this will die down in a little bit.” She looked at him, her eyes wide as she waited for him to say . . . something.
He frowned. Was she trying to get away from him? Did she want to sit in her cold truck instead of with him? “Why would you want to freeze out here, when you can be warm inside?”
“I just hate to keep showing up and forcing you to spend time with me.”
Forcing him? He was bigger than she was. Stronger. She couldn’t force him to do anything. He could crush her if he wanted to. He didn’t, but he could. His brow scrunched up. He didn’t understand when she said things that didn’t really say anything at all. He wasn’t sure what to say back. “If I wanted you to leave, I’d tell you to go.”
She let out a breath that was taken by the sound of the wind outside. “I was trying to be polite.” She shook her head and made a helpless sound. “I guess that in itself is a whole language, isn’t it?” She took a breath. “A dumb one most of the time.”
Jak thought about that. “So being polite is saying something you don’t mean so the other person has to say the thing you do mean.”
She laughed, the soft one he liked. “Pretty much.” She turned toward him. “So, then. Jak, I’d like to come inside and get warm instead of sitting alone in my cold truck. Is that okay with you?”
“I told you it was.”
Harper laughed. “Right. You did. Thank you. Then let’s get back inside.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Mrs. Cranley?”
“Yes. Who’s speaking?” The woman on the other end of the line had an unusually deep voice that rattled slightly. A smoker, Mark guessed.
“Hi, ma’am. This is Agent Mark Gallagher. I’m with the Montana Department of Justice.”
There was a brief pause and some rustling, and then Mrs. Cranley said, “What is this about?”
“Ma’am, I’m very sorry to inform you that your brother was found deceased.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Isaac?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did he leave something for me in his will?”
Well, that was abrupt. Mark was taken off guard for a moment. “Actually, ma’am, it appears Isaac didn’t have a will. But you’re listed on several documents as his next of kin.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Mark heard some more rustling and then Mrs. Cranley’s muffled voice yelling to someone in the background, “Lester, Isaac died and didn’t leave a will. I’m his next of kin.”
“When was the last time you spoke to Isaac, Mrs. Cranley?”
“You can call me Georgette. And, eh . . . maybe twelve years ago at our daddy’s funeral. Me and Isaac didn’t get on real well. Guess that doesn’t matter now. He was a creep, truth be told.”
Mark cleared his throat. Apparently, this woman had no problem speaking ill of the dead. Made his job easier anyway. “How do you mean, ma’am? Georgette?”
Mark heard a deep inhale as if the woman had just lit a cigarette. “He just was. He was always watching everyone with this weird look on his face. Gave me the chills, and he was my own brother. It got worse as he got older. I was happy when me and Lester moved to Portland, and I had no reason to see him anymore.”
“I see.”
“’Course I figured it out when I went over to his place in Missoula, oh . . . I guess it’d have been going on eighteen or nineteen years now and there was an old lady neighbor at his place with her grandson I guess. Kid was just a toddler, so it’d have to be. Isaac kept staring at him with this look on his face.” She made a sound that gave Mark the idea she’d just done an exaggerated shiver. “Well, that’s when I said, ah, bingo. Isaac’s a pervert. It all made sense.”
Mark felt suddenly sick. He cleared his throat. “But you never saw any evidence of him abusing children?”
“Nah. Just that look. But women know things, ya know? Intuition.” He heard her suck in another inhale of her cigarette.
“And this was in Missoula, you said?” Mark pulled Isaac Driscoll’s file closer and noted that his last known address had been in Missoula—probably an apartment building. He’d been in unit A.
“Yup. I don’t have the address anymore, but that’s the last place I seen him.”
“From what I understand, your brother did volunteer work for several social services agencies in the area.”