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Ron (Ron & Julie) Thursday, 8:00 a.m.
Del Hanna caught me at the pancake breakfast on Thursday. “Your wife asked me about a date for that poster thing she’s doing.” Julie was standing behind the serving counter, but according to Hank, Del’s newest girlfriend had left without a word of goodbye. With his ego recently roughed up and knowing Julie isn’t his biggest fan, Del no doubt found it easier to talk to me.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re almost done gathering information.”
“I couldn’t give her a location, since I was on the road a lot back then with my band, but later I realized I do know where I was that day.” Del’s expression showed a hint of pride as he explained, “July eighth is my oldest son’s birthday. I was at a gig up north somewhere, but my mother-in-law tracked me down on the seventh to let me know my wife had gone into labor. I borrowed a car, drove all night, and managed to get back to Springfield in time for his arrival in the world at three a.m.”
“That’s good,” I told him. “Julie will be pleased to know we have accurate information.”
He snickered. “Just like a woman, huh? Always gotta pin you down.”
I played along to keep him talking. “If she were here, she’d ask you to prove it.”
“I could if I had to,” Del replied. “My wife must have guessed the marriage wasn’t going to last, because she made me sign what’s called an acknowledgment of paternity.” He made a disgusted huff before continuing. “I was the one who should have worried, not her. With me on the road all the time, he could have been anybody’s kid.”
Gee, I hope your wife appreciated your faith in her.
“I’m glad I signed though,” Del went on. “David looks exactly like me, and he’s the best thing I ever contributed to this world.”
“What does he do?”
Del’s chin rose. “He’s with the Foreign Service. Mostly he works to keep the Middle East from blowing up.”
I could almost hear Julie’s comment. If your son is a diplomat, he can’t be much like his father.
“Darla,” Del said, and it took me a second to realize he was saying the name of his first wife. “We married young, and I thought that was it. You found a woman you could tolerate, and you lived with her. But no, that didn’t suit Darla. She wanted— I don’t know what she wanted. Some fairy tale life, I suppose.”
“It didn’t last.”
“When she took my boy away, I almost went nuts. But I met Eunice, and she was great. Once I married her, Davey could come and stay with us in the summer and at holidays. That was good for a while, but Eunice didn’t like me being gone all the time. She took up with the local veterinarian, if you can believe that.”
“Wow.” I didn’t want to know more about Del’s personal tragedies, but he was on a roll. “After Eunice I moved in with Ilene. I didn’t intend to get married again, but when she got pregnant for Cassidy, she insisted we needed to make it legal, so I did.” He leaned toward me, his eyes angry. “Three years later she tells me Cassidy isn’t my kid anyway, and she’s leaving me to be with the girl’s real father.”
What do you say when a guy tells you something like that? “That must have been tough.”
He shrugged. “She’s a spoiled brat anyway. Grew up to be exactly like her mother.”
By this time I’d concluded I was going to hear the whole story, so I asked, “You tried marriage one more time?”
“Yeah. Would you believe it was another Eunice? I mean, how many women named Eunice does a guy even meet, much less marry two of them?”
“What happened with her?”
“Boredom,” he replied. “The band broke up, and I gave up music. I started working at a cement plant, which meant I had to come home to the same woman, the same stories, every single night. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I told her I was out of there.”
“And you don’t plan to marry again.”
He waved the idea of it away. “I pick up a lady, stay with her until I get tired, and then move on.”
Except Shawna got tired of you first, I thought. Del seemed to recall that same thing, because he mumbled something about getting pancakes before they were all gone.
When I told Julie about the conversation later, she frowned. “Don’t they say rapists are often trying to dominate women to make up for some lack they feel in themselves?”
“Del seems to like the seduction part of a relationship. And I have to say he doesn’t seem like the type to use violence to get what he wants.”
“Maybe,” Julie replied, “but I’m going to keep him in the Maybe column, no matter what he says about rushing to the delivery room to be with Wife Number One.”
