Page 34 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
He turned around and stared at me. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means. In the winter, people up here get drunk and drive off the road. Rather than call us and get a DUI, they walk home and go back in the morning to get their vehicles.”
“Oh.” That was plausible. I’d heard Bobbie spent most nights at Main Street Café. She could easily have driven into a snowbank, walked home, and gotten ready for bed when… bam! Someone’s at the door ready to kill her.
“The car can’t be far,” I said. “She was seventy-something, wasn’t she? She couldn’t have walked far.”
“My deputy’s out looking for it.”
“Oh. Good idea.”
“Is that all, Mr. Milch?”
It was, so I turned and walked down to the Metro. As I walked around to the driver’s side, I noticed a middle-aged guy looking out a window in the main house. Dark circles under his eyes, pasty skin. He looked like a creature out of a Stephen King novel, which should have been enough reason to get into my car and drive away. Instead, I walked down to the other driveway and made my way up to the house. I climbed the front steps, which hadn’t been shoveled in days, and were icy and thick with snow. I knocked on the front door.
I wondered if he was going to ignore me, but a moment or two later the front door opened a crack. He stared at me. Through those four inches, I could see that he was in his mid-fifties, his hair was thinning and unruly, his eyes a bit yellow. I didn’t want to get to close, he looked like he smelled and I didn’t want to confirm that.
Brightly, I said, “Hi. I’m Henry Milch.”
“Go away.”
Not good. I decided to play my one and only card. “I’m Emma Cole’s grandson.”
“Are you Emily’s kid?”
“Well, yeah. When it suits her.”
He softened, but didn’t open the door any wider. “How is she? We were in the same class in high school.”
Okay, not mid-fifties. Forty-three. A very rough forty-three.
“My mom is… great. She just got married.”
“Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed. I didn’t want to break it to him that despite her generally terrible taste in men he wouldn’t stand a chance. Then, he rallied and added, “Good for her. Tell her Buford says hello.”
“I will. Next time I talk to her. Listen, did the detective ask you if Bobbie had any visitors last night?”
“Nope.”
He didn’t? That seemed weird. It was such a basic question. Then Buford added, “Didn’t talk to me.”
“Oh, so he hasn’t talked to you yet.”
“Didn’t answer the door. He shoved the search warrant in a crack. Not much point in talking after that.”
“Well, thank you for talking to me.”
“Curiosity got the better of me. Didn’t know what you was at first.”
“I’m a Cole,” I said, because it was my only leverage, and because I didn’t appreciate being called a ‘what’. Seriously, people up here had no idea what to make of a sense of style.
“Yep, always was an odd bunch,” he said.
Seriously? This was where he lived, this is what he looked like, and he thought my family was an odd bunch? I decided it was best not to pursue this line of questioning.
“Did you notice if Bobbie had any visitors last night?”
“She’s dead? For sure? People keep calling to tell me. I don’t want to believe it.”
“I saw her body.”
