“He hasn’t shown up for work today. We’re doing a lot of soil prep, getting ready to plant. He was supposed to drive the tractor.”
“What time?”
“Six. We’d planned to meet in the clearing, but he wasn’t there. He’s never done that before.”
“You’ve checked his house, of course.”
“Of course. From the looks of it, he never came home last night.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Extremely.”
“Maybe he had too much to drink and passed out somewhere.”
“Where? I’ve spent the past thirty minutes driving through town, hoping to see some sign of him or his truck. But he just…disappeared.”
“Could he be with a woman?”
“You’re the only one he talks about.”
“I didn’t necessarily mean someone he was interested in dating.”
He shifted his feet. “You’re talking about a call girl or a hooker?”
“Maybe someone from Douglas or Sierra Vista,” she said. Or Trudy. Sophia knew Stuart visited her on occasion.
“If so, it’d be the first time he’s pulled this. I can’t even get him on his cell.”
“It’s still early.”
“Listen, Patrick told me something that has his mother a little…concerned.”
Bruce seemed concerned, too. “What’s that?”
“He said that Roderick came by last night, looking for Stuart. According to Pat, Rod wouldn’t say what he wanted, but he seemed angry, upset.”
“You’re not suggesting Rod had anything to do with Stuart’s disappearance.”
There was a moment of silence as he stared at the ground. Then he said, “No, I can’t believe that. I wouldn’t have asked Rod to come back here if I thought something like that could ever happen. Except…except I know there’s never been any love lost between them. And Edna…” He blew out a sigh.
“Edna?” she repeated, prompting him to finish.
He rubbed his face. “She’s sure Rod’s the devil incarnate. She won’t give him a chance, never has. I hoped bringing him back to Bordertown might…I don’t know…allow us to do things…better. He’s never really had a family. I feel guilty about that. But maybe I was stupid to think our relationship would be different now that so much time has passed. Edna is as bitter as she ever was. Maybe more so. What happened thirty years ago is a thorn in her side that still festers.”
That was a lot for Bruce to reveal. He’d certainly never taken Sophia into his confidence before. She knew he wouldn’t be doing it now if he wasn’t so upset. And although he stopped short of saying Edna had become impossible to live with, she got the impression they’d just had a big argument. The push-pull of his obligations to his legitimate family and the guilt he felt for neglecting his illegitimate son obviously ate at him and had been eating at him as long as that thorn had been festering in his wife’s side. Sophia actually felt sorry for him.
“If it’ll help, I know why Rod was looking for Stuart,” she said.
He’d been nervously jingling the change in his pocket, but at this, he went still. “You do?”
“Someone trashed his motel room last night. He wanted to ask Stuart about it.”
“Why would Stuart do that?”
Her cell phone vibrated. She could hear it shaking against the counter, where she’d plugged it in to charge after coming home last night. But she made no move to answer. She’d call whoever it was back after she’d finished speaking to Bruce. “I think you already know.”
“But are you sure it wasn’t an attempted burglary or—”
“Nothing was stolen, Bruce. Someone cut up Rod’s clothes, wrote obscenities on the wall, broke his computer, that sort of thing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I wanted him to feel welcome, accepted. So he’s not staying at the Mother Lode anymore?”
“He couldn’t. His room had to be cleaned and repaired. Even the door was broken.”
“The door seemed fine a few minutes ago. His Hummer wasn’t in the lot, but I knocked to be sure he wasn’t there.”
Apparently, Leland had managed to get the door fixed. He’d probably known all along that it wouldn’t take much, but he preferred to rent to someone who didn’t attract trouble. No doubt he also realized that he could now demand a higher price, given the sudden shortage of lodging. “It was broken when I was there after ten.”
“So where’s Rod?”
Sophia had been in law enforcement long enough that she hated a liar and didn’t want to be one. She tried to sidestep the question rather than answer it directly. “Have you tried his cell?”
“At least a dozen times. He’s not answering.”
“I’m pretty sure he never found Stuart, if that’s what you want to ask him. We were at a safe house that might be connected to the UDA murders until pretty late.”
“But someone has to know where Stuart is. And if Rod was out searching for him, maybe he found him….”
Her home phone began to ring. Sophia glanced at it. This interruption was harder to ignore because she wasn’t the only one to hear it. Excusing herself for a minute, she went to answer.
Because she’d left the door open, he stepped into her living room. Knowing Rod was so close, she felt a jolt of alarm, but Bruce stayed by the door as she lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Chief?”
Her alarm grew but for a different reason. It was Joe, and his tone was somber. “Yes?”
“We’ve got another murder on our hands.”
Closing her eyes, she dropped her head in her free hand, bracing for the worst. “Just one?”
“Just one.”
“Another UDA?”
“Not this time.”
She snapped up straight and eyed Bruce, who was watching her curiously. “Who, then?”
“Stuart Dunlap. Someone shot him in the head.”
21
Rod had no idea how to react. He dropped the sheet he’d been holding around his waist while listening at the door, and simply stood there, waiting for the reality of what Sophia had told his father to sink in. The wail Bruce had emitted when he learned his youngest son—youngest with Edna, anyway—was dead set Rod’s teeth on edge. It was a wail of torment, of pain.
All the time he was growing up, Rod had told himself he hated the Dunlaps. At times, he’d grown so bitter he’d wished them dead. But he wasn’t glad to hear of Stuart’s murder.