Whit nodded. They pulled over and Gooch took the wheel. Whit moved to the passenger seat, feeling too revved to relax. But as the nighttime road unwound, he slept.
*
Whit and Gooch crashed at a cheap motel off the highway around two a.m., rose at seven, and arrived in Missatuck, a town three miles off the main highway with one bumpy major street and two stoplights, around nine Saturday morning. Missatuck was little enough that asking for a local address at the small grocery got results.
Kathy Breaux lived at 302 Cotton Creek Road. The house was a brick duplex in a very modest neighborhood, the only kind Missatuck offered. Ill-kept flowerbeds dominated the yard, and a motley crew of lawn gnomes congregated in one untilled bed.
‘Let’s be careful,’ Gooch warned. ‘Anyone who collects lawn gnomes is not to be trifled with.’
Whit rang the bell. No answer. He rang again and knocked. No answer. The door to the other duplex creaked open, and a woman in purple jogging sweats, holding a purple mug of coffee, stepped out onto the concrete slab that served as a joint porch. She was tall and skinny, with raven-dark hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail and a bevy of unfortunate whiskers on her chin.
‘Awful early to be pounding on a door,’ the woman observed in a gravel-bruised voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ Whit said. ‘I’m Judge Whit Mosley. I’m a justice of the peace in Encina County, down on the coast, and this is my associate-’
‘Dr Guchinski,’ Gooch interjected and Whit kept his neutral smile in place. Doctor. God help us.
‘I’m looking for Kathy Breaux,’ Whit said.
The woman sipped her coffee. ‘What do you want with her?’
‘A man committed suicide in my jurisdiction, and he had called the phone number at this address repeatedly,’ Whit said. ‘We’re trying to establish the reason for the suicide, and we thought Ms Breaux might know his mental state.’
The woman blinked. ‘Who is this man?’
‘His name is Pete Hubble. Does that name ring a bell?’
‘Well, do you have some identification?’ she asked.
Whit produced a laminated card with his name and title issued by the Texas secretary of state. He didn’t offer her one of his regular business cards to keep because what he didn’t want was her phoning the Encina County authorities. Buddy Beere, if given half a chance, would make widespread hay about any wild-goose chases Whit pursued right before the election.
She studied the card, then handed it back to him. ‘Kathy’s at work, got a double shift. It’s about ten, fifteen minutes away. I can give you the address.’
‘Thanks,’ Whit said.
The woman returned with hastily scribbled instructions. Follow Highway 363 to the Louisiana border, where it becomes Louisiana FM 110, go straight until you get to Deshay, Memorial Oaks nursing home is on the left after the second light.
Deshay, Louisiana. A nursing home. A tremble rose along Whit’s spine.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘She’s not in no trouble, is she?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Whit lied.
‘ ’Cause she’s a pretty good renter,’ the woman added, as though this were a treasured commodity in Missatuck.
‘Promptness with rent is always to be admired,’ Gooch said. ‘Thanks again.’
The woman shut the door, and they went back to Whit’s Explorer.
‘A nursing home in Deshay,’ Whit said. ‘That’s where that Ballew girl vanished from, the one whose wallet they found outside of town. Her face has been all over those blue flyers, Claudia mentioned the case to me. It can’t be coincidence.’
They drove thirty miles over the speed limit, zooming into Louisiana.
Deshay was the kind of town repeated ten thousand times across America: an unhealthy selection of fast-food chains, a neon-lit doughnut shop, a pair of peeling strip centers, a furniture store with plastic-sheeted inventory overflowing into the parking lot, and five gas stations lining the main road. Memorial Oaks squatted on a corner. Bricks the color of creek dirt lined the concrete walkways and ill-clipped Japanese boxwoods stood beneath the windows. The home didn’t look dirty or unhealthy, just glum, a sad coda for lives in their final movements.
‘Despicable the way we treat the elderly in this country,’ Gooch said. ‘When I hit sixty I’m moving my ass to China, where the old are revered.’
‘I hate nursing homes,’ Whit said under his breath. ‘They’re like parking garages for people.’
‘Would you rather die young? I could call Anson and see if he’ll hook up with us again.’
When they asked at the information counter for Kathy Breaux, the dour receptionist nodded toward a hall that fed off from the central hub.
‘She’s down in the television room, probably doing a little feeding,’ the woman said.
Gooch whispered to Whit as they walked: ‘A feeding. How evocative. Is there a trough?’
The room was large but fusty, its cornerstone a sparkling new TV that dangled the joys of the outside world. A trashy morning talk show blared from the set, mothers having their mouthy, punk- and Goth-dressing daughters made over into pink-angora debutantes. Several patients watched with blank stares fixated on the lives on the television instead of anything else in the depressing room, blankets covering their laps. An array of shiny black dominoes lay spread out on a table, awaiting players. No nurse loomed to greet them. One patient, in her early eighties, glanced up at them as they came in and gave them an intelligent smile. She was reading The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2, her bony, mottled finger stuck in the mammoth book, the other hand holding a magnifying glass.
‘Hello, ma’am,’ Whit said. ‘How are you today?’
‘Lovely. How are y’all doing?’
‘We’re fine, ma’am,’ Gooch said. ‘We’re looking for Kathy Breaux.’
The old woman puckered in distaste. ‘Kathy is no doubt outside, sucking a cigarette down to the filter, as I would if she gave me half the chance. She ought to be back in a minute.’
‘Which way, ma’am?’ Whit asked.
The old woman nodded toward a door that opened into a hallway. Whit thanked her and moved toward the hallway.
‘I’ll stay here,’ Gooch said, ‘in case she comes back.’ He leaned down toward the woman to see what she was reading. She flopped open her book for him.
‘Robert Browning?’ Whit heard Gooch say good-naturedly. ‘You’re not wasting your time on him, are you? He’s a psychobabble bore.’
‘Nonsense,’ the old woman said. ‘Now, when I taught Browning…’
At the end of the hall Whit found a bay of large windows that opened out onto a grove of mossy oaks. In the foyer formed by the windows, a bathrobe-clad crone hunched in a wheelchair while a spare, trim woman, dressed in the bright magenta scrubs of the nursing staff, mopped up around the chair.
‘Bad bad girl,’ the woman chirped in a singsong voice reminiscent of a preschooler ditty. ‘You keep your hands off your diapy-diap now so I don’t have to clean up after you again.’
A half grunt, half wail was her answer from the poor old woman in the chair.
‘Excuse me,’ Whit said. ‘Are you Kathy Breaux?’
She gave him a bright smile he suspected was reserved only for visitors. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m here to talk to you about Pete Hubble.’
The smile barely dimmed. ‘Who?’
‘The man who placed several phone calls to your house over the past week.’
The grin stayed as fixed as stone. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’
‘Judge Whit Mosley. I was a friend of Pete’s. He’s dead.’
Her grip whitened against the handle of the mop.
‘I’m conducting the inquest into Pete’s death and I’d like to talk to you about why Pete was calling you,’ Whit said.
‘You know, I would love to help you with whatever this is, but I can’t talk now. I’m working.’ She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear with a coy little flick of the wrist.
‘Considering this is an investigation into a possible homicide, I’m sure the home’s administrators would be glad to provide us with a private office and time alone.’ Whit kept his tone friendly. He’d heard enough voice to know she was the woman who had called on the boat. ‘He was shot. In the mouth.’