J. Margos - Shattered Image

Dody didn’t appear terribly grief stricken, but considering that his wife had allegedly left him for someone else over sixteen years ago, grief isn’t what I would have expected. He had completely let himself go and he had abdicated the care of his children to his mother-in-law, but there was a kind of pathetic aspect to him, and I felt sorry for him in a way. I was surprised he showed up. He had the shakes and he was sweating. He didn’t look well, but then, a lot of alcoholics don’t look well, especially when they’re sober. It looked as though Dody Waldrep had sobered up for this. He started to sit with his daughters, but one look from his mother-in-law said it all, and he sat down in the row behind them.

I watched him throughout the service. He didn’t weep, but he looked upset. Mostly he just looked terribly depressed and beaten. I think for Dody it had been another reliving of an old shame. I wondered if a man who looked that lost could have committed such a crime. It was hard to tell just by watching him there. One thing I had learned for sure in all my years was not to jump to any conclusions until all the facts were in, or at least more facts than we currently had in this case.

Dody didn’t attend the graveside services. In fact, he disappeared in the crowd right after the funeral. At the cemetery, I noticed a woman weeping softly, and then talking for some time with Addie’s mother. I leaned over toward my son.

“Who’s the woman in navy talking to Addie’s mother?”

“That is Gloria Hughes, Doug Hughes’s mother.” He raised his eyebrows.

I returned the raised eyebrows with, “Really.”

Mike nodded. “She says she’s heard nothing from Doug in all these years. The brother, Vernon, confirms that.”

“That’s what Jimmy says also. What do you think?”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t know, Mom. I guess I believe Vernon and Mrs. Hughes, but Jimmy is odd. I’m not sure what’s up with him.’’

I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t decide if he had problems from the war or if it was something else.

“Mrs. Hughes got real upset and asked us what we thought the chances were that Doug might still be alive.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“The truth. That I don’t have any idea. That I have no evidence that Addie’s murder is connected to Doug and that I don’t know any more about it than that.”

The truth was, the thought that Doug might also be dead had occurred to us all. The alternative to that was that Doug had killed Addie. There was some outside chance that he and Addie had split up and that Addie’s fate had been completely unknown to him. If that were true, though, we all felt that Doug would have contacted his mother years ago. The fact that no one had ever heard from him again led us all to believe that he had either been killed with Addie, or had done the killing. I personally considered the former to be a better bet.

“Did you question Dody Waldrep yet?”

“Oh yeah,” Mike responded.

“So, what was your impression?”

“I don’t like him,” Tommy replied.

“That’s succinct,” I said.

“Aside from smelling really bad and being a total drunk, he’s also not particularly forthcoming with information,” Mike commented.

“Details, please,” I said.

“Every time we asked him about his wife and her alleged affair with Doug, he became hostile and then clammed up,” Tommy said.

“Yeah,” Mike added. “He started on this diatribe about how all that was in the past. She had left him for another man. She was gone and he didn’t care-like that. Then nothing more. We could try to sweat him out, but this guy is such a drunk, I don’t know whether he’s even coherent enough for this crime-and he’s not real bright either.”

“Unfortunately, this crime didn’t require a lot of brain cells,” Tommy said, “so that in and of itself won’t eliminate him from the suspect list.” Tommy continued, “He’s had a bunch of jobs in the last fourteen years since he moved to Manor from Viola. He’s borderline in the job he has now, which he’s only had for a month. He criticizes everybody and everything. He’s basically not a very pleasant or happy fellow.”

“His mother-in-law doesn’t like him, that’s for sure,” Mike commented.

“That’s not a reason to suspect a man,” I said.

“We know that, Mom, but the guy is a lush, he’s evasive and I get bad vibes from him.”

“And everybody is on our list of suspects right now,” Tommy added.

“Did he ever beat his wife?” I asked.

“We thought of that, Mom, and we asked around. The answer, even from his mother-in-law, was no.”

“That’s right. He was a real jerk to her, but no physical abuse.”

“Sounds like you two have your work cut out for you,” I said.

“Story of our lives,” Tommy said, smiling.

“So, what’s next, guys?”

“The standard stuff. I’d like to locate Doug Hughes, one way or the other,” Tommy said. “Do a little more legwork on Dody Waldrep and Jimmy Hughes. Collect some more facts about the very unusual Lori Webster, and then see what shakes out of all that.”

“Which reminds me, tell me about Lori Webster.”

Gloria Hughes insisted that the rumors about Doug and Addie were just that. Yet the rumors persisted because of the attention Doug had paid to Addie and the fact he had been seen at the Waldrep home many times when Dody was not there. Vernon said that Doug had felt sorry for Addie because her husband was “a real heel.” Still, it did seem odd that Doug would spend so much time maintaining a friendship with a married woman.

Mike and Tommy had followed up and gone to Georgetown, to talk with Lori. Lori had left town and moved about thirty miles away to Georgetown after Doug disappeared. In Mike and Tommy’s book, Lori’s move right after Doug’s disappearance was unusual. That seemed to them like the actions of a guilty person. Mrs. Hughes told them that Lori had been “distraught” over Doug’s disappearance and all the rumors about he and Addie, and that was why she left, but the boys didn’t like it.

Lori had never married, and she had a job in a local department store in Georgetown, working as a customer service and credit clerk. Tommy and Mike had located her place of work in Georgetown from Gloria Hughes. Lori’s family members still lived in Rock Hill and Viola, but had not seen Lori since she left sixteen years ago. She had not been back to visit any of them-another strange fact.

When they arrived at the store, Mike and Tommy had been shown back to the customer service office where Lori worked.

“They set us up in this little back room there,” Tommy said, “and she came in and sat down with us.”

“She was nervous and kneaded her hands and looked down at her feet a lot,” Mike said.

“I broke the news to her, about finding Addie’s remains in Austin. She was stunned, man, almost catatonic, never looked directly at either me or Mike.”

“Yeah, then she burst into tears, which escalated into sobs. It was a strange reaction.”

“When she collected herself a little, she says to me, ‘Doug was found with her?’”

My eyes widened at Tommy, and he nodded his head.

“I know, I thought it was a strange way to word it, too. So I say, ‘No, ma’am, we have not found Doug Hughes.’”

“Yeah, so she’s sniffling and wiping her nose and her eyes, but she’s focused on the wall to the right of her. Real weird.”

Mike said that they proceeded to ask the woman all about her relationship with Doug. The rumors about he and Addie disturbed her, but she was sure that they were just rumors, and that his only interest in Addie was as a friend, just as his mother had said. Lori said when he disappeared, she was humiliated, hurt and unable to bear the gossip another moment, so she packed up and moved to Georgetown.