Chapter Thirty
Zach knocked on the door of the double-wide that Stanley and Ida Breene resided in. It was early morning. Zach had left Josie safely sleeping at the secured cabin while he drove to the address of Deanna Breene’s parents.
“Who’s it?” he heard yelled from inside and leaned forward.
“Zach Copeland, Cincinnati Police Department,” he called back. He heard a deep squeak as though someone hefty was getting up from a recliner and stood back as the door swung open.
A plump woman in a shapeless striped dress stood at the door, looking out at him suspiciously. “Badge?”
Zach unclipped his badge and flashed it at her. “Are you Ida Breene?”
She nodded and, after peering at his badge and appearing satisfied, stepped aside, allowing him entrance to the trailer. It smelled like rancid grease and soiled laundry, and Zach resisted the grimace that threatened. Sometimes the living smelled worse than the dead…
“Have a seat,” Ida said, pointing to a flowered couch. She lowered herself to a deep blue recliner, the furniture item expressing its disapproval in the form of the deep screechy squeak he’d heard from the other side of the door. “What’s a detective from Ohio doing here in Tennessee?”
“I’m in the area temporarily. Our department has been trying to reach you.”
She pointed to a beige wall phone. Zach couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one of those. “Broken,” she said. Apparently they were in no rush to fix it. Or step into the era of wireless communication.
“I see. I have some questions about your daughter, ma’am. Her name came up during the course of an investigation.”
“Figured someone would be around at some point.”
He frowned. “Why’s that?”
“Ain’t seen hide nor hair a her for four years.”
Zach paused in surprise. “Ah, I must have missed the missing person report—”
“Oh, we didn’t list her missing. Girl went off a her own accord.”
“Will you tell me about that, ma’am? Last address we have for Deanna is this trailer.”
“Yeah, she moved in with us a’right. Deanna had gotten mixed up with drugs when she was only twelve, thirteen.
Did better for a while, even made it to college.
But she got mixed up with all that again in Cincinnati, dropped out of school, moved back in with us.
We told her, you mess up, you’re out. I might be poor and fat, Detective.
Might not be that educated neither. Stan has dirt under his fingernails.
I know what people see when they look at us.
But we live an honest life. And we don’t tolerate no drugs in our home. ”
Huh. Well, he could respect that. “Did Deanna ever mention a professor who she may have been involved with? There’s a police report that shows she made some trouble at his home. His wife believes they were having an affair.”
Ida Breene shrugged. “Who knows? Probably. Deanna made real bad choices, especially when she was on the drugs.”
“So she dropped out, moved back here, and got clean for a while?”
“For a while. Then she started using again, bringing losers around, would leave for days at a time then come back here to eat and sleep. I ain’t running no motel, Detective. Finally, she disappeared for good. A person can only take being let down so many times. We wiped our hands clean.”
Unease settled in Zach’s stomach. “Are you sure she disappeared of her own accord? What if something bad happened to her?”
“Might have,” Deanna’s mother said. “But it was bound to. Just a matter of time. Whatever happened to Deanna, there was nothing we could do about it.”