“Now, Bo, you know well and good I don’t get into that unless it does get in the way. I do know it hurts her that her family won’t accept Mike Diaz, but she doesn’t talk about it unless someone asks.”
“He good to her?”
Dwight shook his head. “Tell you what. She should be back before lunch. Want me to have her stop in here and catch you up on her private business?”
Bo laughed. “Okay, okay. So what about this Victor Wentworth?”
“I’ve got a call in to Wake County to see if they have a warrant out for him. Not that he’s of concern to us on this.”
“No, but it’s always good to know,” the sheriff agreed. “Hound dogs like the Wentworths always come crawling back under the house. Wish I could find it in my heart to feel sorry about his boys, but you know good as me, Dwight, they were gonna wind up a drain on the county one way or another.”
He thumped the files he’d had his secretary pull. Both boys had records. Jason’s was longer, of course. Hunting deer illegally, two speeding tickets, a DWI, a conviction for petty theft, another for assault, and he was currently out on bail awaiting trial for yet another assault. Nineteen years old and he had already been a guest in their jail. With his record, if he had been found guilty for this second assault, he could have pulled real prison time.
At sixteen, Matt had only three citations as a non-juvenile: one for speeding, one for underage drinking, and one for an altercation in the West Colleton High School parking lot.
Bo sighed. “Maybe Miz Wentworth was right. Maybe she could’ve stopped him from walking down the same road as his brothers, but I never met a Wentworth I thought I could trust. You?”
“No,” Dwight admitted. “But they keep on getting themselves killed, we’re gonna run out of Wentworths. And whoever shot these two is just as bad, so we need to find him.”
“Any connection to the Johnson girl’s death?”
Dwight shrugged. “I’d really be surprised if he was actually hooked up with her. Mayleen’s interviewed some of the kids and got the names of everyone at the party. His wasn’t one of them. But he did tell his stepmother that she was his girlfriend, and he was as upset after her death as if she really was. Now they’re both dead. Coincidence?”
“I never much cared for coincidences,” Bo said.
“Me either. I called my mother first thing this morning. Matt was still a student there. She’s going to pull his attendance record for me. See if he was in school on Friday. I don’t see how the deaths are related, though. It’s more likely that one of them pissed off the killer and Matt was upset because he knew this was coming down the pike toward them.”
“Which one was the primary target?”
“Too soon to know,” Dwight said. “But as long as we’re talking coincidence, the older Wentworth boy, Jason? Up until Thanksgiving, he worked for Mallory’s half brother’s grandfather. Her mother’s former father-in-law.”
“Anybody talked to him yet?”
“Who? Nelson Barefoot?”
“Naw. The half brother, what’s-his-name.”
“Charlie? No. I thought I’d try to get up with him after I talk to Willie Faison. See if there was another reason Faison was at the Wentworth trailer besides what he told the trooper before he passed out.”
“Be real nice if we could get this all wrapped before Christmas,” the sheriff observed.
Dwight grinned. “And here I thought you were too old to still believe in Santa Claus.”
Downstairs, he had the duty officer bring Willie Faison to an interview room, and he looked the young man over carefully when he came in and took a seat across the table.
Twenty years old. White. No visible tattoos or piercings. Black hair, slender build, an inch or two under six feet. Unmarried. No priors. Currently employed as a plumber’s helper in a small three-man company in Cotton Grove. Despite registering a .10 on the Breathalyzer at the scene of the shooting, the only issue was his age, and even if Ellen Englert Hamilton were sitting in the courtroom, he would receive no more than a suspended sentence. If he could afford the services of a halfway competent attorney, he might even avoid that. With four empty beer cans in his truck, it could be argued that he had not drunk a thing until after finding the bodies.
Hell, it might even be true.
On the other hand, he was a full year away from the legal drinking age.
With the vitality of youth, Faison was clear-eyed and rested after his night in lockup. Dwight advised him of his Miranda rights and he immediately waived them because he was anxious to be released so that he could get to work before his boss docked his wages. He was also still reeling from finding his friend Jason and Jason’s younger brother lying dead on the frozen ground. “I’d been calling him all weekend ’cause I wanted my stuff back and —”
“Stuff?” Dwight asked him.
“I mean, my money. The money he owed me.”
“No, son,” Dwight said mildly. “You said stuff. What stuff?”
The young man shrugged. “He borrowed some stuff from me.”
Dwight waited while Faison’s unease became more apparent.
“A jacket and a pair of coveralls,” he blurted out. “I wanted ’em back.”
“What else?”
“That’s all,” he said, not quite meeting Dwight’s steady stare.
