Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Annnnnnnnnd…
Rus was done, mostly because he knew this was a waste of time.
Moran, however, was feeling stubborn.
“Can we talk to you for a few minutes?”
“No,” she denied. “And you can tell them reporters to fuck off too.”
At least some good news, she wasn’t interested in talking to the media.
Moran had released a name that morning and the fact she was found dead in a motel room. Dead, not murdered, and they were waiting for a coroner’s report to know more.
Still, the media got the jump on them.
“It’d really help if we could have a few minutes of your time,” Moran pushed.
“Listen, she had to be making some bank up there at,”—she leaned back and swayed—“high and mighty Lucinda Bonner’s joint. Her mom asks for some cash to help her out of a squeeze, what’s she say? Don’t bother trying to figure it out, I’ll tell you. ‘Go fuck yourself.’ That’s what she said. So you don’t have to think hard on what that means. We weren’t close. At first, I was shocked. My kid, murdered? Goddamn. Then I remembered she was a bitch, a whore and a tightwad. So I got over it.”
Yup.
Totally got what Lucinda said about this woman.
Even so, they were there, so Rus gave it a go. “Are you saying you haven’t had any contact with Brittanie in a while?”
“Whoa, you’re a sharp one,” she jibed. “No wonder you’re in the big leagues.”
“We’re trying to establish—”
She cut him off. “No, I haven’t talked to her, it’s been probably four, five months. No, I don’t know who might wanna off her. I didn’t like her much and I’m her mom so, real sorry I couldn’t narrow down that field,” she said sarcastically. “Now, are we done?”
They weren’t.
“Your daughter has passed. Once the autopsy is conducted, we’ll need to know what funeral home you want her taken to,” Rus told her.
“Say what?”
“She needs to be laid to rest,” he pointed out. “It’s a sorry business, I know. And expensive, but—”
“I gotta pay for that shit?”
She was incredulous.
He began to feel nauseous.
“If someone goes unclaimed, the state handles it,” Moran put in. “Or sometimes good Samaritan citizens will—”
Melanie cut him off.
“I don’t got no money to pay for no funeral. Someone wants to pitch in, that’d be cool. Never understood why people went overboard with that shit. The person it’s for can’t enjoy it.”
That was all they needed.
Now, for their last matter of business.
“Do you feed your dog?” he asked her.
“What?”
“Do you feed your dog?” he repeated.
She leaned forward, but he didn’t know why, because she didn’t do it far enough to see the side yard where the dog was chained. Still, she looked that direction.
She came back to him.
“Not my dog. My boy dumped it on me.”
“Do you feed it?”
“He gave me a bag of food, I put some out for him.”
“When was the last time you did that?”
“Yesterday.”
No, now he was done.
“That’s a lie,” he stated coldly.
She squinted at him again.
Moran jumped in. “At this juncture, you should know, abusing an animal is a criminal offense.”
That shook her. “It’s not my animal.”
“It’s on your property,” Moran noted.
She was more horrified about this than her daughter’s murder or the possibility of having to pay for her funeral.
“You’re saying I can get in trouble for my son’s stupid dog?”
“Are you saying your son has abandoned that dog and you need to surrender it to the proper authorities so it can be cared for?” Moran asked.
She stared at him a beat and then said, “Take it. Dakota can get another one if he wants a fucking dog. You want its food?”
Fifteen minutes later, they’d realized the dog didn’t have the energy, or temperament, to give them trouble. Rus had filled its water bowl from a spigot on the side of the house so they could at least hydrate the poor pup. They got him unchained, and Rus led the dog to the cruiser and helped it into the back while Moran went to the porch to nab the bag of food that had spilled all over the slats because she’d tossed it out.
They then drove not to Brittanie’s apartment, but to Moran’s vet.
“She was neat,” he murmured, moving through her apartment.
“Yeah,” Moran agreed, doing the same.
It wasn’t unexpected with what he’d learned about her.
On the one hand, she lived life, had friends, hooked up with guys, some married, stole boyfriends, wasn’t great with money, which would indicate some levels of either busyness, immaturity or irresponsibility that might lead to not taking care of her home.
On the other hand, Lucinda would never let her babysit if she was a total mess, she was loyal, she’d dicked around and nearly lost her job but then toed the line to keep it, Keyleigh had been undone by her loss and Lucinda was hiding that she, too, was deeply affected by it, which would indicate Brittanie had her shit together…or was trying to.