AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Settler said.
“Dead? You found her? After all this time. I can’t believe . . .” Turning her head, she called, “Jensen. It’s the police. They found your aunt.”
Behind her, a tall man in his twenties appeared. “They say Didi’s dead,” Vera whispered, and though she seemed a bit shaken, she didn’t fall apart.
“You’d better come inside.” Jensen pushed the screen open farther, and they entered. “I’m Jensen, Vera’s son,” he said. “Have a seat.” He motioned to the living room, and as Vera took refuge in a rocker, Jensen stood in the open space between the living room and dining room, his arms crossed over his chest. “What happened?” he asked.
Settler and Martinez took turns explaining about finding the body in the car in the desert, that it was obvious that Didi had been dead for two decades and that she’d been murdered.
“Murdered?” Vera repeated. “I guess I’m not surprised. But who would . . . ?” She let the question fade, and Settler noted that though she appeared surprised and was obviously processing the news, she certainly wasn’t sad about her sister’s violent death.
Jensen ran a hand over his short-cropped, blond hair. He swung a dining room chair around and sat on it, while Settler and Martinez, at his urging, took seats on opposite ends of a couch that had seen better days. A recliner angled toward a flat-screen TV remained unoccupied. Milo’s chair, Settler thought.
“Is your husband here?” Martinez asked.
Vera shook her head. “Working.”
Jensen said, “It’s just Mom and me, and my son, who’s sleeping.” He brightened a bit at the mention of his boy, but then added, “Dad’s on the road. Sales. Farm equipment. And Uncle Bill, who lives out in an apartment in the garage, he’s gone, too, for a couple of days. Vacation from work.” He paused, then looked at his mother. “You know, Mom and I, we’d talked about coming to see you. You aren’t the first people to show up today.” He explained about Remmi Storm and Noah Scott showing up unexpectedly, and as he did, Vera seemed to shrink farther into the rocker.
Though irritated that Remmi and Noah Scott had been here already and hadn’t bothered to mention it, Settler managed to keep an outwardly calm facade. Why couldn’t people just leave police investigations to the investigators?
“. . . they left a few hours ago,” Jensen finished, staring at his mother as she seemed to shrink into the well-worn cushions of the gently swaying rocker. “Mom?” he said, encouraging her.
“Oh, no . . . this isn’t a good time.” She was shaking her head.
“There’s never a ‘good time,’ Mom, and you know it. So, if you don’t tell them, I will. At least I’ll tell them what I know.” He turned his attention to the officers. “Look, I was a screw-up as a kid. Did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
His mother made a little snort of disdain.
“I even stole from my cousin.”
“Which you didn’t tell her,” Vera popped out with. “You had the chance today.”
“I will. And I’ll pay her back.” Jensen appeared sincere. “I’m a father now, and I’ve got to set a good example for my son. But this doesn’t have anything to do with me.” Once more his gaze landed on his mother. “Mom?”
She sent her son a furious glare.
He pushed. “We talked about this. You said you needed to do the right thing. The Christian thing.”
Silence stretched between them, and for a second, Settler thought Vera would stand firm, but she finally exhaled on a long, weary sigh. “Fine.” Gathering herself, she faced the officers, her pointed chin lifting in a bit of a challenge. “I think . . . I mean I’m not sure, but it could be that my husband is into something very bad.”
“What do you mean by that?” Settler asked.
“I don’t really know,” Vera said as she rocked slowly and fingered the cross at her neck. The room was tired-looking, the lamps dim.
“Mom,” Jensen said, urging her. “You know it’s a sin to lie, and worse yet—”
“Don’t lecture me!” She held up a hand to him, her lips moving silently as if she were giving herself a mental pep talk or maybe praying. With all the pictures of Jesus decorating the room, and the huge Bible lying open on the dining room table, that seemed the most likely.
“Milo’s a good man,” she whispered.
“What did he do?” Martinez asked.
“I don’t know that he did anything. I’m not really certain. I mean . . . I don’t know for sure, but there’s a chance he was involved somehow in that poor woman’s death.” She blinked and looked at the floor.
“Whose death?” Settler asked.
“Karen Upgarde’s. The woman he—we—hired to dress up like Didi.”
