Every House Has a Secret – 25

 

 

When Rand called Brady to tell him what he learned from Alan Thatcher, Brady said that Steven Thatcher had given him much the same information, "For what it's worth."

 

"It gives us a starting point for looking for the Hodges brothers."

 

"True." Brady smiled wryly. "Meaning I get to look for Hodges' father-in-law Ethan Barrett's obituary, because you know he must have died quite a while ago. Hopefully it will have more information than Dennis Hodges's did."

 

"Have you had a chance to find out anything about the men who murdered Emila Hodges?" Rand asked.

 

"That's next on my agenda, when I get back to the office."

 

That didn't happen until late afternoon. He spent most of the day looking for a man who had stormed out of his house over the weekend, after a vicious argument with his wife. She had shown up just after Brady had finished talking with Steven Thatcher and hired him on the spot to locate her husband.

 

"In spite of everything, I love him," she'd said. "I've tried calling him." She grimaced. "Every five minutes at first, then less often, but… He isn't answering and his friends say they haven't seen him, and he hasn't shown up at work." She gave Brady a list of the friends and the man's work address.

 

From there, it was a case of his calling the people on the list until he found one who admitted the husband had been staying with him, "Until he cooled down, which he sort of has."

 

Brady stopped by the man's house to have a long talk with the husband. In the end, he'd convinced him go home. Brady followed, to make certain the man did, and watched the very emotional reunion when the wife opened the front door. "Marriage counselor is me," he told Faith when he got back to the office.

 

Then, Brady sat down to see what he could find out about Emila Hodges's murder. The first step was to call Vern, a detective he was friends with on the police force.

 

"Nineteen-sixty-nine? Are you crazy, Brady?" Vern asked when Brady told him what he was looking for.

 

"I sometimes wonder," Brady replied with a laugh. "Can you see if it's in the files somewhere, anyway?"

 

Vern sighed, said he'd check and call him back. He did, an hour later, just as Brady was getting ready to leave for the day.

 

"I found what you wanted," Vern said. "It's not much but I'll email it to you."

 

"Did they catch the killers?" Brady asked.

 

"They knew who they were, from fingerprints, but… Well, you'll see."

 

"Keeping me in suspense?"

 

"It keeps you on your toes," Vern replied. "Why are you interested to begin with?"

 

"Rand and I bought the Hodges's house. I was curious about why it had been left to fall apart since it used to be a nice place. I did some searching on the original owner and found out about the murder, which piqued my curiosity."

 

"Of course it did." Vern chuckled. "Okay, file sent. I don't think I have to remind you this is between us. The big brass frowns on our giving out information on what's essentially a cold case to outsiders."

 

"Got it. Thanks for your help."

 

"No problem."