwight. Not while you're in this house."

"I'll arrange for a hotel tonight, then. I'll give you a check for the month's utilities." He glared at me. "Come on, Tres. Don't sit with her. You'll never get up again."