‘Who do you like?’
‘I don’t see either of the kids taking it. They were too rattled.’
‘Didn’t you say Delford Spires was blasting you and Claudia?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s probably threatened by Claudia in that she has twice the IQ,’ Gooch said. ‘Unless… maybe the Deloaches already had a different purpose attached to the money.’
‘As in?’
‘Drug money. Money that’s due to be freshly laundered and shouldn’t be given away. Or money to grease local palms, perhaps Delford’s.’
Whit considered. ‘Okay. Say Papa Deloache gives poor Junior an operation to run. Off the beaten track from main centers of illicit commerce, like Houston or Galveston. Port Leo would qualify. Not too far from Corpus Christi or San Antonio, only hours from major markets like Houston and Austin.’
‘And not too far from South Padre, where your seasonal business is. Junior would mix well with the college students, the old frat party guy with a thick wad of cash.’ Gooch stared out at the darkness, the outlines of the pines etched in black. ‘Of course, the frat boys and sorority girls would be laughing at Junior behind their hands.’
‘Are you ever going to tell me what happened back there in Beaumont?’
‘Jesus, quit bitching. Not a hair on their sainted little asses was hurt.’
‘You’ve got friends in the police department there?’
‘I’m not on the witness stand in your courtroom, am I?’ He fell silent; topic over. ‘So what do you hope to learn from this mystery woman Pete had called so often?’ Gooch asked.
‘She clearly expected money when she called Pete. She clearly didn’t know he was dead.’
Gooch cracked a window, and the thick, earthy smell of the pine forests, stirred with the odor of gasoline fumes, streamed into the Explorer. ‘You want me to drive for a while? You tired?’
Whit nodded. They pulled over and Gooch took the wheel. Whit moved to the passenger seat, feeling too revved to relax. But as the nighttime road unwound, he slept.
*
Whit and Gooch crashed at a cheap motel off the highway around two a.m., rose at seven, and arrived in Missatuck, a town three miles off the main highway with one bumpy major street and two stoplights, around nine Saturday morning. Missatuck was little enough that asking for a local address at the small grocery got results.
Kathy Breaux lived at 302 Cotton Creek Road. The house was a brick duplex in a very modest neighborhood, the only kind Missatuck offered. Ill-kept flowerbeds dominated the yard, and a motley crew of lawn gnomes congregated in one untilled bed.
‘Let’s be careful,’ Gooch warned. ‘Anyone who collects lawn gnomes is not to be trifled with.’
Whit rang the bell. No answer. He rang again and knocked. No answer. The door to the other duplex creaked open, and a woman in purple jogging sweats, holding a purple mug of coffee, stepped out onto the concrete slab that served as a joint porch. She was tall and skinny, with raven-dark hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail and a bevy of unfortunate whiskers on her chin.
‘Awful early to be pounding on a door,’ the woman observed in a gravel-bruised voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ Whit said. ‘I’m Judge Whit Mosley. I’m a justice of the peace in Encina County, down on the coast, and this is my associate-’
‘Dr Guchinski,’ Gooch interjected and Whit kept his neutral smile in place. Doctor. God help us.
‘I’m looking for Kathy Breaux,’ Whit said.
The woman sipped her coffee. ‘What do you want with her?’
‘A man committed suicide in my jurisdiction, and he had called the phone number at this address repeatedly,’ Whit said. ‘We’re trying to establish the reason for the suicide, and we thought Ms Breaux might know his mental state.’
The woman blinked. ‘Who is this man?’
‘His name is Pete Hubble. Does that name ring a bell?’
‘Well, do you have some identification?’ she asked.
Whit produced a laminated card with his name and title issued by the Texas secretary of state. He didn’t offer her one of his regular business cards to keep because what he didn’t want was her phoning the Encina County authorities. Buddy Beere, if given half a chance, would make widespread hay about any wild-goose chases Whit pursued right before the election.
She studied the card, then handed it back to him. ‘Kathy’s at work, got a double shift. It’s about ten, fifteen minutes away. I can give you the address.’
‘Thanks,’ Whit said.
The woman returned with hastily scribbled instructions. Follow Highway 363 to the Louisiana border, where it becomes Louisiana FM 110, go straight until you get to Deshay, Memorial Oaks nursing home is on the left after the second light.
Deshay, Louisiana. A nursing home. A tremble rose along Whit’s spine.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘She’s not in no trouble, is she?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Whit lied.
‘ ’Cause she’s a pretty good renter,’ the woman added, as though this were a treasured commodity in Missatuck.
‘Promptness with rent is always to be admired,’ Gooch said. ‘Thanks again.’
The woman shut the door, and they went back to Whit’s Explorer.
‘A nursing home in Deshay,’ Whit said. ‘That’s where that Ballew girl vanished from, the one whose wallet they found outside of town. Her face has been all over those blue flyers, Claudia mentioned the case to me. It can’t be coincidence.’
They drove thirty miles over the speed limit, zooming into Louisiana.
Deshay was the kind of town repeated ten thousand times across America: an unhealthy selection of fast- food chains, a neon-lit doughnut shop, a pair of peeling strip centers, a furniture store with plastic-sheeted inventory overflowing into the parking lot, and five gas stations lining the main road. Memorial Oaks squatted on a corner. Bricks the color of creek dirt lined the concrete walkways and ill-clipped Japanese boxwoods stood beneath the windows. The home didn’t look dirty or unhealthy, just glum, a sad coda for lives in their final movements.
‘Despicable the way we treat the elderly in this country,’ Gooch said. ‘When I hit sixty I’m moving my ass to China, where the old are revered.’
‘I hate nursing homes,’ Whit said under his breath. ‘They’re like parking garages for people.’
‘Would you rather die young? I could call Anson and see if he’ll hook up with us again.’
When they asked at the information counter for Kathy Breaux, the dour receptionist nodded toward a hall that fed off from the central hub.
‘She’s down in the television room, probably doing a little feeding,’ the woman said.
Gooch whispered to Whit as they walked: ‘A feeding. How evocative. Is there a trough?’
The room was large but fusty, its cornerstone a sparkling new TV that dangled the joys of the outside world. A trashy morning talk show blared from the set, mothers having their mouthy, punk- and Goth-dressing daughters made over into pink-angora debutantes. Several patients watched with blank stares fixated on the lives on the television instead of anything else in the depressing room, blankets covering their laps. An array of shiny black dominoes lay spread out on a table, awaiting players. No nurse loomed to greet them. One patient, in her early eighties, glanced up at them as they came in and gave them an intelligent smile. She was reading The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2, her bony, mottled finger stuck in the mammoth book, the other hand holding a magnifying glass.
‘Hello, ma’am,’ Whit said. ‘How are you today?’
‘Lovely. How are y’all doing?’
‘We’re fine, ma’am,’ Gooch said. ‘We’re looking for Kathy Breaux.’
The old woman puckered in distaste. ‘Kathy is no doubt outside, sucking a cigarette down to the filter, as I would if she gave me half the chance. She ought to be back in a minute.’
‘Which way, ma’am?’ Whit asked.
