Then went really sad.
Which had my heart going out to him.
A long time ago, Black had a child of his own.
The child’s mother had taken off with his little girl, and he hadn’t been able to find her since.
I think she’d be around thirteen or fourteen now, if I remembered right.
She was around Wendy’s age when she went missing.
“Are you staying for dinner, Mr. Black?”
“If you’ll have me.”
“We’ll have you.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re sad.”
“I have a little girl that looks a lot like you.” He tugged at her hair. “Minus the red hair.”
“Red hair is far superior.” Wendy patted him on the arm. “Let’s go get the groceries. I don’t want my ice cream to melt.”
Everyone got their butts in gear so an almost-six-year-old didn’t have melted ice cream.
Hours later, Wendy was in her room getting ready for bed.
Constance, Black, and I were at the kitchen island.
“Time to talk,” Constance said. “I’ve been very patient.”
I would say she had.
Much more patient than I would’ve been had I not been in on most of the information already.
“We’ve done a lot of digging into these cases, and you were right. There is a homeschooling co-op connection between them all. And Eustace does play on all the teams. Or he had. He quit about six months ago.”
“Did he say why?”
“I couldn’t really question him all that much. He needs a parent there. And I couldn’t find either one of them.”
“The mom works in Bozeman,” I said. “She has a long ass commute three times a week. Pendelton always complains about her job.”
“I’ll see if I can find her tomorrow.” He shook his head. “I stopped by Dr. Pendelton’s office, and the receptionist said he went home sick today. I headed to his house, but got no reply when I knocked. That’s when I dropped the kid off. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“That’s not all, though. Is it?” Constance pushed.
“Not even a little bit,” Black said.
“Errol Fuller was found dead in his RV today,” I said. “That’s what we were doing all night. Watching his place. This morning, we finally decided fuck it. We went in and found him dead. Been dead a while.”
“I seriously didn’t believe it was him here,” she admitted. “I mean, he was getting sloppy if he did. Years ago, the old Errol wouldn’t have let me know that he was close. Not until he wanted me to know.”
“That’s what’s been bugging me, too,” I admitted. “I mean, this guy is fucking CIA.”
Black tapped at his chin thoughtfully. “You haven’t had a chance to examine him yet, but you gave him a time of death at about two months before now. Those charges were charged on his cards about five weeks ago. I’m guessing a dead guy can’t book a hotel. I need to find out what this new place is under. Gentry was doing that for me, but damn, I gotta know.”
Black pulled out his phone and called Gentry.
Gentry answered in two rings.
