A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,68
as he stepped out of the Jeep. The old cuss had to have spotted them by now. The dog chained out back was barking up a riot.
Con waited for the cameras—he was getting pretty good at this—and climbed the wooden steps. There were at least ten of them. Old Joe’s house was always the highest for miles around.
Lizzie waited at the bottom.
He rapped on the door, right where “Private Property: Don’t Get Shot!” was painted in neat white letters.
He hauled in a breath as he heard someone fumbling with a chain on the other side.
“What?” snarled a throaty voice. The door swung open. Jesus, he hadn’t changed at all. Hair still speckled gray and slicked right back with pomade.
“Hello, Sir. I don’t know if you remember me. My name’s Conroy Beale, I used to live just up the road.”
“Conroy Beale.” The rheumy hazel eyes narrowed. “The same Conroy Beale that let my dog loose and stole oranges from my tree?”
Con ran a hand through his hair. “Um, yes. And I’d like to formally apologize for that unlawful act.”
The dog barked on.
The old man didn’t say anything. His eyes narrowed further. Con almost wished Maisie would come on up and take charge. He had a feeling Maisie and old Joe were cut from the same cloth.
“I’m back in the area for the first time in years, and I wonder if you know what became of the people who used to live…in my old house.”
“You don’t know what became of your own family?” One gray eyebrow lifted. Con felt his disapproval like a smack.
He straightened his back. “No. I’m not proud of it, but I’m afraid I don’t.”
Joe Gaudry studied him for a moment. Looked down at his respectable shirt and pants. “Well, I admit I felt pretty sorry for you and your brother, even if you were both a pair of…” He licked his lips. “But never mind that. You do know your daddy died?”
“Did he?” Relief snuck through him, guilt hot on its heels.
“Yes. More than ten years back.”
“Can’t be. I left ten years back and he was still alive then.”
“Must have died right around the time you left. Hit by a car. Drunk as a lord at the time, of course.” He fixed Con with a hard stare. Con flinched. “The other boy, your brother, got sent off somewhere. The boys’ home I expect. Don’t think there were any other relatives. No one’s lived there since. Place fell down, then what was left of it got swept away in one storm or another. Improvement if you ask me. Not that I ever had nothin’ bad to say about your mother.” Con stiffened. “She was a good woman, minded her own business.”
Yeah, that’s what killed her.
Con took a deep breath. “Did Danny ever come back? My brother? I need to find him.”
“Why, you win the lotto?” Joe glanced down at the camera.
“No, nothing like that. Do you know of anyone who might know where he is?”
“Nope.”
The dog kept up its barrage of noisy barking, and Con’s nerves crackled to get going. “Can I give you my cell phone number in case you hear anything?”
“Don’t have a phone. Got no need of one.”
The radio launched into a lively dance number.
“Thank you for your time, sir.”
The old man gave a single nod, stared at him for a withering second, then closed the door.
Con’s blood pounded in his ears as he descended the stairs.
“Didn’t get much of that. Damn dog,” said Dino, as Con reached the ground. The dog still hadn’t let up.
“He didn’t say much. My dad’s dead, my brother got sent away.”
“Where to?” asked Maisie.
“Orphanage, he thinks.” His rib cage felt tight, squeezing on his lungs and making it hard to breathe.
Maisie nodded, her pale eyes fixed on his face and her thoughts obviously whirring behind them. “Let’s go back to the house and make some phone calls.”
“Then you suck the head.”
Lizzie grimaced as Con tipped the crawdad’s head into his mouth and slurped. “That’s the butter.”
“You mean the brains.”
Con shrugged. “Go on, try it.”
With the camera on her and the entire crew gathered around the big wrought-iron table on the moonlit patio, Lizzie didn’t feel like she had a choice.
She picked up a boiled red crawdad from the heaped plate, suppressing a shudder of revulsion. It was so…big. Why couldn’t they be like tiny shrimp or something? Or big like a lobster so you didn’t have to lift it? She snapped it, put the head down on her plate and