Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [51]
“Are you Greg?” she called as she walked toward him.
“I sure am,” he said amiably. “What can I do for you?”
“I would like to talk to you about Shawna’s disappearance.”
The friendly smile dropped from his pink lips and his face seemed to age. Big, light-blue eyes swam with emotion in a galaxy of freckles. His hands were square and strong, with black grease wedged beneath his fingernails. He smelled of soap and gasoline, and beneath his baggy coveralls, he was large and muscular like a bodybuilder.
“I’ve already spoken with the police and nobody has listened to a word I said,” he said quietly. “Short of accusing me of hurting her, they basically have done nothing to try to find out what happened to her. I’ll tell you what I told them, my girl did not run away. Unless you’re going to tell me something I don’t already know or are going to try to do something to find out what happened to her, I have nothing to say to you, ma’am.”
He turned to walk away from her but Lydia gently grabbed his arm.
“Greg, wait. I don’t think Shawna ran away, either. I’m an investigator. My name is Lydia Strong and I do want to find out what happened to her.”
He looked her up and down suspiciously. She was conscious that she didn’t look the least bit official in her faded blue jeans, lizard-skin boots, and cream suede jacket. She began to reach for her ID, but he spoke before she could present it.
“All right, then, come on inside.”
She followed him behind the garage and the adjacent office to a small apartment. Run-down but clean and orderly, it smelled of burnt coffee and cigarettes. Lydia sat down at a faux wood Formica card table on a wobbly, green vinyl-covered chair, while Greg made coffee.
Her eyes scanned the room, soaking up details. The appliances, an olive-green stove and matching refrigerator, were old but seemed to be well maintained. The countertop, made of butcher block, was well scrubbed but riddled with scratches and deep, black burn marks. Some of the Formica tiles on the floor, featuring a gold and brown floral pattern, were buckling. The orange sun coming in from a dirty window over the stainless steel sink lit the dust particles that fell like snow through the air. The room was overly warm and Greg turned on an air-conditioning unit over the door that protested, then reluctantly groaned to life.
She could see two orderly bedrooms from where she sat at the table. One, presumably Greg’s, had a wall covered with posters of motorcycles and a shelf filled with books about hot rods, mechanics manuals, and luxury car magazines. On the bedside table was the picture of Shawna that she recognized from the copy in her file.
These were the rooms of hard-working people of small and honest means. If she had to guess, Lydia would say that Joe Matthews, Greg’s father, was a former military man who conducted his business and his home the way he had been taught in the barracks. Greg’s mother had either left them or died young because there was no feminine warmth in any of the rooms, and Greg seemed fairly self-reliant in the kitchen, not like a mama’s boy used to being coddled.
She tossed it out. “You live here alone, Greg?”
“No, with my dad. My mom passed on when I was ten from cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. But my dad took real good care of me. A little strict, though,” he chuckled without much mirth. “But what do you expect from a former Marine?”
“Mind if I record our conversation?” Lydia asked, pulling a small tape recorder out of her bag and laying it on the table. She never went anywhere without it but almost always forgot to use it, relying more often on pen and paper.
“No. How do you like your coffee?”
She looked over at him and noticed that he was peering into an empty refrigerator. So much for light and sweet.