Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,60

in their late seventies to early eighties. They were in a corner and there was one empty chair. He wondered if it had recently just become available; they were at the age where funeral attendance became a regular event.

He figured at least a couple of them had lived in Maiter for their whole lives. When his burger arrived, he ate quickly. Then he took a final sip of coffee, threw a bill on the table to cover lunch and approached the women.

“Ladies, could I have a minute of your time?”

They sized him up. Several smiled.

“Yes,” said the woman at the end. She wore a pink button-down shirt with white slacks. She had white hair and not-very-white teeth.

“I’m trying to find an old friend. She lived here almost twenty years ago. Her name was Margaret Gunderson.”

Two of the women at the far end of the table exchanged glances. One, who had a butterfly tattoo on her upper arm, narrowed her eyes but she didn’t say anything.

Pink Shirt shook her head. “I don’t recall anyone by that name.”

The tattooed woman leaned forward. “Yes, you do, Angie. That was the girl who got in trouble at the Percy house.”

Others at the table nodded. “That’s right,” one said. “Such a sad situation.”

Trouble. Sad situation. What the hell?

He forced himself to appear relaxed. “I’m not sure I ever heard that story,” he said. “If it would help me find Margaret, I’d really appreciate hearing it.”

Now all eyes were on Tattoo Lady. She was evidently the team storyteller.

“Well, as I recall, it was the spring of ’95 or maybe even ’96. The Gundersons and the Percys were next-door neighbors, real good people. I think the husbands both worked over at the tire plant.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, that’s right, because the trouble continued over there.”

Cruz was lost and he wanted the details straight in his head. “What trouble?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said. “Margaret regularly babysat for the Percy children. She was a nice girl, very responsible.”

Now that made sense.

“The baby was almost two. Real sweet and so pretty.”

He nodded, hoping that she’d get to something soon that would help him.

Tattoo Lady took a sip of coffee. “Margaret made a mistake. That’s all there is to it. A terrible mistake.”

“What happened?” he asked, getting to the end of his patience.

“Why, she killed the baby.”

Chapter Eighteen

Cruz felt the blood drain from his head. She had to be mistaken or he had to have heard it wrong. But none of the other women at the table looked shocked. They were nodding, a couple had a distant look in their eyes that suggested they were reflecting back.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“Poor baby choked. People said Margaret got careless and left a bag of marshmallows on the table. Baby stuffed a whole bunch into her mouth and couldn’t get any air. Margaret came back into the room but the poor baby was already turning blue.”

Cruz had been accused by more than one perp that he didn’t have a heart but at that moment he knew it wasn’t true because he felt it crack in his chest. Poor Meg.

Now Pink Shirt leaned forward. “As I recall, the older boy told the police everything that had happened. Of course, he was just a child himself, can’t imagine how that must have affected him.”

“Were the police involved?” Cruz asked. Had Meg gone to prison?

“As I recall, there was some sort of an investigation,” Pink Shirt said. “But there were no charges filed. She made a mistake. It was as simple as that.”

The death of a child was never simple. Meg had carried a heavy burden. And carried it alone.

“You said something about the trouble carrying over to the tire plant?” Cruz asked.

“Mr. Percy was friends with Mr. Gunderson’s supervisor. It was just months before Mr. Gunderson found himself in the street. They lost their house shortly afterward. They left town and never came back. I don’t know where they ended up.”

No one spoke up. Suddenly a small woman sitting in the middle sat forward in her chair. “I’m the only one at this table who has lost a child. I can tell you, it’s no wonder that the Percys didn’t stay together after that. Heartache changes things.”

How had it changed Meg? And why had she never told him? He could feel the hamburger in his gut churning.

Pink Shirt wiped her eyes. “I thought Gloria Percy was a lovely woman. I didn’t know her husband as well. I heard that she