He got closer to his deputy and laid it out.
“Her husband comes home, Larry. She’s not here because he’s in the Dansboro Motel with his piece on the side and she’s fed up with putting up with it and wants to make a point. She’s not here because they’ve been having serious issues, he’s over it and he took off. She’s here because her husband comes home every night and last night he didn’t come home.”
“Right, boss,” Larry whispered.
“Go get everything you can out of her.”
“Right, boss,” Larry repeated on a nod, turned and took off.
Hix watched him and then he moved to Bets’s desk which was behind Larry’s.
He bent slightly to her and said quietly, “Listen in. Take notes. Be alert. You don’t have to hide it. We want Mrs. Calloway to know we’re taking her concerns seriously. Then be ready. We got a man to find.”
She stared up at him with wide eyes and nodded before she grabbed her notepad.
Hix didn’t want to. He wanted to listen in. He wanted to make sure all the right questions were asked, no time was wasted, the interview was thorough and concise. And he was torn about the decision he made.
But he not only had to let his deputies know he trusted them when serious shit hit, he had to let his citizens know he trusted his deputies.
So he went to his office. Powered up his computer. Put in his password.
Then he watched covertly as Larry talked to Mrs. Calloway.
He’d called Donna back by the time Larry escorted Mrs. Calloway out the door and to her car.
Hal, who was out at Babycakes Coffee House getting himself an espresso drink that, not unusually, he didn’t ask his colleagues if they also wanted one, had returned before she’d left.
So he had all his deputies in his office fanned out in front of him with Hix leaning against the front of his desk while Larry reported what Faith Calloway had given him.
“You were right, boss,” Larry said. “He comes home. If he’s gonna be late, he calls. According to Mrs. Calloway, he’s a family man. He’s foreman on old man Grady’s ranch down in Grant county, so he’s got a long drive to work, gets up early, leaves early, gets home late. But likes to eat dinner with her, have some time with his kids before they go to bed. She says he’s in a fantasy football league and he and his boys got a thing where they rotate houses every Sunday and watch the games, but that’s usually all he’s away from them. He works so much and is on the road so much, when he’s got time, he likes to spend it with the family.”
“She report anything weird about him the last few weeks?” Hix asked.
Larry shook his head. “Not that she’s noticed.”
“Their story?” Donna queried.
Larry looked to her. “He got her pregnant when she was seventeen, he was nineteen.” Larry turned his attention to Hix before he said, “She blushed when she said that. Seemed embarrassed.”
Hix nodded.
It was a good catch. Didn’t give them anything they needed but it gave them insight into Faith Calloway.
Larry turned back to Donna and went on, “He married her and Mrs. Calloway says folks thought they wouldn’t work, but they did. They got a little girl, firstborn, she’s eight. Little boy came three years after. Mrs. Calloway works in the county clerk’s office part time and her husband’s ma looks after her boy while she works.” Again he looked to Hix. “She says it’s for ‘play money.’ She says he started as a ranch hand for Grady, worked for the old coot even before they hooked up, but even though he’s real young, he works real hard so Grady promoted him to foreman. They aren’t rollin’ in it but they also aren’t hurtin’. But she says, kids’re gettin’ older, they wanna start to take ’em for trips to Disneyland and stuff like that so they’re savin’ up. That’s her idea of play money.”
Another good catch.
Play money wasn’t nice clothes or new cars.
Play money was something for the family.
“No behavior changes,” Hix gave his question as a statement.
Another shake of Larry’s head. “She says nope.”
“Finances, who does them and is there anything funny?” Hix asked.
Larry tipped his head Bets’s way and told him, “Bets asked that. Mrs. Calloway does the finances, and no. She hasn’t noticed anything funny.”
“What about Grady? Did Nat Calloway get to work yesterday?” Hix pressed on.
Larry nodded. “When he didn’t come home, Mrs. Calloway called him. Grady told her Calloway came, did his thing, left at around six, which was usual. She called Grady around nine. When her husband still didn’t show around ten, she started calling around the hospitals. Said she didn’t wanna do it before that because she didn’t wanna think anything happened to him. She was still hopin’ he’d just walk in the door.”
“She call any of his buds?” Donna asked.
“Yup,” Larry told her. “All of ’em. None of them had seen or heard from him.”
“Why didn’t she call us?” Hal asked.
Larry looked to him. “Said she figured he was in a wreck or somethin’. Said, after she called the hospitals, she actually put the kids in the car and drove the drive down to Grady’s to check herself. She didn’t find anything. Didn’t think to call us until she got home from her drive and made her second round of calls to the hospitals early this morning. That still got her nothin’ and she heard nothin’ from nobody. That’s when she decided just to come in.”
Hix had been right. She’d come to them in the clothes she’d worn yesterday, clothes she hadn’t yet taken off.
And she didn’t suspect her husband of wrongdoing. She didn’t suspect he’d been arrested. She didn’t suspect he’d been caught in a prostitution sting or a drug deal.
She just suspected he’d been in a wreck.
Nothing else occurred to her until her worry overwhelmed her and she came in but did it only to get reinforcements.
“Drugs? Drink? Gambling? They been fighting?” Donna asked.
Again, Larry shook his head. “No drugs. No gambling, unless his football league constitutes that. She says she’d know. They’re comfortable with money but they wouldn’t be if he was doin’ anything like that. Drink, yeah, but she says it’s the normal kind. A coupla beers after work. He likes bourbon but doesn’t like to drink the hard stuff around his kids. And she was real honest about what it’s like between them. Said it was a bumpy road at first, bein’ young, settin’ up house, havin’ a baby to look after so soon. But they ironed it out. She said they aren’t perfect, they argue some. But they’re in a good place now.”
“Friends who might drag him into something?” Hal put in.
More shaking of Larry’s head. “Not that she knows of.”
“So there’s nothing?” Hal asked disbelievingly. “This loving family man just didn’t show up home one night?”
“Apparently,” Larry answered.
“She give you his phone number?” Hix asked.