Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,59
he realized that she was at least twenty years younger.
“I’m Cruz Montoya,” he said. “I understand you wanted to talk with me.”
They ushered him into their home. The rooms were small with dark paneling on the walls. The air conditioner was noisy, running on high. Frank sat in a big chair and Debi perched on the arm of the chair. Cruz sat on the sofa opposite them.
“We’re not sure we want to get involved,” Debi said. “But we’ve prayed and prayed and believe it’s the right thing to do.”
“You have information about Troy Blakely?”
She nodded. “We moved into the area seven years ago, after we got married. Second marriages for both of us,” she added. “When Gloria Blakely learned that, she opened up to me since she was on her second marriage, too.”
Debi stood up and started to pace around the room. “She was a real nice person. And she really loved Ted. But there was a sadness about her. One day, about three years ago, I saw a strange car over there. And I could hear some yelling but couldn’t make out what they were saying. After the car left, I went over and she was crying something awful. She said that her son had been to see her.”
Debi stopped in front of an old table, moved the lamp back a few inches, and straightened the shade. “I was surprised,” she said, her back to Cruz. “I’d never heard her mention a son before. She wouldn’t say much more but I got the impression that it had been some time since she’d seen the boy.”
She turned and looked at Cruz. “I got her settled down and thought that was the end of it. Then that night, I heard a terrible ruckus in the middle of the night. I got up, looked out and saw somebody with a baseball bat breaking all the windows in the Blakely house.”
She sat back down on the arm of her husband’s chair and he put his hand on her knee. “It was him,” she said. “It was the son. I saw him. I called the police.”
“Did they arrest him?” Cruz asked.
“He was gone before they got here,” she said. “When they questioned me, I told them that I’d heard the noise. I didn’t tell them what I saw.”
“Why not?” Cruz asked.
Frank Moulin sat forward in his chair. “Because I told her not to. My wife saw the man drive away. But she saw something else, too. Gloria Blakely was standing in the front door. She knew who had done the damage. But if she wasn’t going to tell the police then I didn’t think we should stick our noses into it and tell them anything, either. It was a family matter.”
“Did either of the Blakelys ever talk about it again?”
“No, and we didn’t bring it up,” Debi said. “But then Janice across the street said that you’d been here asking about them. I miss them. They were good neighbors. And I just thought it was time that somebody knew the truth.”
Cruz pulled out the picture of Troy Blakely. “Was this the man that you saw?”
Debi studied the picture. A minute passed. Finally she looked up. “Well, his hair was different, but I got a real good look at his face both times and I’m sure it is the same man.”
“One of your neighbors said that they thought the Blakelys might have lost a child, a little girl. Do you know anything about that?”
Debi shook her head. Frank stood up. “We’ve told you everything we know. Maybe something happened in Maiter. Ted Blakely told me once that Gloria had come from there.”
Maiter. Meg and Gloria Blakely had both lived there.
He left the Moulins and headed south. He thought about calling Myers but decided to wait until he knew something more concrete.
Maiter, Texas, wasn’t postcard-perfect but it had the makings of a nice community. There was a main street, with mostly full storefronts. A couple restaurants, a laundry, an attorney, chiropractor and two gas stations where gas was forty cents higher a gallon than in San Antonio.
He started in one of the restaurants. It had maroon carpet, green and maroon chairs, and noisy air-conditioning that didn’t seem to be working all that well. The menu was plastic, two-sided, and had at least fifty things on it, everything from spaghetti to shrimp dinners to burritos.
He ordered a hamburger and a cup of coffee and got busy checking out the possibilities. There was a table of gray-hairs, ladies