Free Abduction by Wanda Dyson Page A

up
and grabbed his jacket. “Let’s get over to that house. We need to talk to this
Alice Denton woman.”
     
    #
     
    The house was a small rambler in an older section
of town. The neighborhood was still neat and clean, the border between lower
middle class and middle class. No built-in swimming pools in this neighborhood,
though you might find a few aboveground K-mart specials.
    The house, like
most of its neighbors, had a postage-stamp front yard with neatly trimmed
shrubs that had probably been planted back in the sixties. No fancy berms and
dusty miller here. Daffodils and tulips were the flower of choice.
    JJ climbed out
of the car and looked around. A woman knelt in a flower bed next door, pulling
weeds. He couldn’t tell her age. Her hair and face were buried under a big
straw hat.
    When the car
door slammed, she looked up, shielding her eyes from the morning sun with her
hands. “No one lives there,” she yelled out, slowly standing to her feet.
    JJ walked
across her lawn. “Did someone live there up until recently?”
    Up close, he
could see that she was in her late fifties—maybe early sixties—with clear green
eyes and a soft, clear skin. She took care of herself and would make no
apologies for it.
    “Mary Deere.
Moved last Monday.”
    The day
Jessica Matthews disappeared. Maybe he’d been wrong about the parents after
all.
    JJ pulled out
his badge. “Detective Johnson. Do you have any idea where she moved to?”
    She shook her head. “No. She was a strange one.
Kept to herself. Didn’t have much to do with the neighbors. Rarely had anyone
over.”
    Suddenly the
name hit JJ between the eyes. “Wait. Did you say Mary? Not Alice?”
    “Mary. Mary
Deere. Leastways that’s the name she gave me. Nervous thing, she was. And rude.
I called to her one afternoon and she just ignored me. Went right on in the
house like I didn’t say a word to her.”
    Or because
she didn’t recognize the name. “Could you tell me what she looked like?”
    The woman started pulling off her garden gloves.
“Red hair. Not like Irish red or anything. More dark brown with a lot of red in
it. Don’t know if it was natural or not. Didn’t look it. Tall, real thin.
Skinny almost. Like she didn’t half eat at all. All bones and angles.”
    “How old would
you say she was?”
    The woman
shrugged. “Mid to late thirties maybe.”
    “What about a
husband? Boyfriend? Children?”
    She shook her
head. “Nope. Saw one man come and go from time to time, but nothing steady. No
kids. Don’t know that she was ever married. If she was, she didn’t want anyone
to know.”
    “Why do you
say that?”
    “Got all
uptight when I asked her if she was married. Nervous-like. Snapped at me that
her past was none of my business.”
    “Did you ever
see her with a child? Maybe an infant?”
    The woman
paused as she twisted the gloves in her hands. “No. Can’t say that I ever did.
Wait. The day before she left, I saw her putting an infant car seat in her car.
But never saw an infant.”
    “What about the man who owns this house? Do you know
him?”
    “Oh,” she
waved one hand airily. “Harry? Sure I know him. He rents it now that he lives
with his daughter and her husband.”
    “Do you know
where that is? I’d like to talk to him.”
    “Sure. Let me
get that number for you.”
    JJ left Gerry
to collect the information while he and Matt strolled around the house. Looking
through the window, it appeared as if she’d left in a hurry. Good old Harry
would have to clean up the mess she left behind.
    Gerry met up
with JJ and Matt in the backyard. “Man, this just does not add up.”
    “What
doesn’t?” Matt asked.
    “Mrs. Marsh
told me the Matthews’ housekeeper didn’t have a car. She always saw the woman
coming on foot. This woman says that this Mary woman was driving a nice
burgundy Concorde. The descriptions of the woman match. . .”
    “But the names
don’t,” JJ interjected. “Gerry, you go talk to the landlord. See what