“Tell me more about Addie, Jimmy.”

He lightened up a little, and then said, “Well, she was real pretty when we were kids. I had a crush on her, but she was fourteen, so I knew I had to wait till she was old enough to date. I got called to ’Nam, so I enlisted with the marines. I went off to ’Nam and she was all I thought about. I dreamed about being able to come back home and see Addie.”

“What happened?”

“When I got home she was already dating a guy named Dody Waldrep. I thought they’d break up. I didn’t think he was right for her. I figured she’d figure that out, but she stuck with him. He never did deserve her.”

I wondered if Jimmy thought anyone deserved Addie Russell Waldrep.

“Is that why you’re so sure she wasn’t involved with your brother?”

He knitted his forehead and rubbed his hands together harder.

“I told you, I just know, that’s all.” He got up out of his chair. “Listen, I don’t feel like talking anymore. I got things to do before my gig tonight.”

We were being shuttled out. I hadn’t learned as much as I wanted, but I had learned what Jimmy Hughes didn’t want to talk about, and what he didn’t want to say might prove to be more interesting than anything he had said.

Chapter Eight

My son and his partner attended a lot of funerals. Serial killings get a lot of attention in the news, but the vast majority of killings are personal in nature, committed by someone the victim knew. Because of that, it’s likely that the murderer might show up at the funeral, or that someone’s absence from the funeral, or actions at the funeral, might be of note. Mike and Tommy routinely attended the funerals of the victims in their cases just so they could observe all the people who were and were not there. Such was the case with the funeral of Addie Waldrep.

Addie Waldrep had been missing for sixteen years. It was assumed that she had run off with Doug Hughes, who was thought to be her lover and who had also been missing for sixteen years. No one had ever heard from either one of them again. Now the question on all of our minds was who had killed her, and whether Doug himself had become a victim also. The list of suspects was just beginning to be developed, and at least for now even the missing Doug Hughes was on the list.

At the time of Addie’s disappearance, she and her husband, Dody, and their two daughters had been living in Viola, which is about an hour southeast of Austin. It was a small spot on one of those farm-to-market roads off of Highway 290. Viola was their hometown.

There had been rumors about Addie’s relationship with Doug. Doug had lived in Rock Hill just as Jimmy had told us. Doug ran what became his family’s farm. His father had died, Doug had bought the farm in Rock Hill, and he and his brother Vernon worked the farm together. His mother still lived there, and Vernon and his wife and family lived there, too.

One day Doug and Addie had simply disappeared. Now Addie had been found. No one had seen or heard from Doug since he disappeared with Addie.

Still, rumors or no, Maureen Russell and Doug’s mother, Gloria Hughes, never believed that their children were either having an affair or had run off together. Maureen made it clear to Mike and Tommy that she considered Dody Waldrep to be the prime suspect in the death of her daughter. The question was whether she based that on any real suspicion, or just on the fact that she despised Dody-and she made no bones about the fact that she did despise him.

Gloria Hughes had told Mike and Tommy that Doug had a girlfriend-a young girl named Lori Webster. Lori lived in Georgetown now, and the boys had gone to speak to her before the funeral, but I had not had time to get the details of that interview.

Addie’s funeral was in the nearby town of Giddings-a metropolis compared to Viola and Rock Hill. The burial would be in a little community cemetery in Viola where Addie’s two daughters lived with Maureen Russell. It seemed that Dody had a drinking problem. So the girls had gone to live with their grandmother. Dody had moved to Manor, got himself a house out on an acre of land and a job in Austin working for a plumbing company. The girls rarely saw him. They didn’t even remember their mother.

Standing in the funeral home next to my son and Tommy, I could see down the aisle to the family section. The two girls sat looking sad and confused next to Mrs. Russell. Mrs. Russell wept unceasingly for her daughter, wiping her eyes and nose. It seemed that everyone in the town was there, and after paying respects to Addie, each person filed past her mother and two children and gave their condolences. Mike informed me that Lori Webster was not there.

I smelled him before I saw him. The rank smell of nicotine was the first attack on my olfactory senses. Then the too-sweet smell of last night’s bourbon joined the wave of putrid odors that washed my way as he passed down the aisle. I looked to my right to see who this was as he passed by.

Michael nudged me slightly with his elbow. “Dody Waldrep,” he whispered.

I nodded.

In his wake, new odors assaulted me-now, the stale smell of unwashed hair mixed with the sourness of sweat. Dody looked about ten or fifteen years older than Mike had told me he was. He was thin and his skin was weathered and flushed from an obvious alcohol habit. He wore khaki workman’s trousers over his skinny legs, and a worn plaid shirt was stretched over his protruding beer gut and tucked into the waistband of his pants. Except for the gut, Dody Waldrep was so thin and frail, that I imagine he’d have weighed a hundred forty pounds soaking wet. His thin, greasy hair was combed straight back from his ruddy face.

Dody didn’t appear terribly grief stricken, but considering that his wife had allegedly left him for someone else over sixteen years ago, grief isn’t what I would have expected. He had completely let himself go and he had abdicated the care of his children to his mother-in-law, but there was a kind of pathetic aspect to him, and I felt sorry for him in a way. I was surprised he showed up. He had the shakes and he was sweating. He didn’t look well, but then, a lot of alcoholics don’t look well, especially when they’re sober. It looked as though Dody Waldrep had sobered up for this. He started to sit with his daughters, but one look from his mother-in-law said it all, and he sat down in the row behind them.

I watched him throughout the service. He didn’t weep, but he looked upset. Mostly he just looked terribly depressed and beaten. I think for Dody it had been another reliving of an old shame. I wondered if a man who looked that lost could have committed such a crime. It was hard to tell just by watching him there. One thing I had learned for sure in all my years was not to jump to any conclusions until all the facts were in, or at least more facts than we currently had in this case.

Dody didn’t attend the graveside services. In fact, he disappeared in the crowd right after the funeral. At the cemetery, I noticed a woman weeping softly, and then talking for some time with Addie’s mother. I leaned over toward my son.

“Who’s the woman in navy talking to Addie’s mother?”

“That is Gloria Hughes, Doug Hughes’s mother.” He raised his eyebrows.

I returned the raised eyebrows with, “Really.”

Mike nodded. “She says she’s heard nothing from Doug in all these years. The brother, Vernon, confirms that.”

“That’s what Jimmy says also. What do you think?”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t know, Mom. I guess I believe Vernon and Mrs. Hughes, but Jimmy is odd. I’m not sure what’s up with him.’’

I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t decide if he had problems from the war or if it was something else.

“Mrs. Hughes got real upset and asked us what we thought the chances were that Doug might still be alive.”