Honor Code Read Free Page B

looked like a baseball bat. “The missing wallet makes me wonder if Beason left on his own.”
    Like the daughter said.
    “Because?” Jordan dropped into his chair and dove into his food.
    “If you’re being hustled or dragged out the door, you don’t usually say, ‘scuse me, I need to grab my wallet.”
    Jordan chewed on that along with his sandwich. “If someone broke in and cleaned out the wallet—the cash and credit cards—they’d have dumped the wallet. What if they forced him into the car to hit an ATM for more cash?”
    “Could be. Did you find a bank statement in that mess of paper?”
    “First Community.”
    “Makes sense the guy would choose a local instead of one of the big, national banks. Let’s get some paper ready for them. Drop it off first thing tomorrow and pull the security tapes for the ATM.”
    Jordan scribbled on a note pad. “I’ll make the warrant broader and watch for current activity on the account. It could lead us right to him.”
    Robbins hid a grin behind a few more fries. The kid might be worthwhile after all.
    “You want me to stay with this tonight or get back on those car prowls? I also have the vandalism at the cemetery. Some kids spray-painted the outside wall.” Jordan finished his sandwich, crumpled the paper and lobbed it at the trash. The wad tapped the rim but tumbled into the can. “Score.”
    “Lucky shot. Work the car prowl tonight, and see if anything comes up on the cemetery tagging. The chief’s catching heat over both of those. He wants some visibility there. I’m going to check one more thing before I head home.”
     
    Robbins rummaged through records for a while. He didn’t find anything on Beason, but he finally found the daughter’s complaint. There was no paperwork, no file, but he recognized the patrol officer’s name. He dialed a number.
    “Carl Moses.”
    Moses had recently moved to Columbia, taking a sergeant’s position in the larger agency. “Hey, it’s Robbins. I got a question for you. Maybe a theoretical.”
    “I do love the theater.”
    “You and the drag queens. Listen, I’m working a report on an old man who maybe wandered off. The neighbor thinks maybe he got dragged off, but I just talked to a family member who thought he might be taking a sabbatical from the rest of his life.”
    “It happens.”
    “Well, she was… You remember a case, not so much a case as a call from about a year ago.”
    “You’re kidding, right?”
    “It happened right before you left. Old lady died and the daughter claimed the dad killed her.”
    Silence, but it was the kind of silence that said Moses was thinking about it.
    “I kinda remember, ‘cause it ain’t your usual call. About all I remember is everybody thought the daughter was over-reacting. Having hysterics ‘cause her mama died.”
    “All I found was the initial complaint. Any follow-up?”
    “Not that I remember.”
    “Okay. Thanks. Beason has family in Columbia. Let me know if you run across him or his gold Caddy.”
    “Will do.”
    Robbins hung up the phone and stretched. He’d done all he could tonight. The old man wasn’t senile or diabetic or anything. Normally, in a situation like this, they’d call the BOLO and the guy would eventually turn up—usually after a week at the beach or in Sin City. The captain had let him run with it today. Robbins had made an issue about the dog—something similar might’ve happened to the old guy—but probably the captain knew the old man was black and figured pushing to find Beason helped the department’s image.
    Robbins could give a shit about the PR. His efforts today had been for Miz Rose.
     
    Twenty minutes later, Robbins turned into his own street. Like his neighbors’ houses, the brick ranch style house sat on an acre of ground. His, however, was the place with the crummy looking yard.
    Why had he ever thought that much land was a good idea? With the kids grown and out of the house, cutting all that grass and trimming the