Page 119 of The River We Remember

The kid stepped aside, and Brody spent a minute making sure that Del Wolfe’s story was true. His mother lay on the ratty sofa, snoring softly, so dead to the world that Brody’s intrusion didn’t register at all.

“Last Halloween, I cited Tyler for shooting out some streetlamps with a little twenty-two pistol. Does he still have that firearm, Del?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Know where he keeps it?”

“I do.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?”

Del left the disheveled living room and came back a minute later with the handgun. Brody sniffed the barrel, smelled burned powder.

“Is something wrong?” Del asked.

“There are a few questions I’d like to run by Tyler.”

“Is he in trouble? Again?”

“I’m going hang on to this pistol, Del. You go on back to… whatever.”

Brody left, placed the .22 in his cruiser, then crossed the bare ground between the trailer and the first of the decrepit houses nestled in the trees. He knocked at the door, and the old woman opened up immediately. He figured she’d been watching since the moment he pulled into the hollow.

“I’m looking for your son, Velma.”

“Tyler?” Her gray hair was in rollers, and she clutched an old quilted robe about her. “What’d he do this time?”

“I just want to ask him a few questions.”

“Like I said, what’d he do this time?”

“Have you seen him this evening?”

“He’s been in and out.”

“Know where he is right now?”

“Drinking, most likely.”

“Bars are closed on Sundays, Velma.”

“A man who wants to drink finds a place.”

Brody looked past her, into the darker recesses of the old house.

“I’m not hiding him,” she said.

“I think he might have shot a dog tonight. With that little twenty-two he owns.”

“He owns lots of guns.” Her face, if it was possible, went even more sour. “A dog, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Whose dog?”

“Noah Bluestone’s.”

“He the one married the Jap?”