“Let me see.” He tugged his beard. “Ask me about Betty.”
“Okay. What do you know about Betty?”
“She was a nice lady. Most of us kids—well, kids back then—knew her growing up. She was one of those ladies always doing something. The bookmobile. The free dental clinic. Always helping out. The kind that showed up withtwocasseroles at a wake.”
“Yet she had two businesses, too.”
His smile turned into a grin.
“That’s right. The motel and that gas station. People were always telling her to sell both. Time wasters, they were. That motel still is.”
“Willa owns the motel now.”
“She used to help out there when Betty was alive. Pretty much managed it for her. She’s good people—Willa.”
“Good enough to tell on her brother, if it came to it?”
“You must mean Frank.”
“She got other brothers?”
“The less said about Frank, the better.”
“I’ve found that whenever people say that, it isn’t true. Those are exactly the times you should talk.”
“Frank? He’s a loser.”
Ruby found it unsettling how easily people excused each other. But then, she excused herself from a lot—especially the responsibilities of friendship.
“There are losers, then there are losers,” she said.
“Yeah. That’s true. What do you want to know about Frank?”
“An address would be a good place to start.”
“No idea. Maybe ask Willa? On second thought, maybe not. That poor woman is saddled with him as a brother. She won’t help. Did Frank do something?”
“He tried to run me off the road, and more. I don’t think the police here care.”
His eyes had widened. “I heard about that,” he said. “It’s all over town. But no one said it was Frank.”
“I’m pretty sure at least a few of them know,” she said. “I just pieced it together myself. He’s the brother of Willa, right? She’s the owner of the motel. Inherited it from Betty. Why would he want to kill me?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I don’t know. Honestly.”
“He mixed up with something he’s worried I’ll find?”
It had happened often enough that her arrival in a town was enough to make every criminal scurry for cover. They worried she might uncovertheir crimes, too—especially if their crimes were related to the one she was investigating. She had run into a lot of trouble this way on gang cases. And organized crime.
“Frank? I got no idea.”
“I ran his name. Didn’t find a record.”
He made a gesture with his hand. “Guys like him...”
“What do you mean?”
“I can see why you like your job now.”
