steps were dragging as he locked up the building and headed to the parking lot. It was almost supper time, but he was going home to take a nap. He’d always taken a nap after school when he was little and he did the same thing now because routines and schedules were how Louis Parsons rolled.
The house he and Reece rented was on the far side of the park in the old part of Mystic. The houses weren’t shacks, but they were a little run-down, most of them in need of a coat or two of paint or minor repairs. Louis had fixed the front steps when they’d moved in, and painted the porch so the outside looked neat. The interior was a work in progress. He liked to stay busy during the day, even on weekends, but that meant quiet projects because Reece slept days.
He unlocked the door and entered quietly, wrinkling his nose at the doggy smell of the house as he headed for the kitchen with his to-go coffee mug. He rinsed it out to refill tomorrow, wrote a note to Reece telling him what food was available in the refrigerator for his nighttime meals and headed down the hall to his room.
He took off his work clothes without looking at his body, and slipped between the sheets and closed his eyes. Silence engulfed him as he fell asleep.
Trey finished writing up the report, and then printed it out and filed it. It was almost noon before he got the schedules rearranged and his officers back on duty. And he still hadn’t checked in with Dallas. He went back into his office and shut the door, then dropped into his chair and made the call.
* * *
Betsy was still sleeping when Dallas’s cell phone signaled a call. She’d put it on vibrate so it wouldn’t disturb Betsy and was relieved to see that it was Trey.
“Hi, honey,” she said, careful to keep her voice low.
“Hello, sweetheart. How are things going? Was Mom all right?”
Dallas looked over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone.
“I thought so at first. She was making bread when I got here, but she looked so tired...almost old. I’ve never thought of your mother as old before. We went into the living room to sit down. She leaned back and closed her eyes, then for no obvious reason jumped up so fast she knocked her coffee off the table. The mug broke and coffee went everywhere. I went to get something to clean it up, and she started screaming. I ran back and found her on her knees in the middle of the spilled coffee. It was the most frightening sound I’ve ever heard.”
Trey’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh, my God, did she fall?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Dallas said. “But she acted like she didn’t know where she was. I tried to get her up to go change her clothes, and she kept looking down at the floor telling me she couldn’t leave yet because she’d just thrown up in the floorboard of the car and she had to clean it up.”
The hair stood up on the back of his neck.
“The floorboard of a car? She said she threw up in the floorboard of a car?”
“Yes. It makes no sense,” Dallas said. “I was afraid she’d had some kind of seizure, because she went right to sleep after I got her cleaned up.”
Trey frowned. “I’m coming out. Don’t leave, I’ll be there soon.”
“Oh, I’m not leaving. I have to bake the bread dough she has rising. Have you talked to Trina?”
“Not yet. As for Mom, don’t tell her I’m coming,” Trey said.
Dallas felt sick. Would this turmoil never end?
* * *
Trina Jakes was taking inventory on the number of radiator hoses they had in stock and comparing it to the computer readout of stock on hand to make sure the numbers matched.
Freddie Miller, her boss at Miller Auto Parts, was beginning to suspect someone was selling inventory at a cut rate to certain customers and pocketing the money because he kept coming up short on parts when the computer said they were still in stock.
There were only three other employees besides her who could be doing it: Tony, Elton or George, and she had to guess that since she was the bookkeeper and never waited on customers, Freddie didn’t suspect her. That and the fact that he’d asked her not to mention what she was doing made his suspicions fairly obvious.
She was down on her knees in the aisle when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up.
“Hey, Red, what are you doing?”
She frowned. Not only did she not like that Elton called her Red, but she’d just been confronted, something she’d hoped wouldn’t happen. She had to come up with an explanation fast.
“Oh, I’m checking some stock numbers against an invoice I got the other day. They don’t match, and I can’t cut a check to pay until I know for sure we got the right merchandise.”
“I can help,” Elton offered.
“Thanks, but I already have the numbers I’m looking for in my head, and it would take longer for me to make you a list than for me to just do it.”
“Whatever,” he said. He grinned, and then gave a lock of her hair a little tug. “So when are you gonna dump that Daniels dude and let a real man show you a good time?”
Trina stood up. It was a defensive move she’d used on the men before because she was taller than all three of them.
“I already have a real man, and quit calling me Red,” she drawled. She then strolled up the aisle and back into her office.
The phone was ringing as she walked in the door, and she hurried to answer.
“Miller Auto Parts. This is Trina.”
“Hey, sis, it’s me.”
Trina had already heard about Paul Jackson’s death, so she guessed why he was calling.
“Hi, Trey. Sorry about Mr. Jackson. You guys caught a bad one this morning, didn’t you?”
“Have you talked to Mom?”
She frowned. “Not since I left for work. Has something happened?”
“She freaked out again when she heard about Paul’s death, just like she did when she found Dick Phillips’ body. Dallas is with her, but I wondered if you could give me your opinion of how she’s been acting recently.”
All of a sudden Trina felt anxious. “Secretive, weepy, a little frantic at times, and then most of the time she’s Mom. What’s going on?”
“Not sure. I’m going out to check on her shortly. If you feel worried about her at any time, night or day, call me, okay?”
Tears suddenly blurred Trina’s vision. “You’re scaring me, Trey.”
“Yeah, well, she’s scaring me, so that makes two of us. Listen, I’ve got
