Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,45
next to an award for Missouri All-State Football 2001. The floor was covered in clothes, mostly mesh shorts and t-shirts, and a mixture of mentholated foot powder and funk made Theo stand in the doorway, swinging the door back and forth to clear the air.
The lucky part was that Wayne had piled all his important documents in one place: on top of his dresser and underneath a plate that looked like it had held a grilled cheese sandwich at some point. Even his Social Security card was in the mix, which Theo learned when he picked up the pile and the card slid out. He also suspected that he could do anything he wanted with the papers except organize them, and Wayne would never know. The foot funk and mentholated smell made it hard to focus, so Theo carried the pages out to the living room and left them on the couch.
He went back to the room to do a few more sweeps. On the first pass, he examined the clothes—those on the floor and those in the closet and dresser—for any sign of blood. Cart had said Cal had died from a blow to the head, but he hadn’t said anything about defensive wounds or other injuries. Without that knowledge, Theo didn’t know how likely it was that the killer might have some sort of biological material on his or her clothes, but he didn’t want to miss the chance to inspect Wayne’s garments. He considered setting aside all the clothes that had dirt and grass stains, with the theory that the killer might have soiled his clothes in the tall prairie grass at the truck stop. But so many of Wayne’s clothes had grass and dirt stains that Theo eventually gave up—and, when he thought about it, a guy who trained kids out on fields all day was bound to have those kinds of stains.
On the second pass, Theo did his standard search for contraband. His youngest brother, Luke, had been a master at hiding things—usually drugs—and Theo had learned most of the tricks from raiding Luke’s bedroom. Theo went slowly: furniture, baseboards, the hollow-core door, outlets, light switches, even the light fixture on the ceiling. He found nothing. If Wayne was into drugs or anything else illicit, he was doing a better job hiding it than Cal. Or, Theo thought, he had simply transferred it into Cal’s room after Cal had died.
“Find anything?” Auggie asked from the doorway.
Theo shook his head. “Just papers.”
“Me too.” Auggie held up a sheaf of pages. “Oh, and a few rails of cocaine, but don’t get excited because I already did them.”
“Funny.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it because you’ve got all the jokes today. Come on, let’s take a look at this stuff. We can have some beers and relax.”
Theo crossed his arms.
“Kidding,” Auggie said with that huge, goofy smile, the one that had nothing to do with Instagram or Facebook or whatever he was spending his time on.
“So funny.”
They sat on the couch and pored over the paperwork. By some miracle, Auggie actually seemed to focus, which was a good thing because Theo struggled to make sense of the documents. He was very good at reading things closely—that was his job, after all—but numbers were difficult. He did all right with something straightforward, but all the credits and debits and dates swam together on the page.
“Interesting, right?” Auggie said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Let’s hear what you’re seeing.”
“No, you first.”
“Um, they’re making a lot of money.”
“Really? Let me see. No, that’s from last October. Theo—wait, why are these out of order?”
Outside, someone was calling sooie, sooie, and then bursting into guffaws.
“Ok,” Theo said, “so Ian always balanced the checkbook.”
“Oh my God.”
“Go ahead, you can laugh. I just—it doesn’t make sense sometimes.”
But Auggie didn’t laugh. He was very still, his eyes not even focused on Theo. Then his gaze shifted. “When was the last time you had a good idea of how much money you had, what’s coming in, where it’s going, that kind of thing?”
Theo’s face was on fire. He stared at the carpet.
“Never mind,” Auggie said. “Sorry, it’s not any of my business. I can’t even believe I said that.”
“No, it’s—I mean, Ian died over a year ago.”
Another of those long silences. The man was still calling sooie, and now a truck was beeping as it backed up.
“Doesn’t that stress you out?” Auggie said.
“God, you have no idea.”
“Can I—” Auggie smoothed the pages on his lap. “Would you let me help?”