Chapter 2 #2
“They already have,” Nan said. “Yesterday. I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I had any money, and I don’t get paid for another few days.”
Wilden nodded. “Don’t worry. I will call them and will make arrangements.” She looked at him with relief. He smiled and added, “Guess I came home at the right time.”
She winced. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, don’t do that,” he told her. “Let’s deal with the problems we have, and we’ll see what we have at the end of the day.”
She sat back with a sigh, looked down at her empty plate from breakfast, and muttered, “This is the first full meal I’ve had in weeks, if not months.”
He stared at her and asked, “Did Dad really spend all your money?”
She nodded. “Yes, and it was never enough. … It was never enough.”
“Right, so off to the bank and to the vet’s and—”
“And?”
“And I’ll have a busy day. I don’t know when I’ll be back, and I have no idea how to get in touch with you—”
“I still have a phone,” she interjected, practically beaming.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, pointing, as he looked over at the ancient landline phone, still attached to the wall.
He smiled. “That will work for now. So, until we get stuff fixed up, you can call me. I’ll do my best to get back to you. Just know that I’m nearby but all over the place, trying to deal with things, okay?”
She smiled and nodded. “Okay.”
He smiled as he got up, leaned over, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I’ll be back in a little bit.” Sarge, eager to head out with him, ran ahead and waited for him at the front door.
Once outside, Sarge got into Nan’s old sedan, taking what he considered to be his rightful place on the front passenger seat.
Wilden shook his head as he climbed into the driver’s seat and headed back over to Jackson’s home.
As Wilden got closer, he checked to see if anybody was around but didn’t see anything or anyone. Jackson’s place was at the end of a road, and not much traffic appeared to be going either way. He wanted to talk to the neighbors, but it was hard to imagine any were around here.
By the time he got to Jackson’s home, he hadn’t seen anybody, not on the road nor in the yards. Frowning at that, he got out once again and headed inside. As he walked around, he looked for paperwork, hoping to see if anything would say where Jackson might be and what was going on.
When somebody called from the doorway, he walked to the front door and found another old man standing there, glaring at him. “Hey,” Wilden greeted him.
“Hey yourself,” he snapped. “What are you doing in Jackson’s house?”
“Looking for information as to where he’s gone,” Wilden replied comfortably. “Do you know where he is?”
The old man frowned at him and then shrugged. “No, he’s supposed to be home.”
“Yeah, he’s supposed to be, but he’s not. And the police came to do a welfare check. As far as I know, they didn’t find anything.”
The old man snorted. “They wouldn’t care though, would they?”
“No, probably not. Yet I am here because I have Sarge, and we’re both trying to find Jackson.” At the mention of his name, Sarge woofed at his feet.
The old man stared at the War Dog. “Jackson wouldn’t have gone nowhere without Sarge.”
“That was my take on it too. That’s why I’m worried. I came here to see if I could find out where he may have gone. You sure you haven’t seen him in the last three days? You don’t know where he would have gone? Nothing?”
“No, I don’t know,” he said bitterly. “I came over here to talk to him because I hadn’t seen him recently. Plus, I saw you going through his house.” His gaze turned suspicious again.
“Yeah, and I’ll keep going through his house until I can figure out where the hell Jackson went because, if he’s hurt, I need to know where he is. If he’s on medication, did he take it with him? And where would he have gone without the dog?”
The old man snorted. “Some things I can tell you. For one, he wouldn’t have gone nowhere without the dog,” he confirmed. “And don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. That dog meant everything to him.”
Wilden nodded. “That was my understanding too. But, as you can see, the dog is still here, and no Jackson is around. Did he have family?”
The old guy shook his head. “Not that I know of. And it wouldn’t have mattered at all. Come hell or high water, he still would have taken the dog.”
Wilden agreed. Yet he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do if he found absolutely no sign of the man.
The old guy added, “Without proof, the cops won’t do anything.”
“They will if I can find a reason or if I have some proof of something gone wrong. At the moment, they aren’t very helpful at all.”
“Yeah, that pretty well sums it up. They aren’t very helpful,” the old guy repeated, his face flushed.
Wilden wasn’t sure what to say to that because he had no leads. “When did you last see him?” he asked.
He shrugged. “As I mentioned, a few days ago.”
“And how was that meeting?”
“It wasn’t a meeting, but, for what it was, it was fine.”
“I mean, was he acting normal?”
He stared at him and shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Okay, but that’s not a definitive yes. What does yeah mean?”
“Yeah, because nobody has seen him.”
“Apparently you may have been the one to see him last.”
The old man frowned at him. “That’s good.”
“No, it’s not good. So, maybe you could tell me a little bit more.”
He shrugged. “I saw him outside. He was talking to somebody, and I waved at him. Then I went inside, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Do you know who he was talking to?”
“Nope. Sure don’t. Not my business either.”
“No, it might not be your business,” Wilden conceded, “but it could be the last thing that anybody saw.”
He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t like it when you say that.”
“I don’t like it either,” Wilden stated, “but, until I can find Jackson, we can’t be sure what happened. You need to tell me whatever you can.”
“The other guy had an old beat-up truck.” He hesitated, shifting on his feet.
“I was thinking about it back then, and I hadn’t seen a truck like that in a long time.
But, other than that,” he stated, his tone clipped, “I don’t know nothing.
” He turned, started to walk away, then he stopped and looked back, as if struggling to say something.
Wilden nodded. “Just say it. There’s no right or wrong here.”
“He wouldn’t have gone nowhere without that dog.”
“So, then the question is, how did somebody take him away, without the dog?”
“Yeah,” the old guy snapped, “answer that, and you probably can find the bad guys because no way anybody could have made Jackson leave Sarge behind. No way Jackson would have stood for it. If that happened,” he added, glancing at Sarge, “then something happened to Jackson, and it won’t be good.”
“Do you know if he had any enemies?”
“No, I don’t know that he had any enemies,” he replied, “but this town ain’t what it used to be.”
Wilden hesitated before asking, “Did he have any friends, family, anybody he would have gone to if he got into trouble?”
He shrugged, his face scrunched up. “Not that I know of, but obviously I don’t know him all that well,” he stated stiffly, as he stared around. “I mean, I thought I knew him, but I didn’t know anything was wrong.”
“So? What does that mean to you?”
He shrugged. “I guess I didn’t really know him all that well.”
It was an odd thing to say, yet almost like trying to let himself off the hook. “If you hear or see anything, let me know, please,” Wilden said, as he handed out his phone number to the old guy. “May I ask your name?”
“Bill Paige,” he replied, taking Wilden’s card. He frowned at it, then looked at him. “You don’t think he’s dead, do you?”
Wilden winced. “I prefer to think not,” he noted, “but I have no way of knowing. I mean, if he’s got dementia, would he have walked away from the house?”
“Not without the dog,” Bill repeated. “It doesn’t matter whether his mind was there or not. That dog and him were inseparable.”
“Then something happened to separate him from his dog,” Wilden stated. “And that, of course, is a concern.”
“Yeah, it is.” With one final look at Sarge, Bill shook his head and walked away.
Wilden asked again, “And you’re sure you don’t know anybody who would have had something against him?”
“I don’t know anybody who would have anything against Jackson,” he confirmed. “Yet, as I already told you, the town’s not quite the same anymore.” Bill frowned at him and added, “And you haven’t been here for a long time, have you, Hookman?”
Wilden froze and looked at him.
Bill nodded. “I remember you. I used to teach school here, but you had some other teacher. Still, I’ll always remember a Hookman.
I don’t know why you’re back, but I’ve got to tell you.
It’s a damn-good thing that no-good father of yours is dead.
He raised unholy hell around this town, and absolutely nobody is unhappy that he’s gone. ”
And, with that, he turned and walked away.
Vivian grabbed a cup of coffee from the break room and headed back to her office. She had about fifteen minutes to eat before she had new patients coming in. Hopefully the afternoon would go a little easier than the morning.
She had been hard-pressed to even have five minutes to herself on the busy days. It seemed as if, every time she thought that maybe she should reconsider her business, things got crazier, and she was worked off her feet. After she’d already lost her business partner, that made a big difference too.
She wondered if it was worth trying to get another partner, so she could ease up on the workload. Things would get even crazier if even more clients were coming in. She closed her eyes, just letting the waves of stress fall off her back, giving herself a little bit of a breather.
When the phone rang, she groaned but answered it, finding Wilden on the other end. She brightened and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Technically it’s my five-minute break,” she explained, “so good timing.”