Return to Dust by Andrew Lanh Read Free Book Online Page B

you.”
    â€œWhat could he have done?”
    â€œMaybe nothing.” I sighed. “Probably nothing.”
    â€œYou know his story,” Hank stressed.
    I nodded. Quickly I filled Hank in on Karen Corcoran’s belief that her Aunt Marta had been murdered. Hank knew nothing of the suicide—though he insisted he remembered seeing Marta leaving my home one afternoon, her glare at him unfriendly, a finger wagged angrily at him for some reason—but now, hearing about Karen’s hiring me, Hank got angry.
    â€œYou don’t mean she says that Willie…?”
    I held up my hand. “Let me tell you. Wait. You’re getting hot under the collar. Marta called the cops on him, I understand. She cleaned for old Joshua Jennings, and he was the yardman on the grounds. Something happened—something stupid. Something about dirty footprints tracked inside, and she lost it, screamed at him, accused.”
    He leaned into me. “But he wouldn’t have fought her. The man has no fight left in him….”
    â€œHe didn’t. But she claimed his look was—venomous. Dangerous. She felt threatened. So she called the cops.”
    Hank’s anger was growing, the reddish color rising in his cheeks. His eyes flickered. Protective of Willie, he stammered, “She…she had a hell of a nerve.”
    â€œBut the cops questioned him. I guess they had to follow up, you know, but I guess Willie got really quiet, started to tremble, you know, maybe flashbacks to…the old days, cops…and his son…”
    â€œHis name is Toan but everyone calls him Tony….”
    â€œWell, his son intervened. Nothing happened.”
    â€œDespicable, all of it.”
    â€œHank, relax. Cops doing their job.”
    â€œThis Marta was a damn troublemaker.”
    For the first time I smiled. “She was a bit of that, I agree. A hard woman to like. A woman of strong opinions.”
    He smirked. “And yet you let her into your apartment.”
    â€œI liked the way the woman handled a dust cloth.”
    â€œAnd yet your apartment always looks like the back room of Goodwill.”
    â€œNevertheless…”
    He hurled out his words, fierce and unfriendly. “Well, what do you want from me, Rick?”
    I watched him. So much confusion. I pointed at him. “Hank, calm down. I’m on your side, remember?”
    A thin smile. “Sorry.”
    â€œI know the sad story everyone knows about Vuong—Willie.” I began. “But that’s about all.”
    â€œIt’s more than sad, Rick. It’s…it’s so raw you wake up sweating about it. That is his only story, really. A quiet man, but a brooding one, so hurt.” He hesitated. “My mother says he is just waiting to die.”
    â€œI don’t know anything about his family. Where does he live?”
    â€œThey got a three-family in Unionville, by the railroad tracks. An old company house from the factory days. A little run-down, sagging porches, asphalt siding. The son and his wife live on the first floor—they own the place. They got a fifteen-year-old boy, sort of a wise guy kid, rumor has it, always picked up for things like shoplifting. Kid named Roger but everyone calls him Big Nose. Nice touch. He answers to that. Willie and his wife, Linh, live on the second.” Hank smiled. “The third floor is one of my distant cousins, a young guy named Fred, just married last year with a new baby. I mean, no one knows Willie because he stays away from folks.”
    â€œDoes he work?”
    â€œNot that I know. The college let him go. Handyman jobs. I guess, well, like he cut Joshua Jennings’ lawn, that sort of thing. Lives on Social Security.”
    â€œSo he just stays home?”
    â€œThe funny thing is that his wife—we call her Aunt Marie—knows my grandmother, good friends from somewhere, probably back in Saigon. They see each other at New