“Listen,” I said. “Hear that? We should go back there and check it out.”
“What for?” Audrey asked.
“You heard what Miss Ockle said. The neighbor kids loved Ashton. Maybe we can find out something about this boyfriend of hers.”
Trix laughed. “Boyfriend? You really think those old ladies knew what they were talking about?”
“Yeah,” Audrey added. “I’ll bet it was Ashton’s brother all along.”
And I’m like, “Maybe, but the Ockles seemed pretty certain. Besides, Mrs. Ockle said the guy with Ashton was handsome, and you have to admit that doesn’t exactly fit Tres Browning.”
“No,” Trix said. “But when a woman gets to be Mrs. Ockle’s age, she probably thinks every teenage boy is handsome.”
Still, I didn’t think it would hurt to go back and ask a couple of questions.
“Okay,” Audrey said. “We’ll wait in the car. Just make it quick. We still have dinners to deliver.”
The house was on the corner, so I walked around the far side to talk to the kids over the chain-link fence. There were eight or nine of them, ranging in ages from around two to twelve, laughing and shouting as they played some kind of chaotic game, possibly tag except a ball was involved.
“Hey,” I called to the oldest, a pretty Hispanic girl with long black hair parted on the side. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
She froze and stared at me for a moment but didn’t answer.
“Tú y yo habla, por favor?” I asked, trying to piece together the little bit of Spanish I remembered from middle school. She backed away.
I pointed to my chest. “Amigo del Ashton.”
That didn’t help. I wouldn’t say she ran onto the porch and into the house, but she wasn’t loafing around about it either. Crap, I thought, now she thinks I’m some kind of skeevy child molester.
“You’re funny,” said a boy of about nine, who was closer to the fence than the others. “You don’t talk right.”
“You got me there,” I admitted. “But I’m just delivering meals to people around the area and thought it would be a good idea to get to know the neighbors.”
The boy walked closer. “You deliver meals to the crazy ladies next door?”
“The Ockles? They’re not crazy. They’re just a little different. Actually, they’re nice once you get to know them.”
Then a brick hit me on the back of the head. Well, okay, it wasn’t actually a brick—it was a fist—but it felt like a brick. My glasses flew off and my knees buckled a little, but I didn’t fall down. “Holy crap,” I said. I picked up my glasses and turned around to see this huge Hispanic dude standing there. He had a deep blue maze-like tattoo on his shaved head and a gold tooth that was about two shades warmer than Miss Ockle’s dye job. And twice as shiny.
“Whatchoo doing back here, sick puppy?” he asked, both fists balled at his sides. He didn’t look angry so much as happy to get the chance to beat someone to death.
“Dude, I’m just trying to be friendly. I’m in the neighborhood delivering meals to people.”
“We don’t need none of your meals here,” he said.
“I know, but I was next door at the Ockles’ and I just thought—”
He stepped closer. “That’s your problem. You shouldn’t go around thinking.”
At this point, I was like, This is it. My life’s over. This is what it must be like for a pilot the split second before his plane crashes into the side of a mountain.
But I never hit the mountain, and it never hit me. Just then another guy came striding up from behind Tattoo Head. “Hold on,” he said. “Back off, Oscar. Dylan’s all right.”
And Oscar’s like, “You know this pendejo, Beto?”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy. He came to Hector’s funeral.”
Sure enough, that’s who it was—Beto Hernandez, Hector Maldonado’s cousin, only he’d traded in the black suit and hat he wore at the funeral for jeans, a black-and-white sport shirt, and a straw porkpie that put mine to shame.
He stepped over and shook my hand. “Good to see you,” he said. “What brings you over to this neighborhood?”
I explained I was just doing some volunteer work, filling in for Ashton Browning after she went missing. “Ashton who?” Beto said.
“Ashton Browning. She’s been on the news. She disappeared from the nature park up on the North Side.”
“Did you hear anything about that?” he asked Oscar.
Oscar shook his head. “I don’t pay attention to what goes down on the North Side,” he said.
“She used to deliver meals next door,” I explained.
“To the crazy ladies?” Beto said. “Yeah, I think I do remember seeing a pretty blond girl over there sometimes.”
“She was probably with her brother, a skinny little dude with brown hair and a pale turtle face?”
“Her brother? Do you remember seeing her brother, Oscar?”
“I don’t remember nothing.”
“Or it could’ve been a boyfriend. Miss Ockle said she thought it was her boyfriend.”
Beto smiled. “Oh, them ladies is crazy. I never saw no boyfriend.”
“We don’t mess around with no blond girls,” Oscar added.
“Besides, we don’t live here. This is our grandmother’s place. We just come by to check on her. She takes care of everybody’s kids. You never seen anyone like my abuelita. She’s a saint.”