Chapter 14
Hayley pulled her car off the main road and down the dirt driveway to Otis Pearson’s shack in the woods near Tremont to find a police cruiser with its blue lights flashing parked out front.
When she got out of the car and walked up the creaky wooden steps of the shack, Sergio suddenly appeared from around back to greet her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came here to see Danny, and make sure he doesn’t try to blow town before he’s given the all clear. What about you?”
“I came to ask him a few questions but when I got here the door was wide open and there didn’t appear to be anyone inside. I was just checking around back to see if he was chopping wood for the fireplace or something.”
Hayley laughed to herself over the idea of Danny chopping wood.
He wasn’t a man who was rejuvenated by manual labor.
He usually bought the wood with Hayley’s money.
Or stole a few logs from the neighbor’s pile.
“Come on, let’s go inside,” Sergio said, leading the way.
Hayley followed close on his heels.
Sergio stopped in the doorway and looked around at the mess.
There were rat droppings in the corner next to the couch and flies buzzed around the dirty dishes piled high in the sink and the fireplace was caked in soot.
Plaid shirts and stained underwear were draped over a couple of rickety chairs and some moonshine jugs were upended on their sides on the floor.
Sergio shook his head, disgusted. “Looks like the place has been torn apart and ransacked.”
Hayley snorted. “Uh, no, this is just how Otis keeps house. The place looks exactly the same as when I was last here, which was only a few days ago.”
Sergio stared at her in disbelief.
Sergio led her over to the sectioned-off area where Otis slept. The dirty, musty mattress on the floor had been violently ripped open.
There were chunks of yellow foam strewn everywhere.
“Was that mattress in such a sorry state when you were last here?” Sergio asked, eyebrow raised.
“No. Other than those nasty stains it was pretty much intact.”
“Then someone has been here. Any idea what he or she might have been looking for?”
“I’m afraid so. Otis doesn’t believe in banks. He told me he stashes his savings, something like forty grand, in that mattress.”
Sergio’s mind raced. “So if the rest of the place looks exactly the same as when you were here previously, and only the mattress appears to have been disturbed, then whoever came here and stole Otis’s money knew exactly what he or she was looking for and where to find it.”
Hayley walked over and inspected the mutilated mattress.
It made sense.
Sergio moved up behind her. “Who else besides you knew Otis kept his money in there?”
Hayley winced.
Just like Lucy Ricardo used to do when she didn’t want to admit something to her Cuban bandleader husband.
“Hayley . . .” Sergio said, drawing her name out just like Ricky Ricardo when he would say, “Lucy . . .”
He even had the Desi Arnaz accent to boot.
Except it was Brazilian instead of Cuban, but still, it was close enough.
Sergio turned Hayley around and stared at her with the serious, commanding police chief look he often used to intimidate people. “Did Danny know about the money in the mattress?”
Hayley nodded.
She couldn’t believe it.
She didn’t want to believe it.
Could Danny have killed his own uncle for forty grand?
She couldn’t even entertain the possibility.
But it wasn’t looking too good for him at the moment.
Sergio gripped her shoulders.
“Where is he?”
Hayley shrugged. “I . . . I don’t know. I thought he would be here . . .”
But a part of her knew exactly where her troublesome ex-husband was right now.
Probably hightailing it out of town.
If he wasn’t already across state lines.