Page 14 of Dusty

She talked to him during their lunch hour. Also, when they got back to their stations between calls. Scott Landry, she remembered his name now, was a nice person. While she didn’t know him before coming here, she would bet too that he had to work extra hard on breaking some of the habits that he used to have. Like him calling his mom his momma was a biggy to him. A habit that he was trying hard to break.

After work, they walked to her sister’s house. She wasn’t staying there but would watch their kids for an hour or so nightly. It helped Lily get dinner on the table and Mark when he got home to unwind without the kids wanting him to play with them when he only just walked in the door.

She didn’t do it every night, she loved her nieces and nephew but they were even a bit much for her at times. Not wanting to think about their nights when she didn’t come over, Rogen was glad to be able to help them out. Besides, she got herself a good home-cooked meal out of it.

Lily invited them to stay for dinner which was fine by her. They just accepted Scott like he’d been around forever, and it felt like it. By the time she was ready to get herself home, not far from her sister’s home, she thought that the two of them were friends. Not good ones, but friends all the same.It made her feel good when he told her that he trusted her with the information as to where he’d come from. It really wasn’t far, only about fifty miles from where they were right now.

Scott didn’t pressure her into anything on their way back to her house. He did take her hand into his when there were people coming toward them. She liked that. While she had no intentions of falling in love with the man, she found herself looking forward to tomorrow so that they could get to know one another more. Rogen didn’t know if that was nutty or not and figured she’d not look too deeply into things right now.

~*~

There was a great deal of speculation going around as to where Scott had gone. She supposed that she could have looked for him but didn’t want to mess with him anymore. Shipley decided that he might well have been a different person than he ended up being if not for his mother. Christ, she was a nightmare.

Alma was now in jail. She was going to be there until her court hearing was taken care of next week. Having little to no money kept her in jail without anyone paying her bond, and Shipley thought that it was funny that she actually was still going on about how she was going to be her daughter-in-law soon, and the least that she could do was to bail her out. Not only had she told her no, but she told her hell no she wasn’t going to do that. Then there were the things that she was spreading around about them kidnapping her son and forcing him into hard labor. Like they had a camp someplace that had him in chains and balls working on the railroad line or something. Idiot.

Today was her first full day without having a job to go to. Even when she was on her little vacation to help out her sister, she knew on some level that she was going to have to go to work eventually. But this, staying home because she could, was boring as fuck.

She needed something to do. Not a job that she was going to go to daily but something that made it so that she had something to look forward to a couple of days a week. It wasn’t as if she needed the money; Dusty had put her name on all the accounts that he had and she was a very wealthy woman. It was heady to know that she could spend as much as she wanted and not worry about it. She didn’t, of course. That would be just stupid. She was picking up her phone when it rang, and she wasn’t surprised to see that it was Dusty. He started the conversation out by telling her how much he loved her.

“That’s the perfect way to start out a conversation. What’s up?” He told her that he was going to go to the school after he got his work finished up and would like for her to meet him there. “What’s going on?”

“They’re needing their field redone. While I will say that it’s in need of a good workover, I’m not sure as a family that we should be responsible for the entire thing. I’d like for you to have some input on it.” She told him what she thought. “That’s brilliant. If they don’t raise enough with us matching it, we’ll just not have to worry about it. Thanks. I knew that you were a good idea person.”

“Matching them dollar for dollar is how the schools where we went were able to raise enough money for the football field when I was going to college. Not only did they exceed in the amount, there was enough money to have the bleachers redone as well. Also, they dedicated the field to all the fallen soldiers that had lost their lives during wartime.” He told her again that she was brilliant. “Not so much. Just know that if you pay for whatever they want, they’ll be hounding you to death for everything. This way, if they don’t raise enough to make it work, then it’s all on them.”

“How about you meet me in town for lunch? I have one more meeting today with the board of directors at the hospital. Also, the police. They want to make sure that Scott hasn’t been killed or something equally nefarious. I told them what happened, but they want it on record. I’m not so sure about that part. It might come back to bite me in the ass. Or worse yet, his mother to get wind of what happened. I honestly don’t have any idea where he went, and that’s all I’m going to say to them.” She told him that she’d love to meet him for lunch and that she was leaving the house now to pick up the things that they’d ordered. “Oh, I forgot about that. The post office has several boxes there that they’d rather we pick up. Bring my truck.”

After getting off the phone with him, she decided that it was as good a time as ever to go and see Alma. She’d been calling there nonstop for the past several days, and she wanted her to stop. It had been a month since she was ordered by the courts to stay away from her. Shipley didn’t understand why calling all the time wasn’t included in that. As soon as she was in the station house, she knew that something had happened.

“What is it?” She was ushered into an office and then asked to have a seat. “I don’t want to sit down. I want information. Either give it to me, or I’ll find it. Either way, I’m going to have the information.”

“She’s gone. I mean, she’s dead. She died.” She rolled her eyes at the officer and asked him what had happened. “I don’t know, honestly. I mean, she might well have died in her sleep. But it’s…she’s going to the medical examiner’s office now. I mean, they have to pick her up. Not pick her up like physically but—” She slapped him. Hard too.

“Now. Take a breath and tell me. I got that she’s dead and that the medical examiner is coming to get her. When did you find her?” He told her right after breakfast. “I take it that she didn’t eat then.”

“No. That’s what alerted us. She didn’t bitch about her meal.” He looked at her hard. “You hit me.”

“Yes, and I’ll do it again if you fucking don’t get to the story. So she didn’t bitch about her meal, and you decided to check on her. What did you find?” He nodded as if he was understanding that she was going to hit him again if he didn’t answer her questions. “Donald. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’ve never seen a dead person before.” She told him that they don’t tend to hurt the living. “You think not? I have a feeling that she’s going to be haunting these cells for a good long time. All she did was complain about everything that we did for her.”

“Focus.” He nodded again. “Let me give you a word or two of advice. Don’t talk to families that have lost a loved one. You really suck at it. So she’s dead, and you don’t know much more than that.”

“She left a note. I think that has me freaked out, too. Like she knew that she was going to—please don’t hit me again. I’m better now. But she left a note about her son.” He looked at her hard. “You didn’t kill him off, did you? I mean, I’d not blame you for all the crap that he pulled on you, but you didn’t, did you?”

“No. I sent him on a trip away from his mother so he could get his life together.” He nodded and told her that was what Dusty had said. “Then why are you asking me about him? Christ, it’s a wonder that anyone around here uses you guys. You all must have a common brain cell that you share. What else happened that has you so freaked the fuck out? Is it the note? Who did she write it to?”

“You. She…want to read it? I did. I didn’t think that you were the one she was talking about until I told my boss what had happened. He said that you were supposed to marry her son or some bullshit like that.” She said she was never going to marry him. “No, I know that, too. You married Dusty. Congratulations on that, by the way.”

“Thank you. Can I have the letter?” He said that it was in evidence and that the police, other than him, were holding onto it for now. “Then tell me what it said so that I can deny whatever she had to say about me.”

“Just what I said. That you were an ungrateful person for not bailing her out with you being her future daughter-in-law and all. I don’t know that she ever really believed that part. I don’t think that she had a very high opinion of either you or Scott. Is he still alive?” She told him again that he was, but she didn’t know where he was. “You said that. I’m just testing you now. I’m not as nervous anymore. But I’m betting that you’ve not seen a dead person either, have you?”

“I have. Probably more than you and every member of this force will see in their lifetimes. Now, who is the M.E.?” He had to explain what the medical examiner was. “What do you mean you don’t have one. You just told me that someone was coming to pick her up.”

Donald started nodding but told her that the office was picking her up. But they didn’t have one here that they could use. They had to wait for someone from another county could get around to doingthe…he called it work up on her. The man wasn’t going to last that long if he kept talking like he was. Donald might have been better suited to a job in a grocery store. Then she mentally told herself that he’d not be good at that. Too much blood and dead things around.

“You can do it.” She asked him what he was talking about. “The work on her. I don’t remember what—autopsy. You can do that, can’t you? I mean, I could ask the hospital if it’s all right with them, but you could do it, right?”

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