Otis shut the door to his office behind his niece and moved stiffly around his desk to his chair. “My joints have been locked up ever since we took that drive up to Rock Hollow. Getting too goddamn old for long day trips.” He sat with great care and invited Dani to do the same.
“Stop calling yourself old or you’ll start believing it.”
“I believe what I see, little deputy. I believe what I see.” He opened the side drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of generic aspirin. “You get them state boys to talk?”
“They weren’t boys, and they weren’t they. It was a she, and she talked and talked and talked.”
Otis popped two aspirin in his mouth and swallowed them down with a gulp of lukewarm coffee. “A woman? How do you like that?”
“Why you so surprised?”
He shook his head and grinned. “It ain’t what you think. I had two fellas from the state police meet me at the scene. I just figured they’d be the ones you’d be talking to.” He leaned back in his squeaky chair. “Wha’cha get out of her?”
“That her soon-to-be ex is an asshat, and that she’s never worked a missing kid case in these mountains in ten years. Never even caught wind of one.”
Otis laced his fingers together over his potbelly. “Curious.” He stretched his neck and tried to settle his joints. “I put in a call to that national organization, the one that runs down missing kids. None of the names we got yesterday are on their list. Not one.”
“What about Randle and Friar? You feel them out yet?”
“I did. Them boys are lazy and useless, but they ain’t into anything to worry about. Still don’t want to involve them in this unless we have to. The less they know, the less they’re likely to spill to their buddies.” He sipped from his coffee.
“What I can’t figure is why none of these mothers took things into their own hands and raised a stink along the way,” Dani said.
“That’s because you’re a modern woman, little deputy, and technically you live in the flatlands. Things are done different in the mountains. Traditional. The farther up you go, the more traditional things get.”
Dani furrowed her brow.
“You notice the coffee cups we drank out of yesterday at Laura Farrow’s house?”
“Yeah. NASCAR collectibles.”
“You reckon sweet little ol’ Laura is a NASCAR fan? I mean, fan enough to buy collectible coffee cups?”
Dani shrugged. “It ain’t unheard of.”
“No it ain’t, but the way the rest of her house was decorated, I don’t peg her as a diehard racing fan. I’m guessing she was married at one time or another. Probably recently.”
“I didn’t see no pictures of a man…”
“She’s rid the living room of all her family photos. The only ones she left out are pictures of that daughter of hers.” He took another sip from his coffee. “I’m guessing she was recently widowed, and if I’m right, given where she lives, she was married to a man that was tied to the Ephesians school of marriage.”
Dani’s skin crawled at the mention of Ephesians or any Bible verse. It brought back memories of the shithead who once called himself her father.
Otis cleared his throat and said, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” He laughed. “Your aunt would sooner die than agree to such an arrangement, but it’s common practice on the slopes.”
“But she made a point to say there was no husband…”
“She can deny it all she wants. I know a wife made unhappy by a husband when I see one.” He hesitated and then said, “Your momma has the same look.”
The mention of her mother turned Dani’s stomach. She quickly took control of the conversation. “So you’re saying the husbands are keeping their wives quiet about their girls going missing?”
“I’m leaning that way.”
“Why?”
Otis smiled and pointed at his niece. “You’ve come to the next step in our investigation, little deputy. We need to find a way to talk to one of these husbands.” He laced his hands over his belly again. “Call up Laura. Find out how she’s doing, and then get as much information as you can on these other mothers. Specifically, I want to know who they’re married to. Don’t push her on the true nature of her marital status. We don’t want her to close up on us.”
Dani stood, but stopped short of leaving. “What are we going to do once we run down these husbands? Rucker’s probably passed along the word to every lawman in the mountains that we’re nosing around.”
Otis groaned as he flexed his sore knee. “You get me some names, and I’ll find a way to get at least one of them sons-a-bitches to come to us.”