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."

Every House Has a Secret – 24

 

 

"Mr. Alan Thatcher, please," Rand said when a receptionist at the financial firm answered the phone Tuesday morning.

 

"May I ask who's calling?"

 

"Randal Jordner."

 

"What is this in reference to, sir?"

 

"One of his clients suggested I talk to him about my financial portfolio and perhaps my switching brokers." That was the story Rand had come up with, figuring he'd be more likely to get through to Alan with that than he would if he said he was a reporter, or that he had personal business with him.

 

"Let me see if he's available." She put him on hold, during which he had the dubious pleasure of listening to elevator music.

 

"Alan Thatcher, here," Alan said a few moments later. "The receptionist says you wish to talk with me about your portfolio. It would be better if you made an appointment to come into my office."

 

"I'm afraid I misled her, and you," Rand replied. "My husband and I recently purchased your father's house and I have a question."

 

"I'm afraid you have the wrong Alan Thatcher. My father, to the best of my knowledge has not nor does he plan on selling his house."

 

"I'm referring to your birth father, Dennis Hodges."

 

There was a definite coldness in Alan's voice as he replied, "I've had no contact with him since I was a child, other than his occasional obligatory visits on holidays and special occasions. Those ended by the time I reached adolescence. I know that he died several years ago. As far as his house is concerned, I haven't seen or been in it since he and my mother divorced and she got custody of me and my brother, Steven."

 

"Then you and your brother didn't inherit it and spend your weekends there for approximately two years?"

 

"Good Lord no. Whoever told you that was lying. May I ask why you're interested in these men who, I'm presuming, did?"

 

"The pair, who claimed to be you and your brother, abandoned the house two years later and put it on the market. From what the realtor told us the house didn't sell because it was obviously in very bad shape. My husband and I bought it as a fixer-upper, which we're doing. In the process, we found something we believe belonged to Mr. Hodges."

 

"May I ask what?"

 

"Photographs of two boys and their mother. We believe they may be Hodges sons by his first marriage."

 

"Why them and not me and Steven?"

 

"One photo was dated nineteen-sixty-eight. You and your brother would have been seven and eight at that point. The boys in the photos look older than that by at least a couple of years."

 

"All right, that makes sense. If the woman is their mother, it would have been Emila. She died, was murdered…" Alan sighed, "in nineteen sixty-nine."

 

"Yes, we're aware of that. It's why we thought you might have been interested in the photos."

 

"As I didn't know they existed, and honestly don't care, I wouldn't have gone looking for them. You really should be talking with Dennis Junior or George. I'm sure they're the boys in the pictures," Alan said.

 

"I will. Thank you for your time."

 

"No problem. I hope you find them."

 

"You don't keep in contact with them I take it," Rand said.

 

"No. After their mother's death, and what happened next, they were sent to live with Emila's parents."

 

"When Hodges was kicked off the police force."

 

"Yes. You have done your research. Her parents lived in, I believe, Ohio. Columbus, if I remember correctly. I have no idea where my stepbrothers are now."

 

"At least that gives me a place to start looking. Again, thank you for your time."

 

"You're welcome."

Every House Has a Secret - 23

 

 

"Do you have phone numbers for him and Alan?"

 

"Yep. Home and work," Brady replied, adding all the information to the original file then printing out two copies.

 

"Let's call them."

 

Brady checked the time and shook his head. "It would be ten in both cities. A bit late to be bothering them."

 

"Yeah, I guess. We'll try tomorrow, from work. I'll take Alan, you call Steven."

 

"It could be interesting, explaining why we're calling, especially if it was them who spent their weekends at the house for a couple of years before putting it on the market."

 

Rand nodded. "I doubt it was. Or at least it probably wasn't the real Alan, unless he got married after that happened."

 

Brady checked. "Nope. He married in twenty-oh-eight. His daughter was born a year later. I don't see him coming out here every weekend for a couple of years, with his brother not his family, to stay at the house while they searched for the gun."

 

"That's still presuming it was the reason the Thatchers, real or not, were here."

 

"Can you think of another one?" Brady asked.

 

Rand shook his head.

 

"Me, neither."

 

"We have to find out about the men who murdered Hodges's wife," Rand said.

 

"I know, I know. I'm planning on trying to, tomorrow."

 

"Okay. So for the moment we're at a stand-still. How about you shut down and we watch that movie on Netflix you thought might be good, and then head to bed."

 

"Sounds like a plan to me."

 

Every House Has a Secret - 22

 

"Here's what I found out," Brady told Rand Monday evening after they had finished supper. He'd refused to say anything until then, "Because first we need downtime that has nothing to do with the house or Hodges."

 

Brady sat at the desk, booting up his laptop, then went online to print out a file in his email that he'd sent himself from work. Handing it to Rand, he said, "As we know, Hodges and his first wife, Emila, had two sons. The elder son, Dennis Junior, has two daughters. The younger, George, has two sons, Colin and Frank. They'd be thirty-four and thirty-three respectively."

 

Rand lifted an eyebrow. "That puts them in the age range the realtor said the Thatchers were.

 

"Definitely. Hodges sons by his second marriage to Irene are indeed Alan and Steven Thatcher. They'd be, well are, forty-one and forty-two. Unless they look very young for their ages, they can't be the men who owned the house and abandoned it in twenty-twelve for whatever reason."

 

"Well, at the time the realtor probably met them, if it was them, to put the house on the market, they would have been six years younger."

 

"True. And Colin and Frank would have been twenty-eight and twenty-nine. That is closer in age to what the realtor thought the two men calling themselves Thatcher were."

 

"So you're figuring it was Hodges's grandsons, posing as the Thatchers, who gained access to the house, rather than the Thatchers themselves?"

 

"It does make sense. We have to talk to the real Thatchers, though, to make certain."

 

"Do you have a clue where to find them?" Rand asked.

 

"No, but I will. Give me a few minutes."

 

Brady began running a search for both Alan and Steven Thatcher by their birth dates, using both that last name and Hodges. He found their birth certificates, which listed their parents as Irene Long Hodges and Dennis Winthrop Hodges. Digging deeper, he located copies of adoption papers for them, naming Patrick Thatcher as the adopter. That happened the same year Hodges second wife had remarried.

 

With that information, Brady was able to find where the two men were now.

 

"Alan Thatcher is living in New York City, working for a financial firm. Married. One daughter, one son."

 

Rand chuckled. "It sounds like the Hodges family, from Dennis on down, have a thing for two kids and no more. Well, four for him I guess. Two with each wife."

 

"Not quite true. Steven Thatcher is unmarried and living in Toronto, Canada."

 

Every House Has a Secret - 21

 

 

By the time Sunday evening rolled around, Brady and Rand were beginning to wonder if it was all worth it. They knew it was, although their aching muscles and blistered hands seemed to say otherwise.

 

"With luck," Brady said, once they were seated at a table in one of their favorite restaurants and had beers in front of them, "the floors will be dry by Tuesday night. At least enough to walk on them in our socks, like the guy at the rental place said."

 

"Then, we paint, and paint, and paint." Rand yawned, getting a grin of amusement from his husband. "Did you let Nick know the cabinets and tiles have been delivered?"

 

"Yes. I called him when we broke for supper last night." Brady patted Rand's back. "I guess you weren't paying attention."

 

"I was eating, before the slave driver—" Rand shot him a look, "—said it was time to get back to work."

 

"Me?" Brady looked at him in horror.

 

"Yes, you, love. You were subtle, but you still made it clear we needed to finish the sanding before we could go home and crash."

 

Brady shrugged. "It had to be done. Anyway, there's nothing we can do tomorrow night, because of the floors. Nick will hopefully have the kitchen finished by then, and the floor tiled."

 

"A day off." Rand fist-pumped, much to Brady's amusement.

 

"Yep. I'll do what research I can fit in at work tomorrow on Hodges and his family."

 

"So tomorrow night we can start putting the information together to see what we come up with. I need something to write on." Rand flagged down the waitress, asking if he could borrow a pencil and paper. She disappeared, coming back with what he needed a moment later. "Okay. We have to find out what happened to all of Hodges kids."

 

"We know the first pair went to live with his wife's family after he was dismissed from the force," Brady replied. "I wonder why."

 

"Maybe he wasn't in any shape to take care of two young boys," Rand speculated. "Or having them around reminded him of his wife's murder and everything that happened afterward."

 

"Possibly. We can presume the second Mrs. Hodges, umm, Irene, got custody of the two boys from the marriage, after she divorced him. When she remarried, Lawrence Thatcher probably adopted them."

 

"I wonder if either of Hodges first two sons got married and had sons of their own."

 

"Now that's a good question," Brady replied. "If so, it might be possible that they posed as Alan and Steven Thatcher in order to have legitimate access to Hodges's house after he died."

 

"For what reason?" Rand asked.

 

"To find the gun, although how they'd know about it is a question."

 

"We have to find out if the burglars who killed Hodges's wife were ever arrested for the crime." Rand added that to his list.

 

"If they were, that would have made the papers, I think," Brady replied. "But…" He nodded. "Okay. Say they were never caught, but somehow Hodges found out who they were and took things into his own hands."

 

"Using the gun to kill them, and then hiding it in the house, along with the photos. That could work. But how did the phony Thatchers find out about it?"

 

"We'll have to ask when we find them," Brady said.

 

"If we do."

 

"Between us, we'll make it happen," Brady stated firmly. "For now, let's eat." A logical suggestion since the waitress had arrived with their meals.