Page 94 of The Homewreckers
“Are you all right?’ Mak asked, alarmed. “Do you have someone who can be with you right now? Are you at work?”
“I’m… I’m…” Her speech was breaking up. “Hang on, please.”
He heard her blow her nose and say something inaudible.
“Okay. My boss said I can take a break. I’m gonna go sit in my car for a minute and get my shit together. You won’t hang up, right?”
“I promise I won’t hang up,” Mak said.
“Mak?” Emma’s voice sounded steadier.
“I’m sorry to upset you this way at work, Emma, but I was afraid word might get out, after we discovered the body, and I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else.”
“Thank you,” she said tearfully. “What else can you tell me? Where was she?”
Makarowicz bit his lip. He did not want to tell this fragile young girl that her mother’s body had been dumped in a septic tank. When he did tell her, it would be in person. “It might not even be her. But the location where it was discovered, seems to make sense.”
She seized on that immediately. “On Tybee? Did you find the body near her wallet?”
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “On the same property.”
“In that old house? That doesn’t make sense.”
“No. It was… buried.”
“Oh.” Her voice seemed to get smaller. “Can you tell how it happened?”
“Not yet. It might take some time. But listen, didn’t you tell me you sent in a DNA sample of hers to one of those online ancestry sites?”
“Yeah,” she said. “That detective did it a couple years ago, after they found some woman’s body in the Okeefenokee Swamp. Turns out it wasn’t her.”
“That might help move things along, if you still have that hairbrush.The GBI should have her DNA to compare to this body. And we’ll get your mom’s dental records, too.”
“Good. Mak?”
“Yes?”
“Does my dad know?”
“I haven’t called him. Do you want me to?”
There was a long silence, and then she was weeping again.
“What if it was him? What if he did this to her?”
“You don’t have to decide right now, Emma. We don’t know anything for sure. Why don’t you think about it, and then let me know?”
“Okay. I’m gonna go now. I need to get back to work.”
“Take care, Emma.”
44Suspicious Minds
“I brought us dinner,” Mo said, holding out a foil-wrapped cylinder.
Hattie regarded the package with suspicion. “What is it?”
“Hot dogs. Courtesy of Chu’s convenience store. Hope you like mustard.”
