Free Shattered Image by J.F. Margos Page B

ever since Mom skipped,” Tommy said.
    “Skipped?”
    “Mrs. Russell said we would hear all the rumors anyway, so she would just tell us. She says the townspeople thought that her daughter was having an affair, and that she ran off with the man. She disappeared sixteen years ago, and so did he.”
    “So, Mom—ask who he was.”
    “This Jimmy Hughes who identified her?”
    “Anhh, you lose twenty-five thousand dollars and the trip to Bermuda,” Mike said.
    “Okay, smarty, who was it?”
    “Jimmy’s brother, Doug,” Tommy said, nodding.
    “Interesting.”
    We all ate in silence awhile. I watched while the food evaporated from the table.
    “So, what did this Jimmy say about his brother’s disappearance?”
    “We didn’t know all that when we interviewed him this morning, so we haven’t had a chance to ask him.”
    “Yeah, Mario, you’re getting ahead of us again. We just talked to Mrs. Russell on the phone a little while ago. There hasn’t been time for us to go up to Viola and see her in person, or to find and talk to Dody Waldrep, the victim’s husband, much less go back and question Jimmy again.”
    “But Jimmy must have said something this morning about his brother’s disappearance—right?”
    The two men looked at each other and then at me, and shook their heads in unison.
    “Weird, huh, Toni?”
    “To say the least. So, he just came in and identified the woman and told you who she was and a little bit about how he knew her, and that was it?”
    “Yep,” Mike said as he dabbed up the last bit of food from his plate with a piece of bread.
    “We couldn’t get anything else out of him. He was quiet and kind of edgylike, but he was almost belligerent in his answers a few times.”
    “I agree with that,” Mike said. “He wasn’t trying to cooperate, really. I mean, he identified her by calling in, and then coming in to talk, but he wasn’t forthcoming after he got there.”
    “No sign of grief?”
    “That’s hard to say, Toni. It was hard to tell what was going on with this guy. He was kind of withdrawn sometimes, and then like I said, he’d be belligerent. He was a tough read—strange, and a really tough read.”
    “I’d like to go talk to him, if you don’t mind. You know, when people find out that I’m the one who sculpted their friend’s or family member’s face, they sometimes open up.”
    Mike sighed. My son had issues with me “interfering” in his cases, but I had issues with leaving my sculptures alone—both before and after they reacquired their identities. I had already become involved with Addie Russell Waldrep before I knew that’s who she was. I had held her skull. I knew every square millimeter of her face. She and I had made a connection across the expanse of time—we had a kind of spiritual friendship. I wanted to help find who killed her. I had to find who killed her.
    “I don’t mind,” Tommy said, “for the usual deal.”
    “I tell you everything I find out.”
    “Yep—and we’re still going to see him again later anyway, whether you go or not. It’s our job, you know.”
    “I understand, Tommy. You know I understand.”
    He nodded. “Go talk to him, then. I’ll give you the phone number and address.”
    Mike sighed again, and Tommy shook his head and smiled.
    “Hey, Toni, take Leo with you—Okay?”
    “Not in her uniform. He won’t talk to me.”
    “I didn’t say she had to be in uniform. Just take her, and tell her I said to wear that ankle holster I gave her.”
    I sighed, “Right.”
    “Tommy’s rules, Mario.”
    “I heard, son.”
     
    My Black Beauty rumbled to a stop in front of a dinky frame house in one of the old Central/West Austin neighborhoods. There were rows of small one-story houses on narrow little lots. Built in the late 1940s and early 1950s for the postwar set, it was affordable middle-class housing for mostly blue-collar folk…pretty stylish then, but out-of-date now and way overpriced. The houses were pretty