Hard Truth (10 page)

N
ine

Mosquitoes. The bane of summer.

Lorna swatted at the air around her head and pulled the covers up a little higher.
Why do they always seem to know when you’re having the best dream?

She hunched under the covers, but the buzzing persisted. It was another long minute before she realized there was no mosquito in her room. Someone was buzzing the doorbell.

She got out of bed and went to the side window. Looking toward the front of the house, she saw a black-and-white police car, engine on and the lights silently whirling. She threw up the sash and called out, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

She pulled on her clothes and slipped her feet into rubber flip-flops and went downstairs, grumbling to herself. It was eight
A.M.
, and she hadn’t had coffee. She hadn’t slept well, what with Uncle Will prowling around, though thankfully he’d settled into his old room at the end of the hall by two this morning and hadn’t been heard from since. And then there was the matter of T. J. Dawson and what to do about him. She’d spent all day Sunday and well into the night wrestling with herself over the issue.

Hire him? Not hire him?

Hire him? Not hire him?

Part of her wanted to hire him, just to have him around, just to be able to spend a little more time with him. Not a good enough reason to spend a considerable amount of money. She couldn’t remember the last man she’d met who’d interested her as much as he did, though.

Actually, she could, but he’d turned out to be a dud, she reminded herself.

She unlocked the front door and opened it to find Chief Walker, looking annoyed.

“I’m sorry, Chief, but I didn’t sleep well last night so I overslept and—”

“Sorry to wake you.” It was obvious to Lorna he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “But we have a problem.”

“Chief, I told Brad I didn’t call the FBI, I only—”

“Not that problem,” he cut her off again. “The construction crew seems to have hit gold again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They found another one.”

“Another . . .” It took a minute for it to sink in. “Another body?”

“Well, bones. Definitely human bones.”

“Please tell me it’s not a small child,” she whispered.

“It’s not a small child. A bone from one leg is missing, but I’d say the person was five-seven, five-eight, in that range.” He paused. “It wasn’t Melinda Eagan, that much I’m sure of. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, is all, let you know what’s happening. You’re going to be seeing a lot more activity out there this time, once the press gets ahold of this.”

“I appreciate it, Chief.”

“The ME is on his way, same routine as before.” He stared at her for a minute, then said, “Any idea what the hell went on back there, Lorna?”

She shook her head. “I’m as mystified as you are. More so, because that was Palmer land, we owned it at the time Jason and this other person were buried there.”

“I guess it would be too much to hope that at some point over the years, you noticed something funny going on out in your fields.”

“Never. I’m sorry. Finding Jason’s body was one thing, finding another one so soon after . . .” She shook her head. How could this be happening on her family farm?

“Might give your brother and sister a call, see if they remember anything. If you think of something, even a little thing—like maybe some homeless person you used to see hanging around a lot, anything like that—you give me a call.”

“Will do,” she said, thinking he’d like nothing better than to be able to pin this on some nameless stranger. “Chief, how will this affect the case against Billie Eagan?”

He visibly prickled. “You sound like a reporter. Won’t affect it at all. Why should it?”

“It’s one thing to think that she killed her son in a fit of anger, which appears to be your theory. It’s another altogether to think she killed some stranger.”

“Now, we don’t know that it’s a stranger we found, do we? Let’s not put the horse before the cart.” He turned and walked to his car. “We’ll get back to you if we need you.”

Lorna watched from the doorway while the police car made a circle in the drive. The chief looked straight ahead, not bothering to wave on his way past, though surely he knew she was still standing there.
Guess he’s still pretty pissed off.

She closed the door and went back upstairs to look for her keys, debating whether to change her clothes before running out to the mini-mart for her morning coffee. Deciding against changing, she grabbed her handbag from the floor next to the bed, where she’d dropped it the night before. Troubled by the latest finding, she set out, distracted, on her morning errand.

Lorna had just walked into the Quik Stop when she heard someone calling her name. She looked around but didn’t see anyone she recognized. She was pouring her coffee when she felt someone a step or two too close to her.

Then someone whispered in her ear, “That cup’s on the house.”

“Fritz!” She laughed, looking over her shoulder.

“Lorna, put that cup down so I can give you a real welcome-home hug.”

She set the cup on the counter and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you,” she told him. “I stopped to see Mrs. Hammond just the other day, and she told me you and Mike bought this place. I come here every morning and this is the first time I’ve seen either of you.”

“Mrs. Hammond said you were stopping in for coffee every day, so I thought I’d start watching for you. I’m in the office for the first few hours of each day, and Mike comes in around four.”

“I’m late this morning. I’m usually here by seven.”

Another customer reached past her for a cup, and Lorna picked up her coffee and stepped aside.

“I heard you were right in the middle of this thing with Mrs. Eagan,” Fritz said, guiding her out of the way of a woman searching for the right color sweetener packet. “I can’t believe they found Jason after all these years. And right out there, on your farm.”

“That section isn’t ours anymore, but yeah, it’s crazy. And this morning, it got even crazier.” She told Fritz about Chief Walker’s early-morning visit.

“Holy shit, another body?”

Two customers at the pastry counter turned around to stare.

“That was exactly my reaction when he told me.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t believe someone brought bodies onto our farm to bury them, but that’s apparently what happened.”

“Any idea who this latest person was, how he or she died?”

“Nothing so far. The ME hadn’t even arrived yet. I guess it will be awhile before they know anything. And they’re not likely to tell me. I’m persona non grata around the police station right now.”

“I heard about that, too.”

“You did?” She frowned. “What exactly did you hear?”

“I heard that you bailed out Mrs. Eagan—which I can understand you doing. She was a friend of your mother’s, and you and Melinda were friends, right?”

Lorna nodded. “What else did you hear?”

“I heard you pulled some strings and had the FBI brought into the case.”

She shook her head. “Not true. First of all, I have no strings to pull. Second, I did not call the FBI. What I did was talk to a PI about the possibility of him looking into the case. It’s important to me to know the truth. If Mrs. Eagan killed one or both of her children, I want to know. If she suckered my mother into believing she was innocent so that she could use her and their friendship, I want to know that as well.”

“No offense, Lorna, but don’t you think Chief Walker wants to know the truth, too?” Fritz said softly.

“Of course I do. It just seemed to me there was a total rush to judgment to arrest Billie Eagan with only the scantest bit of evidence.”

“I agree it’s circumstantial—from what I’ve heard, anyway—but it does make sense. I can see how it happened the way he thinks it did.”

Before she could respond, he said, “Just think it through logically. Mrs. Eagan’s daughter disappears, and suspicion falls immediately on her, which right there gets a lot of people talking. Then suspicion shifts to the son. Just before the son is going to be arrested, he disappears. Now, suppose for a minute that Jason did kill Melinda. He comes home after drinking with his buddies, and maybe he says something about it. Maybe he even admits it. Mom picks up something heavy and smacks him in the head with it. Maybe on his way down, she smacks him again. Then she realizes what she’s done, and she has to get rid of him. She takes him out into the field and buries the body. Maybe she’s shocked it’s not discovered.”

“It wouldn’t have been.” She shook her head. “Fritz, you didn’t see how deeply those remains were buried. There’s no way she could have dug that deep on her own. And there’s no way she could have gotten his body clear across the field, in the dark. She isn’t strong enough.”

“She was strong enough to beat him good whenever she could.”

“You knew about that?”

He nodded, a look of distaste on his face. “I knew. I was in one of Jason’s classes, I saw the bruises. I never knew why he didn’t fight back.”

“She was his mother.” Lorna shrugged. “I think that’s very common among abused children. They don’t fight their abuser. Whether they think they deserve to be treated that way, I don’t know. And I think it’s too deep a subject for us to resolve in this conversation.”

“But you have to agree, it could have happened that way.”

“Yes, it could have happened that way. If it did, let’s find out.”

“So you hired a PI? That may be a good thing. I think everyone wants to know what really happened.” He got a cappuccino from the machine. “Have you tried this? It’s pretty good.”

She shook her head. “I like my coffee straight.”

“Well, I’ll be interested in hearing what your guy finds out. If you’re willing to share, that is.”

“He’s not my guy yet. I haven’t officially hired him. I was still thinking it over, but now, with this latest find, I’ll go ahead with it. And as far as sharing information is concerned, it’s all going to come out, sooner or later. Either now or at Mrs. Eagan’s trial.”

“Well, if you need anything, anything at all, you give me a buzz, hear?”

“I will. And say, your backyard looks gorgeous. I can’t believe you still have so many roses blooming, this late in the summer.”

“Yeah, how ’bout it?” He beamed proudly. “I’ve spent a lot of time out there, watering, battling the Japanese beetles, black spot, mildew, aphids, you name it. But Mom always managed to keep the roses going right into the fall, so I feel obligated to do the same.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job.”

“Thanks. I’ll bring you some one of these days.”

She started up to the cash register and he waved her away.

“I told you, it’s on the house.”

“Just for today.”

“We’ll see.” He squeezed her arm. “Great to see you, Lorna.”

“Good to see you, too, Fritz.”

He held the door open for her and she walked out just in time to see the county ME’s car go by.

She drove back to the farm, hoping that the remains would be identified soon. If the bones were bare, no tissue left on them, it could be some time before they knew the identity of the second person buried in the Palmers’ field.

Or Palmers Woods, as the sign pronounced.

The person could even be a few hundred years old, she rationalized. There had been skirmishes here during the American Revolution. Or perhaps it was a Native American. There were settlements all along the river, and every child who grew up in Callen knew that the road that wound past the farm and through town had once led to the old Baltimore Pike. Or the body they’d found in the field that morning could have been a traveler who took ill and died along the wayside. Whoever had found him could have buried him right then and there, depending on the circumstances. Sure, it could have happened that way, she told herself as she dug into her nutritious breakfast of coffee and a napoleon, which she was happy to discover lived up to its hype.

It could be coincidental that the remains just happened to have been buried in the same field as Jason Eagan, maybe hundreds of years apart. A lot of things must have been buried in these fields over the centuries. Best not to jump to conclusions.

She tried to hold that thought as she climbed the ladder to the old hayloft and watched out the barn window. A small crowd of police officers, rescue-squad members, and county personnel hovered around the site. It didn’t take her long to figure out that sitting there wasn’t going to get her anything except hot and irritated. The temperature in the loft was at least ten degrees higher than it was in the house. There was absolutely nothing to be gained by staying there. She wasn’t going to see a thing. Better to use the time constructively.

She glanced at her watch. It was almost nine. Time to go to work, anyway. She climbed down the ladder, startling the cats who’d ventured out to peer at her. She closed the barn door behind her and went back to the house.

Her cell phone was ringing but she couldn’t remember where she’d left it. By the time she recalled it was in her handbag, the ringing had stopped. She checked the screen, but the number was private.

She grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and turned on her computer. She’d started the billings for the Cut ’n Curl yesterday, and had promised the owner of the hair salon she’d have them to him by noon today. Like most salons, Cut ’n Curl was closed on Mondays, but the owner went in to catch up on paperwork and restock inventory.

At eleven-forty she called her client to let him know the file was on its way. The machine answered and Lorna left a message. She hung up and forwarded the work via email. He emailed back his thanks, with a reminder that she was overdue for a cut.

She stretched and decided a break was in order, and that the best use of the break would be to call Andrea and Rob and let them know what was going on. Besides, the chief had asked her to. If either of them had any recollections that could help his investigation, maybe he’d forgive her PI—and therefore her—for that fax from the FBI.

That reminded her that she still had to call T.J. and talk to him about his fee and about how much investigation she would have him do.