Flesh And Blood by Jonathan Kellerman

The beefy padlock on Teague’s front gate was in place, but the pickup with the chrome pipes and the overgrown tires was missing, and we had a view of the carport littered with machine parts and broken toys.

“Gone,” I said.

Milo peered through the chain-link diamonds. “This one I don’t scale. Let me call his number.”

As he reached for his cell phone, the house’s front door opened a crack, then wider as Tish Teague stepped out into the dirt, holding the hand of a brown-haired girl around five years old. The child’s eyes were open, but she looked sleepy. The second Mrs. Teague wore a baby blue tank top and too-tight white shorts that sausaged her hips. Her bra strap did the same for her torso, turning her into a mass of soft rolls supported by pasty, dimpled legs. Blue tattoo on the left biceps. Her hair was drawn up at the top, rubber-banded into an off-center thatch.

Milo waved, but she just stood there, bland, pale pudding of a face aiming for stoic.

“Mrs. Teague,” Milo called. “Is your husband home?”

Headshake. Her mouth formed “No,” but the sound failed to make it across the yard.

“Where is he, ma’am?”

Instead of answering Tish returned inside, came back minus the child and with her hair loosened. Walking halfway across the dirt, she stopped, folded her arms under her bosom, and shouted, “Hunting.”

“Hunting what?”

“Usually he brings back birds. Or a deer.”

Milo muttered, “Dan’1 Boone.” To Tish: “Where’s he hunt, ma’am?”

“Up near Castaic. What do you need him for?”

“Doing some follow-up, ma’am— May we come in?”

“Follow-up on what?”

“Your husband phoned me today, and I was getting back to him. How long’s he been gone?”

Tish blinked three times. “Coupla days.”

“So he must’ve called me from somewhere else. He have a cell phone?”

“Nope.”

“But he did take camping gear.”

“Yeah.”

“Guns too.”

“He’s hunting,” said Tish.

“What, the shotgun?”

“I don’t know what he takes. He wraps everything up in plastic. I don’t pay attention to guns— Why all these questions?”

“Just curious.”

“What, you’re saying Lyle could shoot someone?”

Milo paused. “Has that been on your mind, ma—”

“No way,” she said. “He keeps that stuff just for home protection and hunting—that’s all, and I like that. He’s a good man, why’re you hassling him?”

“I don’t mean to hassle, ma’am. So you haven’t heard from Mr. Teague in two days?”

“I told you, he don’t have one of those.” She pointed to the cell phone. Her tone said the deficiency was a crime for which someone needed to be blamed.

“Hmm,” said Milo. “Well, he did call me.”

“Well, he didn’t call me.” Tish aimed for defiance, but her gray eyes filled with hurt. She stepped a few yards closer. “Sometimes he uses a pay phone— What did he want?”

“To talk about Lauren.”

“Her? What for?”

“She was his daughter, ma’am.”

“Not if you asked her.'”

“What do you mean, ma’am?”

Crossing her arms, she covered several more feet, stopped well before the gate. Bare feet, toes grayed with dust. The nacre of chipped pink polish glinting through. “She wasn’t nice to us.”

“Lauren wasn’t?”

“Not to me or him or the girls.”

“I thought she brought the girls Christmas presents.”

Tish smirked. “Oh, sure. Big deal. She comes in wearing her cool clothes and her cool makeup and hypers them up with all that candy and junk, and then when she leaves I’m nice enough to thank her and say she can take home some of the apricot pie I baked from fresh apricots because that’s the kind of person I am, she laughs at me and looks down at the pie slice I’m offering her and says, ‘No, thanks.’ Like I stuffed shit in a crust or something. Then she says, ‘At least you’ve got better manners than him. Thanking me. Which you should, ’cause I didn’t have to do this.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ And she’s like, ‘You better believe you should thank me, ’cause you don’t deserve a damn thing from me—you’re not even my family and neither is he and neither are your rugrats.'”

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