“I was thinking that if you knocked, and they shot you, you’re so thick that they wouldn’t get complete penetration,” Letty said. “I could use your body as a shield while I returned fire. If I knock and they shoot me, they would get complete penetration, and probably smack you down, too. We’d both be dead, instead of just one of us.”
“We’re well matched in catastrophic thinking,” Kaiser said. “I just flipped a mental coin. You get to knock.”
“Fair is fair,” Letty said. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Letty led the way through the chain-link gate, across a yard that smelled of weeds, dust, and a hint of garbage, up to the trailer’s front door, and knocked; the door had a vinyl outer shell that flexed, muffling every knock, and Kaiser said, “Gotta bang on it harder.” She did. A curtain moved in a window next to the door and then the slit window scraped left and a woman’s voice asked, “What do you want?”
“We need to talk to Brody,” Letty said.
“He ain’t here. And he don’t call himself Brody.”
“Then we need to talk to you. We’re . . . from the government,” Letty said.
“Cops?”
“No. I’m a researcher for the Department of Homeland Security.”
From the ensuing silence, it seemed likely that the voice’s owner was thinking it over. Then she said, “Okay.”
The woman who opened the door was thin, narrow-shouldered, dressed in tights and a plain blue T-shirt. Her blond hair hung loose down her back and showed a dark-brown part. She had suspicious brown eyes and a scattering of acne around a long, sallow face.
“Stony took off in June, ain’t seen him since. Hasn’t called,” the woman said.
“Do you guys share a checking account?” Letty asked.
The woman snorted. “If I ever saw him around my checkbook, I’d shoot him,” she said.
The woman’s name was Kaylee Turner. She had two children with Stony Rivers, both in school, and worked nights in a Stripes convenience store. “Stony takes off every once in a while. He’s been gone for a long time, this time. When I heard the gate open, I thought it might be him. I don’t get many visitors and he always comes back.”
“We actually need to talk to a man named Rand Low, who used to hang out with Stony . . .” Kaiser said. He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of a hand.
Turner snorted again. “Hang out is not exactly what they did. Rand was driving stolen cars for some gang that was selling them in Mexico. Stony knew about it, might even have driven a couple himself. When the cops grabbed them, Stony agreed to talk about it in court. If Rand knew where Stony lived . . .” The thought hung her up, then she blurted, “Shit! You think Rand found him?”
“You think Rand would hurt him?” Kaiser asked.
“Hell yes. Rand is a killer,” Turner said. “The people around him, they’ll kill you, too. That crazy posse of his.”
“Did you and Stony share a credit card or anything?” Letty asked.
“No, we kept our money separate. I want the kids to eat. He’d spend every damn dime, if I let him. Which I don’t.” She turned back to the house, then said, “Come on in for a minute. It’s hot out here. I want to look for something.”
Letty and Kaiser followed her inside. The trailer was cool and neat enough, but smelled like SpaghettiOs flavored with cat urine. A gray-and-white cat was sitting on the back of a couch, staring at them; didn’t move. At the far end of the trailer, Letty could see an old exercise treadmill, and beyond that, through a door, the corner of an unmade bed.
“Give me one minute,” Turner said. She was back in less than a minute, carrying a plastic cube filled with envelopes. “I throw Stony’s stuff in here. He gets letters and bills and shit . . .”