Cinnamon skin by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Format: epub
Tags: General, Suspense fiction, Detective and mystery stories, FICTION, Detective, Mystery, Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Mystery & Detective - General, Hard-Boiled, Crime & mystery, Crime & Thriller, Fort Lauderdale (Fla.), McGee; Travis (Fictitious character), Private investigators - Florida - Fort Lauderdale
ISBN: 9780449224847
Publisher: New York : Fawcett Crest, c1982.
Published: 2010-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

IT WAS a quick twenty-eight miles to the Cotulla exit. In Cotulla-which looked to be twice the size of Freer-State Road 97 went straight, and we turned off on little old 468, narrow and lumpy.We stopped twice to ask about the old Garvey place, and at the second stop we got explicit directions and were told to look for the name Statzer on the rural mailbox. That was one of old Garvey's daughters, they said. Christine.

The Statzer drive was about four hundred yards long, and the buildings were spread out on a long knoll. Kids and dogs came swarming out. of the bushes. The dogs looked big and dangerous, but the little kids whapped them across the side of the nose and chased them back out of the way.

A chubby blond woman came out on the porch, shaded her eyes, and shouted, "Who you looking for?" She wore jeans and a T-shirt advertising Knotts Berry Farm.

"Christine Statzer?"

"That's me. What's it about?"

"Isobelle Garvey."

"Izzy?" She plunged down the three steps and came trotting to the car as we were getting out. "Is she alive? Where is she?" All the little kids were standing around, wide-eyed.

"I don't know where she is," Meyer said. "We came to ask about her."

The animation went out of her face. "So who is asking?"

"My name is Meyer. This is my associate, Mr. McGee. He is helping me look for the man we think married and then killed my niece. When he was using the name Larry Joe Harris, the same man is reported to have robbed your father and run away with your sister."

She tilted her head to the side and frowned. "Friend, that was eighteen damn years ago! That ain't exactly a red-hot trail you're following."

"The more we can learn about him, the better chance we have of finding him. We thought you might be willing to give us what help you can."

She shooed the children away and led us up onto the long deep porch. "They aren't all mine," she said. "Summertime, two of my sisters bring their kids up from Laredo for me to look after. It all evens out sooner or later. Set."

Meyer sat in a rocker. She sat on a bench and I sat on the porch railing. There was a mother cat with a basket of kittens under the bench. Three geese walked across the side yard, angling their heads to peer up at us.

"Papa didn't know a thing about Larry Joe. The way he found him, Papa went over there to Galveston when they wired him about those damn Jap lanterns coming in on a freighter. Do you know about the lanterns?"

"Your father got mad at a garden-supply dealer?" I said.

"Right. He got mad easy and often. He tried to import a dozen and then fifty, but thirty tons was the least he could take. He got the license and went ahead with it, and by the time they came in, he had almost forgot about them. So he went over and arranged for them to be trucked right here to the farm.

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