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“And he lives alone?” She glanced at her iPad screen, which was blank. “At least that’s what our records show.”
“That’s right. His ma died, oh, four years ago. Daryl’s never been much of an outside guy, if you know what I mean. He would have never left the house if his mother hadn’t made him go out and get a job. Just sit in his room and do God knows what.”
“What exactly does he do?”
“He’s actually good with anything mechanical. And there’s a lot of stuff around here, farm equipment mostly, that constantly needs fixing.”
“I saw the John Deere tractor in his backyard. It looks like it needs a lot of work.”
The woman smiled. “I guess it’s ‘do as I say, not as I do’ with old Daryl. He makes all our stuff run good and doesn’t lift a finger for his own.”
Clarisse had frozen for a moment on the woman’s first words. The same tagline in the secret room where Harry Langhorne had died.
“If he’s an introvert he might not want to open the door to a stranger.”
“You said you had an appointment with him?” the woman asked.
“Yes, but he doesn’t know what I look like. I called out and said who I was and why I was here, but no one responded.”
“Now thatisstrange.”
“Maybe if you…”
The woman stepped out, and Clarisse followed her over to Oxblood’s. The woman knocked hard on the door. “Daryl, it’s Barbara. You okay? There’s a lady here you have an appointment with. Daryl!”
No sound came from within. Barbara looked at her. “Okay, now I’m getting a little worried.”
“What should we do?”
“I think we’re justified in going in and seeing if he’s okay.”
“Maybe we should call the police.”
“Hell, the county sheriff’s department’s the law around here and they got a lot of ground to cover. So by the time they showed up we could have taken Daryl to the hospital, if he’s fallen and hurt himself.”
“Okay, but how do we get in?”
Barbara scooted back to her house and came back waving a key. “He has one for my place if something happens to me, too. Way it is out here.”
“I’m sure.”
Barbara unlocked the door, and they walked into a house that was filled with junk and clutter.
“He really let the place go after his ma died. He makes decent money, but Daryl has never been much of a housekeeper. Hell, neither am I.”
“I’m sure,” Clarisse said, her gaze roaming around the small space. “Maybe upstairs?”
There were ten steps up, and on the fifth one Clarisse reached into her bag and gripped the pepper spray. On the ninth step her hearing was as concentrated as was possible.
When they reached the second floor Barbara turned right.
“He’s usually up here reading comic books and such. His ma used to complain.”
“And his father?”
“Never knew him. He died before they moved here.”
“How long have the Oxbloods lived here?”
