Candice smiled. “Right,” she said. “What I mean is, did you ever notice any vans or contractors or workmen that might have looked out of place in that neighborhood?”
“Probably,” she said bluntly. “Like I said, we used to get all kinds on that street.”
“Did you ever notice anyone taking a special interest in your daughter?”
Loraine sighed. “No. Patrice was a good girl, but she was shy and I had put the fear of God into her early on. She didn’t have many friends and she stayed inside a lot ’cause Pecan Valley ain’t no place to play.”
Candice looked over at me, silently asking if I had anything to add, but there was nothing here to go on. Loraine didn’t know anything about who might have abducted and murdered her daughter—of that I was certain—and try as I might, there wasn’t a lot of her daughter’s residual energy around for me to bounce my radar off. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head slightly to let her know there wasn’t anything I wanted to ask.
Candice stood then and offered Loraine her hand. “Thank you so much for meeting with us,” she said. “I promise you that we will do everything in our power to find out what really happened to your daughter.”
“No offense, but I heard that before.”
Something pinged in my head then and I asked, “Who told you that?”
“The last private investigator who came here promising me some answers.”
Candice turned her head slowly to look at me before addressing Loraine again. “Last private investigator? Who and when?”
“I don’t know,” Loraine said dismissively. “Some tall strappin’ man came by here about six months after Patrice’s funeral and said he thought she was murdered and he was gonna look into it for me.”
“Did he leave you his card?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No.”
Candice had asked those questions in rapid-fire succession, and I could see her posture stiffen as she again worked to rein herself in and be patient. “Can you describe this man for me?”
“Why?”
“Because as far as we know, Mrs. Walker, we’re the only private investigators to look into your daughter’s case in the past two years. If someone already did some legwork, then they might have come across something that could be vital to not only solving your own daughter’s mystery but our other two cases as well.”
Loraine reached for her cigarettes again. “Was a brother,” she said. “And a big handsome one at that. He didn’t say much except to ask me some of the same questions you-all did.”
“How tall exactly?” I asked, hitting on that descriptive detail.
Loraine shrugged. “Maybe six four, or six five. And probably close to two hundred fifty pounds. But not a ounce of fat on him. He looked like a bodybuilder.”
“Was his name Antoine LaSalle?”
Loraine’s lids blinked heavily and she pressed the two fingers not holding her cigarette to her temple. “Maybe,” she said. “That does sound familiar, but I can’t say for certain.”
Candice and I exchanged another look. “Thank you again, Mrs. Walker,” my partner said. “Here is my card. If you can remember anything more that might help us, please don’t hesitate to call me day or night.”
Loraine accepted the card and laid it next to her pack of cigarettes. I had no doubt that the moment we were out the door, she’d toss it in the trash. She just didn’t appear to have any more hope in her.
We left Loraine to her chain-smoking, and as soon as we got in the car, Candice set the fan on high. “Blach,” she said. “I smell like an ashtray.”
“At least you can take a shower,” I groused while we pulled out of the driveway.
My friend looked over sympathetically. “Don’t they make some sort of dry shampoo or something?”
“That stuff’s for cats and dogs.”
“We could find a pet-supply store,” she said with a smirk.
I glowered at her. “Ha, ha,” I said flatly. “Highlarious.”
“How about a hat store?”
I brightened. “What kind of hat?”
“We’re in Texas, darlin’, home of the ten-gallon.”
I pulled down the visor and eyed myself in the mirror. “Do you think I could pull off a cowboy hat?”
“I do.”
“Then I’m game.”
“Terrific. There’s just one stop I want to make first. Then we’ll find you somethin’ purty.”
The stop turned out to be Antoine LaSalle’s. I had a feeling that Candice would want to speak to him again after what we’d learned at Loraine’s. Still, when we pulled up to his house, it didn’t appear that he was home, and after ringing the doorbell and knocking a few times, we gave up and headed to the highway. “What are you going to say to LaSalle when you see him?” I asked.
“I’m going to ask him if he did a little investigating on his own after Keisha went missing.”
I knew in my gut that he’d been the “PI” that had talked to Loraine. I was pretty sure that he’d posed as a private investigator in an attempt to find out what might have happened to his baby sister. “You know it was him, right?”
“Yep.”
“But you’ll remember to be nice to him when you ask, because he saved my life and all, right?”
Candice sighed dramatically. “Oh, if I must.”
“He won’t tell you anything anyway.”
“I said I’d be nice.”
“It’s not that. It’s that he read you like a book at the hospital when you said you’d loop him in, but we all knew you wouldn’t.”
“It was that obvious, huh?”
“Pretty much,” I told her honestly. “And LaSalle’s just the kind of guy that won’t give you something for nothing. If we want to find out what he knows, we might have to be honest with him.”
Candice was silent for a bit before she said, “I don’t know that I trust him, Abs.”
I could see her point—Antoine was simply scary and formidable—but I kept thinking about how he’d risked his own life just to save mine. “I know,” I told her, “but maybe we don’t tell him everything we’ve discovered. Maybe we just string him along with the unimportant details until we get what we need from him.”
Candice looked at me sideways. “You’re forgetting that we know next to nothing, so there’s hardly any information to protect.”
“All the more reason to bring him into the loop, then. I mean, what harm could it do?”
Candice inhaled deeply and focused on the road. “Maybe you’re right,” she said softly, and I almost didn’t hear her. “But I still don’t trust him.”
“Well, think about it at least,” I encouraged. I was all for working together as long as it advanced the cause, and I figured we had more to gain by cooperating with Antoine to get the information we needed, because I was fairly certain he had some detail important to our case that he was withholding. I didn’t know for certain why he would keep information from us, but thought it might be his army training that caused him to be cautious about what he revealed.
“Okay, Abby, ” Candice promised, “I’ll work with him.” She then pointed ahead. “There’s the outlet mall.”
I squinted. “Do you think they’ll have cowboy hats there?”
“Sundance, they’ve got everything at the outlet mall.”
Candice was right. The huge span of name-brand stores lining the south side of I-35 did have everything. We discovered a Western store almost immediately and found some awesome hats. I even got one for Dutch, although I doubted he’d be caught dead in it. After that, we grabbed lunch and discussed our next steps.
“Other than talking to the lieutenant again, I’m not sure what other leads we have,” Candice said, glancing over her notes from the case.
“How about the church?”
“What church?”
“The one that Mrs. Dixo
n goes to.”
Candice looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “Huh?”
“Remember?” I asked, even though she clearly didn’t. “She told us that she got the name of the painter off the bulletin board at her church. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe the painter was a member of the congregation and someone can help identify him.”
Candice beamed at me. “God, I’m glad you’re my sidekick!”
Chapter Twelve
Candice dropped me off at home around three and I was surprised to find Dutch already there, tossing a ball in the backyard to Eggy and Tuttle. “You playin’ hooky?” I asked, bringing out two beers from the fridge before settling into a lawn chair.
Dutch came over to get one of the beers and eyed me with a smile. “Nice hat.”
“Covers the staples.”
“You look good in it.”
“Yeah?”
He took a swing of the frosty beer, then leaned down to give me a cold nibble on the neck. “Yeah,” he said, his voice low and throaty.
I giggled because his lips tickled, then remembered my original question. “So, what’re you doing home, again?”
“I’m waiting for the test results,” Dutch said. “Brice said I could work from here if I wanted to.”
I did a mental head slap. “That’s right! I forgot that the doctor was going to call you today. Have you already heard from him?”
“Nope.”
“Did you call his office?”
“Nope.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s after three.”
“Yep.”
“Feeling pretty monosyllabic today, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
With a sigh I got up and headed toward the door.
“Where’re you going?” Dutch asked.
“I got you a hat too. You shouldn’t be out here in the sun without one.”
“I’m wearing sunscreen.”
“You still need a hat.” When I got inside, I pulled Dutch’s present out of the bag. I’d had to guess at the size, and I hoped I got it right. Then I moved over to the phone in the kitchen, where we kept all the important numbers and messages. Digging through the pile, I located the doctor’s office number and picked up the phone to carry it outside.
I finished dialing the doctor’s number just before I reached Dutch’s side again. When it started ringing, he frowned. “What’d you do?”
“Just ask them for the results and put us both out of your misery.”
With a smirk, Dutch took the phone and I listened to his half of the conversation. At one point there was a lot of silence and he whispered to me, “She’s putting me through to the doc right now.”
After an exchange of pleasantries, the doctor seemed to get right to the point, and I read the relief in Dutch’s eyes even before the smile spread to his lips. “That’s great,” he said. “Thanks, Doc. I really appreciate it.”
He chatted for a few more minutes and then hung up the phone and threw his new hat on without hesitation. “I’m in the clear,” he said, pulling me into his arms and hugging the stuffing out of me.
“I told you!”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, and squeezed me tight one more time.
When he let go and I looked up, I realized how sexy he looked in that new hat. “Lord, cowboy,” I said with a drawl and a headshake.
“What, purty lady?”
“You sure are a good-lookin’ son of a gun, ain’t cha?”
Dutch grinned wickedly. “Care to ride my little pony?” he asked, bouncing his eyebrows.
About ten minutes later, Dutch and I had ourselves a little rodeo.
Yee-haw, ladies. Yee- haw.
Candice picked me up bright and early the next morning. “Where’s the new hat?” she asked as I got in.
“It got a little smunched.”
“Smunched?”
“Um . . . ,” I said. “How can I put this delicately?”
Candice held up her hand. “No need,” she said quickly. “I’m pretty sure I can guess.”
I sighed contentedly. “I love that man.”
“Lucky you,” she muttered.
“Hey,” I said, only now noticing she seemed a bit grumpy. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“Brice slept on the couch again last night.”
“Did you guys have another fight?”
“No. We’re still having the same one.”
“You mean you haven’t talked to him about how you feel yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Candice squared her shoulders. “Because I shouldn’t have to go first. He should be the one to say that he wants to stay with me and work it out.”
“But he does want to stay with you and work it out.”
“Has he said that?” Candice practically shouted.
My eyes widened. “Gettin’ a little loud, honey.”
“Sorry.”
I gave her arm a squeeze. “You need to take that leap, my friend. You need to tell him that you are crazy about him, that all of this is just bluster from the both of you so that if someone bails, you can blame the other guy. It’s ridiculous, and you need to get over it because you’re killing any future for your relationship.”
That seemed to get to Candice. “You really think it’s hurting our chances?”
“Yes,” I said bluntly. “You’re destroying this really good thing. Maybe the only chance you’ll have for a very long time to be with someone you could really love, and if either of you lets that happen, then I will be so ticked off!”
I’d tried to sound stern, but Candice started laughing. “Oh, Sundance,” she sang. “What would I do without you?”
I made a face at her. “You’d be an old spinster woman with twelve cats.”
We made it back up to Fatina’s grandmother’s house and Mrs. Dixon greeted us at the door with less suspicion this time. “I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember the name of that painter man,” she said after we were seated again in her living room. “I swear it’s right on the edge of my memory, but every time I try to pull it forward, it slips away.”
“Sometimes not thinking about it is the way to get it to surface,” I suggested.
She nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
Candice waited for Mrs. Dixon to look at her before she asked, “We were wondering if maybe there was another way to figure out who this man was,” she said. “You mentioned that you found this painter’s number at church. Do you think he might have been a member of the congregation?”
Mrs. Dixon’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You know, I never thought of that,” she said. “Maybe.”
“Have you seen him since? Maybe at one of the services?” I asked.
Mrs. Dixon’s eyes shifted to me and there was such sad resignation there. “No, ma’am. I don’t go to church no more. Got no reason to. Any God that would take so much from me ain’t worth prayin’ to.”
My radar was already on when we entered the room, and now I fully understood the profound sense of loss and sadness that permeated the space all around her. Not only had the poor woman lost every person that ever mattered to her, but she’d lost her faith as well, and it was a pain even more acute than all the others in her life.
“Oh, Mrs. Dixon,” I said sadly. “I’m so, so sorry!”
“Why you got to be sorry?” she asked me sharply, taking offense.
“Because it’s causing you so much pain,” I said, ignoring her tone. “I think you miss God just as much as you miss your family.”
Mrs. Dixon’s lower lip trembled and she looked down at her hands. “Some people can have their children taken from them and their faith gets deeper. But I been through too much. And I don’t have the energy to go looking for my faith again.”
I took a deep breath and called out to my crew for help. I had a series of images come to mind and I smiled. “Mrs. Dixon?” I asked.
 
; “Yes?” she replied, not looking up from the hands folded in her lap.
“Where’s your piano?”
Her head snapped up and she let out a tiny gasp. “My what?”
“Your piano.”
I watched her carefully, and sure enough, she looked over her shoulder to a section of her living room near the window that, to my eye, suddenly seemed open and empty. “How’d you know I had a piano?”
I didn’t answer her. Instead I just continued to look at her like I knew her secret.
Finally she said, “It’s in storage.”
“How long has it been since you played it?”
She pursed her lips, clearly displeased that I was asking her about it. “Long enough.”
I made a point of looking around the room, up and down at the walls. “I think that what this house really needs, ma’am, is to hear your music again. I think that what these walls miss the most is the sound of your piano and your voice.”
Again Mrs. Dixon’s lower lip trembled and I knew I’d found that tiny crack in her fortress of self- imposed misery. “How’d you hear about that?”
I tapped my temple. “I’m a person who knows such things, Mrs. Dixon. I see things before they happen, and I can catch glimpses of the past without any prior knowledge. When I look at you, all I see is the rich and good life you had before you stopped living. And it was filled to bursting with music and song and faith. So maybe you don’t need to have the energy to go looking for God again, ma’am. Maybe all you need is just to play a song on that piano every so often, and God will find you.”
We left Mrs. Dixon’s a short time later with the name and address of her old church. As we got in the car, Candice let out a heavy sigh. “I swear I could barely keep from grabbing that woman and hugging her until she promised to get her piano back.”
I winked at her. “Trust me, she’s going to have them deliver it out of storage soon.”
“You swear?”
I laughed. Candice had a soft spot for grandmothers. “Cross my heart.”
We got to the church about five minutes later. It was a fairly nondescript structure: gray masonry walls, one large stained-glass window on the side, double doors at the front.