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Returning from incarcerating the animal, A
Joa
A
Jaime looked questioningly at Joa
“Homicide?” A
“Yes,” Joa
The skin of A
“Yes,” Joa
“What happened?”
“He was stabbed to death.”
“Good!” A
With her hands shaking, A
“So you weren’t close?” Joa
A
“But he listed you as his next of kin.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m no kin of his at all.”
“He also named you as the beneficiary of his group life insurance policy. It’s a small death benefit, but-”
“Just because he put my name down on a piece of paper doesn’t mean I have to take the money!” A
It wasn’t at all the kind of next-of-kin notification Joa
“So he hasn’t been in touch with you since his release?” Joa
“Absolutely not. He wouldn’t dare. If he’d shown up here, I would have shot him myself. I have a gun, you know. An old thirty-aught-six. My husband used to hunt. I kept the gun after he died. I know how to use it, and believe me, if Bradley Evans had turned up anywhere within range, I would have plugged him full of lead. They’d have had to drag him off my porch in one of those zip-up body bags.”
Listening to the old woman rant, Joa
“Tell me about your daughter,” Joa
A
“The Military I
A
“Did she and Bradley Evans meet there?”
“Yes. He was still in the army then. They got married only a couple of months after they met. Another bad idea. I told her she didn’t know enough about him. He was from somewhere else- Oklahoma or Texas maybe. Didn’t seem to have any family to speak of. That’s always a bad sign. Either the family’s bad or the one who’s on the outs is bad. It’s all the same. One way or the other it spells trouble, but Lisa thought Brad-as she called him-was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nothing her father or I said could convince her otherwise.”
“So they got married?”
“Eloped,” A
“You said Bradley was still in the army when he and Lisa met?” Joa
A
“What happened?”
“You mean why did he kill her?” A
Joa
“I have no idea. I thought Brad was a bit of a rounder. For sure he drank way too much, but he always seemed to behave around Lisa, and I thought he loved her.”
“Was there someone else involved?” Joa
“You mean like did Lisa have someone on the side? No way. She loved Bradley to distraction. I can’t say the same about him. I suppose Bradley could have had a girlfriend. I’ve wondered about that over the years, but I don’t know for sure.”
“They seemed happy together?”
“As happy as newlyweds are when they’re young and not making enough money. But Lisa was excited about being pregnant. She was never very interested in school. She did all right in high school, but she wasn’t the least bit interested in going off to college. She told me once that all she wanted to do was meet a nice man, get married, and raise lots of babies.”
“Did Bradley want the baby?”
“Who knows? I sure as hell didn’t ask him,” A
“The last time I talked to her was that Saturday morning, the day she was killed. Lisa loved fried chicken, especially my fried chicken. I called her at work to see if she and Brad wanted to come over for a chicken di