Page 94 of Long Gone

She nodded. “He was a regular. Ate here at least three times a week.”

“What did you think of him?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you interested?”

I considered being vague, but I suspected Betty appreciated directness. “I’m trying to find out what happened to him.”

She looked surprised. “Are you working for the police, Harper Adams?”

The blood drained from my face. She knew who I was, which meant there was a good chance she wouldn’t tell me anything.

“No,” I said solemnly. “His wife asked me to look into it.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the lone customer in the diner, an elderly man who was reading the paper while he nursed a cup of coffee at the counter. Betty slid into the seat in front of me. “What do you want to know?”

I pushed my pie plate to the side. “So you remember him?”

“Like I said, I get to know the names of my customers. We get a lot of regulars, and I have a memory like a steel trap. I remember their favorite orders, how they take their coffee, the names of their kids and their ages.”

“What was your impression of him?” I asked, resting my hand on the table.

“He was such a nice man. Very polite.”

“Did you know what he did for a living?”

“Something about owning land and building a neighborhood. He was so excited about it when he first started on it, but right before he left, he looked tired. He was fightin’ hard to keep it all rollin’, but I think he knew he wouldn’t last much longer.”

“So you think he ran off?”

“That’s what the sheriff said, but…”

“You don’t believe it?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what to believe. I know he loved his kids dearly. And he wasn’t just talk. I saw those two pretty regular like and he doted on ’em. They loved him too, especially his son.” She shook her head. “They were good kids. I always wondered how they turned out.”

I didn’t usually share information about the people I spoke to, but in this case I figured I could be vague and it wouldn’t hurt anything. “I spoke to Anton at lunch yesterday,” I said. “He’s a nurse up in Wolford and seems to be doing pretty well, and his sister is in college.”

She placed her hand on her chest. “Oh, that warms my heart. Thank you for that.”

“Of course.” I poured some of the milk in my coffee and stirred. “Did Hugo ever bring clients here?”

“Clients? I’m not sure about that, but he definitely ate here with people other than his kids.” She bobbed her head toward me. “He had plenty of lunches with your father.”

“My dad?” I repeated. It felt redundant to do so, but I needed to be certain.

“They seemed more like friends than business associates, but that was back when Hugo had first rented the office space down the street. Toward the end, I didn’t see them together.”

Had my father stopped eating lunch with him because he knew of Hugo’s business troubles and was too embarrassed to be seen with him? That seemed more like something my mother would do. Then again, I wasn’t sure I knew my father at all.

“Did Hugo seem depressed?”

She pursed her lips as she considered it. “Yeah, in hindsight, I suppose so. He wasn’t as quick to smile as he used to be.”

Which fit with everything I’d already heard. “I know that Hugo had a business lunch the day he disappeared. Do you happen to know if he had lunch here?”

“I sure do, although neither one of ’em ate. It was later in the day,” she said, irritation tingeing her words. “I told that damn sheriff’s department, but they didn’t seem all that interested.”

“Do you happen to know who he met?”

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