Every House Has a Secret – 16

 

 

The first thing Brady did when he got to his office Thursday, after saying "Good morning" to Faith, his receptionist slash secretary, was to gather up what he needed to upgrade the security on the building housing Nick's construction business. It took him several hours to complete the job and then show Nick what was what. Before Brady left, Nick gave him the dimensions he'd need in order to buy replacement cabinets for the kitchen, promising to take out the old ones on Friday.

 

On his way back to the office, he picked up lunch, which he ate while doing background checks for another client and tracking down the whereabouts of a missing husband who had decided the grass would be greener with a younger woman. Then he called his client to tell her what he'd found out—that the man was living in a city on the East Coast, and his address—so she could file for divorce.

 

With that taken care of, he set to work looking for information on Dennis Hodges and the Thatchers. The first thing he did was call the realtor to ask her how old she thought the Thatchers were.

 

"I'm a lousy judge of ages," she replied. "Still, I'd say late twenties to early thirties."

 

"Really?"

 

"Yes. Why?"

 

"Oh, nothing. I guess I figured they'd be much younger since they were so casual about walking away from the house the way they did," he lied.

 

She chuckled. "They did seem to be a bit young, but they had proof they had inherited the house so who was I to argue. I handed over the keys and reminded them it was now up to them to keep paying the property taxes if they didn't want to lose it. They did, and they have kept up with them, from what's on my files for the house."

 

"Did you ever meet Mr. Hodges?"

 

"No. He was before my time. I did wonder why their last name was different from his, but figured maybe he'd gotten divorced, his wife remarried, and they took her new husband's name."

 

"Makes sense to me. Thank you."

 

So the Thatchers can't be the kids in the photos. Then who are they, and where are the other kids? Maybe she's right about the Thatchers. If so, Hodges must have had bad luck in wives, presuming the boys in the photos are from a first marriage.

 

Using what information he'd gotten from the tax records, which consisted of Hodges name and the year he'd bought the house—nineteen fifty-four—Brady began to search for Dennis Hodges, starting with obituaries for anyone with that name who had died in or around twenty-ten, when the Thatchers had begun paying the property taxes.

 

That netted him three men in the area. One had died without leaving any family behind. A confirmed bachelor, Brady presumed, who had out-lived any siblings. The second one had three daughters and only one wife, which let him out. The third Hodges was a possibility. The obituary was short, saying only that he was predeceased by his first wife, Emila Hodges, and survived by a second wife, Irene. If he had children by either woman, they weren't named.