Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

it. “I know it’s tough to work and have a family and be a student.” She grinned. “Good luck, Richie.”
    “Yeah.” The young man’s shoulders straightened. “Yeah, thanks, Chief.”
    Outside in the rain-cooled air, Sheila took a deep breath. At the desk, barricaded behind a pile of paper, she lost the sense of real people, in real trouble, doing real things to try to help themselves out. She hadn’t enjoyed interviewing Richie Potts, but she was glad she’d done it. She was even gladder that she could walk away from the vibrating walls, the baby’s crying, and the smell of cooking cabbage.
    O UT in the car, Sheila radioed for a background check on Jason Hatch, current address and phone, employment, vehicle, and priors. It came back before she’d driven more than a few blocks. She jotted down the address, which matched the one she’d copied from the Rolodex, and the phone number. He was listed as self-employed. Vehicle: Dodge Ram. And he had two priors: a misdemeanor bad check and a third-degree felony possession.
    The address for Jason Hatch took her to a single-wide trailer in a trailer park on the east side of the interstate, in a flat, treeless field behind a shopping plaza that featured Walmart, Home Depot, and a five-screen movie theater. The trailers were close together, with motorcycles and pickup trucks parked along the narrow street and dogs chained tomakeshift shelters—oil barrels, wooden crates—in the dirt yards. As Sheila pulled up in front of the address in her notes, a couple of neighborhood dogs began barking.
    But she knew when she got out of the car that this was a strike-out. The trailer windows were dark and a For Rent sign, red letters on a black background, was stuck into the narrow patch of withered brown grass between the sidewalk and the trailer. But she tried anyway, going up the dirt path—muddy from the evening’s rain—and banging on the door. After a few moments, she gave it up and walked back down the path and around the front of the trailer on the adjacent lot.
    Her sharp rap on the metal door was answered by a heavyset, blowsy woman who reeked of cigarettes. Behind her, a reality show was playing on the television, the volume cranked up so high that the woman had to yell over it.
    “Hatch?” she asked, in answer to Sheila’s question and the flash of her badge wallet. She frowned. “Sorry, ma’am, cain’t tell you a thing. There was some guy shackin’ up over there with his girlfriend, yeah, but I never heard his name. Him and the girl moved out a while back. Good thing, too. Loud music, every night. Rock. Hate it. I’m a country and western fan m’self.” She grinned, showing one gold tooth. “Love that Willie.”
    Sheila wondered whether the rock music from next door had been a defense against the woman’s loud television. The battle of the volume controls. “Any idea where Mr. Hatch might be living?”
    The woman shook her head. “Manager’d prob’bly know,” she offered. “Double-wide at the far end.” She gestured with her head, then shut the door in Sheila’s face.
    The manager’s double-wide had a blue metal roof, a blue-painted front porch and shutters, some straggly landscape shrubs, and a nearlyleafless willow tree in the front yard. The manager was bald and paunchy, with a red and blue plaid shirt and yellow suspenders holding up baggy pants. The toes of his fleece-lined house slippers had been scissored out and white socks showed through. He had apparently just gotten out of the recliner that faced the television, because a can of beer, a half-finished pizza, and a fat calico cat sat on the table beside it. The room was very warm.
    “Hatch,” he said, scratching his grizzled, unshaven chin. “Yeah, right. He was here, but him and the girl moved out the end of September. I keep that trailer for month to month, see, which ain’t my fav’rite.” He frowned. “Fact is, month-to-months are a pain in the patootie. They come, they go, or I wind up bootin’ ’em out. Always try to get a six-month lease, if I can. But when I cain’t, I do the next best thing, which is month-to-month.”
    When Sheila asked about a forwarding address, the man went to the gray metal desk, under the big window in the living room. He sat down and opened a drawer, leafed through some papers, then pulled out what looked like a rental record, copied the information onto a scrap of paper, and put the record back. On the chair-side table, the cat got up