“We hear you,” Angela said. “You can end the lecture.”
“I’m just saying, Angie. It’s not good to approach a strange animal by yourself.”
“That horse didn’t look mean. He looked sick.”
“He was probably overheated after his workout. Besides, you can’t tell if a horse is mean or not by looking at him, Angela. The one I saw the other day was trying to strike his handler. You never know. That’s why you have to be careful.”
Cole looked in the rearview mirror to check on Sophie who huddled in her seat, shoulders hitched, looking under siege. He’d noticed that she often zoned out when he and Angie bickered. He needed to try to put a stop to it and change the subject. “What did you think of Bruno, Sophie?”
“I think he’s nice.”
“We don’t know that, Sophie,” Cole said, almost going off about safety issues again but catching himself in time. “Carmen said she imported Bruno from Germany, but she’s disappointed in his obedience.”
“Maybe he talks German,” Sophie said.
Cole paused, realizing the child could be right. “That might be the problem, squirt. I think she’s been giving him commands in Spanish.”
“I wonder what dog commands sound like in German,” Angela said.
“I took German in high school,” Cole said. “Some of the words sound a lot like English. Like sitz.”
“That’s ‘sit’!” Sophie said, delighted with the new game.
Cole caught her eye in the rearview. “What do you think you’d say for down?”
Her brow gathered in concentration. “Downz?”
Cole grinned. “That’s close. It’s platz.”
Sophie giggled. “Platz down. Sounds like plops down.”
“You ought to take German, Angel,” Cole said. “I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember how to say ‘you are a dumbhead.’”
Sophie’s laughter pealed, filling the truck and Cole’s heart with joy.
“Tell us how to say it, Dad,” Angela said.
Finally—a topic they could all enjoy.
Chapter 16
Mattie steered around the last curve above Hightower and headed down into the valley where the small town nestled. She’d turned up the heater at the top of the pass, and Robo appeared to be cozy and warm, curled up asleep in his compartment. She’d once thought Stella’s silence meant she was dozing too, but a quick check revealed her to be deep in thought. Stella was like that—a thinker.
Armed with Velda Howard’s address programmed into her GPS, Mattie drove right to her destination. She parked in front of the small clapboard house, gray boards exposed beneath peeling white paint, yard turned to weeds overgrown to midcalf. Robo stood up, yawned, and stretched, shoulders down and haunches raised.
“You’re going to stay here,” she told him.
His expectant expression turned to one of resignation as he plopped down into a sit.
“You ruined his day,” Stella observed, picking up her briefcase from the floorboard.
Mattie reached through the heavy steel mesh at the front of his cage to give him a pat. She picked up her notebook, and the two of them headed up the cracked sidewalk that led to the front door.
Ringing the bell, Mattie heard an obnoxious buzz on the other side rather than the pleasant dingdong she’d expected. They waited.
The door caught, screeched, and then burst open as the woman behind it tugged. Average height, she wore a thin flannel robe wrapped around her skinny frame. She had mousy blonde hair turned mostly gray, worn loose and frizzy around her face. Wrinkles lined her mouth and her red-rimmed eyes; smoke wafted from the cigarette she held between two fingers, the nails painted with chipped red polish. “Who are you?”
Mattie introduced herself and then Stella. “Are you Velda Howard, ma’am?”
“Yeah. I suppose you’re here about Adrienne.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re sorry for your loss,” Mattie said. “Could we come in and have a word with you?”
Velda looked past her to where Robo sat in the patrol vehicle.
“You’re not going to bring that dog in, are you?”
“No, ma’am. He’ll wait in the car.”
The woman gave a heavy sigh and turned away, leaving the door open for them to enter. “That dog looks like a monster with those great big teeth,” she muttered, her back turned.
And here Robo was giving you his best smile.
Mattie tried to reserve judgment and stifled her instant dislike. After last summer’s murder case, she’d promised herself to not jump to conclusions, especially about families. She struggled to close the sticky door after Stella entered the room, but she had to settle on leaving it slightly cracked open.
She took in her surroundings. Shabby avocado-green carpet, brown recliner and sofa with worn upholstery, cheap-looking end table by the recliner, and coffee table in front of the sofa, everything covered in a layer of grime. The place and the woman both shouted “run-down.”
Sinking into the recliner, Velda raised a jelly jar half-filled with amber liquid as if offering a toast while she eyed them both. “Care for a drink?”
“No, thank you,” Stella said.
“I didn’t suppose you would,” Velda said, taking a sip that ended with another long sigh, this one sounding satisfied rather than put out. “What can I do ya for?”
Mattie caught the whiff of whiskey that rode on the sigh. She wondered if it was the alcohol that left the mother so detached about her daughter’s death or something else.
“We’re working your daughter’s homicide,” Stella said. “We hope we can get some information from you that can help us solve her case.”
“I told that fella that called me, I don’t know anything about Adrienne these days.”
“When was the last time you heard from her?”
“You make it sound so . . . homey. Like she might think of her mother once in a while. Like she might actually pick up the phone and call.” She sniffed, and with a cigarette posed between two fingers, she used the back of her wrist to wipe an indiscernible tear from her eye. Smoke settled around her head.
Mattie followed Stella’s lead and waited.
Velda peered at them, adjusted the flap of robe at her neck. “Adrienne left the summer after she graduated from high school. Five, six years ago. I haven’t heard from her since.”
“We’ve found her high school boyfriend, Kevin Conrad. Do you know him?” Stella asked.
Velda gave a derisive snort. “That’s why she left. The no good SOB made her go.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He poisoned her against us.”
“Who is ‘us’? You and . . .”
“Me and her father. Her family.”
“Is her father available for us to talk to?”
“He died a few years ago. Adrienne broke his heart.”
“Does Adrienne have siblings?”
Velda narrowed her eyes, looked at her dwindling cigarette, took a puff. “One brother.”
“I’d like to contact him,” Stella said.
“Good luck. If you find him, tell him his poor old mother says hello.” Velda stubbed out her cigarette with a vengeance in an overfilled ashtray, took out another, and lit up. “He left home before Adrienne.”
“What’s his name?” Mattie asked.
“Roger.”
“Same last name . . . Howard?”
“Um-hum.” Velda lifted her glass, swirled the whiskey, and took a sip.
“Why do you say Kevin Conrad poisoned Adrienne against you?” Mattie asked.