Hard Truth

by Mariah Stewart

  Hard Truth

  Mariah Stewart

  TELL THE TRUTH AND SHAME THE DEVIL

  Two children who mysteriously disappeared twenty-one years ago are the last thing on Lorna Temple’s mind when she returns to her Pennsylvania hometown to sell the old family property in the wake of her parents’ passing. But instead of memories, the fields where Lorna grew up yield something utterly chilling.

  All those years ago, when nine-year-old Melinda Eagan vanished on her birthday, her foulmouthed older brother, Jason, quickly became the lone suspect. Yet when he went missing, too, the case turned cold. But Jason, it seems, never got far: His bones have been moldering on the Temples ‘ land for two decades. As far as the local police are concerned, the book is closed on Melinda’s murder-and Jason’s death is justice served. But Lorna refuses to let the dead rest uneasily. She turns to private eye T. J. Dawson to dig up the dirt of the past and see what lies beneath. Only there’s someone out there who hasn’t forgotten-and who won’t be the least bit forgiving about being exposed as a killer.

  In matters of crime, there are many versions of the truth.

  Mariah Stewart

  Hard Truth

  The second book in the Truth series, 2005

  For Carole, who left us way too soon.

  I think of you and miss you every day—

  love you still.

  Three things cannot be long hidden:

  the sun, the moon, and the truth.

  – SIDDHARTHA

  With much gratitude to Nicole Morley, Esq., Assistant District Attorney, Chester County, Pennsylvania, who cheerfully let me pester her;

  and

  District Justice Christopher R. Mattox, Esq., Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, who freely offered his wealth of judicial wisdom and legal expertise, thereby saving me from looking extremely foolish.

  It goes without saying that any and all goofs are mine.

  Prologue

  Callen, Pennsylvania

  October 9, 1980

  “I thought your mother said you weren’t allowed to wear that dress until your birthday party.” Nine-year-old Lorna Stiles watched her friend Melinda slip the pretty yellow-and-white dress over her head.

  “She did, but today is my birthday, and I want to wear it.” Melinda struggled to zip up the back of the dress before turning her back to Lorna. “Here. See if you can get it.”

  “You’re just trying it on, though, right? To show me?” Lorna persisted even as she fastened the dress. She knew Melinda’s mother had a hot temper. Nothing provoked her more than having Melinda do what she was specifically told not to do.

  “I’m going to wear it to your house. It’s sort of like a party, right?” Melinda twirled in front of the mirror.

  “Just birthday cake that my mom made for you. It’s not really a party, Mel. Maybe you shouldn’t-”

  “I like it. I’m going to wear it. What good is having a pretty dress if you can only wear it one time?”

  “You can wear it again after your birthday.” Lorna paused, then lowered her voice, as if afraid of being overheard. “You know what your mom will do if she finds out, Mellie.”

  “She won’t find out.” Melinda pulled a brown paper bag from under her bed, and stuffed her play clothes in. “See? I’ll change before I come home, and I’ll put the dress in the bag. You can help me fold it real good, and she’ll never know.”

  Melinda beamed, pleased with her plan.

  “Come on, Lori,” she said, calling her friend by her nickname, and tugging on her hand. “Let’s go. I can’t wait to see my cake! Did your mom get candles, too?”

  “I think so.” Lorna nodded glumly, an uneasy feeling spreading through her insides. In the experiences of her short life, she’d discovered that truth always outs. If Melinda wasn’t afraid of her mother, Lorna was, not for herself, but for what Billie Eagan would do to her daughter.

  The last time Melinda had disobeyed her mother, she’d lost three days of school. Oh, she’d never told Lorna exactly what her mother had done to punish her, but Lorna had seen the bruises on her friend’s arms and legs.

  Once, when Mellie’s long sleeves had ridden up to display the fresh welts on her arms, Lorna had suggested gently that she tell someone. But Melinda had quickly pulled the sleeves down and asked, “Tell someone what?” with that defiant look she got sometimes, and Lorna had let it go. When Lorna had mentioned to her own mother that sometimes Melinda’s mom might be a little strict-without mentioning the bruises-her mom said that the Eagans had had things tough since Mellie’s father ran off with that woman from the flower shop and Mrs. Eagan had to work two jobs just to keep food on the table for her two kids and a roof over their heads.

  “And God knows she has her hands full with that boy of hers.” Mary Beth Stiles had shaken her blond head. “You’d think at fourteen he’d understand the situation his mother is in and try to give her a hand, instead of causing more problems for her. He’s old enough to help her out once in a while.”

  “Jason’s mean, Mom,” Lorna had told her mother. “He is just plain mean. He’s mean to Mel and he’s mean to me.”

  “He hasn’t ever done anything to you, has he?” Her father, who’d been half listening while he skimmed the headlines, put the newspaper down.

  “No, he just gives us dirty looks and talks mean to us. He’s never done anything bad,” Lorna denied. Unless you call talking dirty to us and chasing us with snakes-really big snakes-doing something to me.

  Of course, he hadn’t done the snake thing in a while. Now he mostly stared. It had gotten so she almost hated to go to the Eagans’, because if Jason was there, he’d stare at her and Mellie and it scared the daylights out of her and she didn’t know why.

  Lorna never told her parents how scary she thought Jason was. There was something about him that gave her the creeps, more and more, something she didn’t have words to explain. All she knew was that the older he got, the creepier he got. She and Melinda never discussed it, but she knew that Jason rattled his sister even more than he rattled her.

  “Let’s go, Lori. If we don’t go now, my brother will be home and he’ll tell Mom about the dress. Besides, I can’t wait for cake.” Melinda turned the light off in her room and ran down the steps, the yellow skirt of her party dress billowing around her legs.

  Lorna followed behind, happy to leave the dark little house and the threat of Jason’s imminent arrival behind her.

  “Let’s take the shortcut through the field.” Melinda ran toward the wheat field that ran behind her house, and started along the side where the ground had been plowed but not planted.

  “It’s too muddy,” Lorna protested. “We’ll get our shoes all dirty.”

  “We’ll clean them when we get to your house. Come on.” Melinda took off, and Lorna followed, trying her best to avoid the ruts the plow had made when it turned around. This morning’s rain had left little puddles here and there, and she knew her mother would not be pleased if she came home with her new sneakers all mud-stained.

  They were halfway across the field to Lorna’s, when somehow Melinda slipped and went down on her knees.

  “I knew it, I knew something was going to happen…” Lorna gasped. “My grandmother says every time you do what you know you’re not supposed to do, you get-”

  “Shut up.” Melinda pulled herself up and looked down with horror at the front of her dress, where brown smears marked the places where her knees had hit the ground. “Oh, shit. Look at my dress. Look at my dress.”

  “You’re not supposed to say curse words.”

  Melinda spun around and looked at Lorna with wide eyes.

  “What the hell do you think I should say?” Her hands were beginning to shake. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  Her
bravado crumbling, Melinda began to cry.

  “She’s gonna kill me. She’s gonna beat me but good.”

  “Okay, look, my mom is home, she’ll know what to do.” Lorna took Melinda by the hand and started to pull her along. “The longer we stand here talking about it, the harder it’s going to be to get the mud out. Come on, Mellie, let’s run.”

  She tugged on Melinda’s hand.

  “You don’t understand, Lori, she’s gonna really hurt me.” Melinda’s voice was filled with true fear.

  “Not if she doesn’t know. Come on.”

  Lorna dragged Melinda along the bumpy field until they reached the Stiles’ property. They ran around the back of the barn and across the yard and straight up the back steps.

  “Mom! Mom!” Lorna called from the door.

  “Lorna?” Her mother came out of the kitchen and saw the two girls panting, Melinda muddy and obviously in distress. “What on earth-”

  “Mellie fell in the field, we have to get her dress cleaned before she goes home. She wasn’t supposed to wear it, but today’s her birthday and…” Lorna gasped.

  “Slow down,” her mother demanded. “Mellie, let me take a look at that dress.”

  Mary Beth knelt down in front of Melinda and studied the muddy mess. She looked up at the crying child and said, “I think I can get it all out, but if it’s going to be dry in time for you to take it home with you, we have to hurry. Your mother didn’t want you to wear this today?”

  Melinda nodded tearfully.

  “Go on into the laundry room and take it off. Lori, run upstairs and get Mel something to put on.”

  “I have stuff.” Melinda held up the bag.

  “Then go change and give me the dress. Let me see what I can do. And in the meantime, I want you to stop crying, wash your face and hands, and get ready to blow out the candles on that birthday cake, okay?”

  Melinda had nodded gratefully, the tears beginning to dry.

  “Lorna, go find the matches so we can light the candles. The cake is in the dining room,” Mary Beth whispered after Melinda disappeared into the laundry room.

  “Mom,” Lorna whispered back, “do you think you can get the dress cleaned up in time?”

  “I’m pretty sure I can. Why was she wearing it, if getting it dirty was going to be such a big deal?”

  “I think it’s because it’s her birthday dress and today is her birthday. You can do it, can’t you, Mom?”

  “I’ll give it my best. Now go get the ice cream out of the freezer. I’ll be in to light the candles in a few minutes.”

  Melinda had blown out all ten candles-nine for her years, and one to grow on-with one big breath.

  “My wish will come true now.” She smiled at Lorna. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  Mary Beth cut the cake and served the girls ice cream-cherry vanilla, Melinda’s favorite-then disappeared back into the laundry room. When five o’clock came and Melinda had to leave, Mary Beth handed her the dress, all clean and pressed, looking as good as new.

  “Mrs. Stiles, you did it. You did it!” Melinda squealed and jumped up and down, clapping her hands, her smile lighting the room. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, the next time your mother says not to wear the dress, do us all a favor and don’t wear the dress,” Mary Beth said as she handed her a bag holding leftover cake. “This is for your mother and brother. And there’s a little extra for you, for a snack.”

  “Mrs. Stiles, you’re the best.” Melinda hesitated, then threw her arms around Mary Beth’s neck, and shared a whispered secret. “My wish came true. Thank you.”

  A rudely loud knock on the back door startled them all.

  Lorna opened it to find Jason’s dark eyes staring at her.

  “My mom wants Mel to come home now.”

  “I’ll drive her, Jason, and you, too,” Mary Beth offered, looking for her keys. “It’s starting to get dark.”

  “My mom said for me to walk her.” Jason looked beyond Mary Beth to where Melinda stood. “Come on, Mel. Now.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Stiles, for everything.” Melinda’s voice held a solemnity beyond her years. The smiles were gone, the happy glow had disappeared. She ran out the back door, a bag in each hand, calling over her shoulder to Lorna, “Thank you, Lorna. That was the best birthday ever.”

  Lorna waved good-bye from the back porch.

  It was the last time she ever saw Melinda.

  1

  Callen, Pennsylvania

  August 2005

  The two-lane road meandered languidly through a countryside alive with the colors of late summer. The sun was still uncomfortably hot at four in the afternoon, hot enough that the jacket Lorna Stiles had worn when she set out that morning from Woodboro-forty miles south of Pittsburgh -had long since been removed and tossed into the backseat. At some point while traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike, it had slid onto the floor behind the driver’s seat, but Lorna had failed to notice. There’d been plenty to think about during the drive east across the state, to her hometown of Callen. A soiled jacket was the least of her worries.

  Change had been slow to come in this southernmost tip of eastern Pennsylvania, where Amish and Mennonite farms were interspersed with pricey new housing developments. The one gas station in town was now pump-your-own and was attached to a convenience store, but the stores in the little strip mall on the corner still remained closed on Sundays. While the facades remained the same, the once ramshackle old house on the opposite corner-boarded up as little as three years ago-now housed a day spa and a boutique, while its counterpart across the street had been spiffed up and turned into apartments, with the first floor converted into a bakery and coffee shop. And most noticeably, a housing development was growing in a field where corn once grew a half mile from the intersection that served as the center of town.

  A sign of the times. Lorna sighed, and wondered how many other farmers had been approached by developers who wielded huge sums of cash, much more than the farms were pulling in from crops these days. Hadn’t her own mother sold off thirty acres of their land sixteen months ago to pay her medical bills?

  A horn sounded behind her, urging her to make up her mind. Turn or go straight.

  Lorna went straight, then pulled to the side of the road, waving the impatient driver behind her to go on his merry way. She sat for a moment and read the names on the mailboxes: Hammond, Taylor, Keeler. All names she knew well.

  Veronica Hammond had been best friends with Lorna’s grandmother, Alice Palmer, and would be in her eighties now. Corrie Taylor had been one of Lorna’s field hockey teammates, and Mike Keeler had been her first love. His brother, Fritz, had taught her how to drive a pickup. Over the past month, she’d received a card or letter from each of the families, following the death of her mother.

  Mrs. Hammond, in particular, had written a touching note, remembering Lorna’s mother as a young girl. “She was a lovely child, your mother was. I can still see her chasing the baby rabbits in your grandmother’s garden, holding out lettuce leaves, hoping to entice them closer. How disappointed Mary Beth would be when they ran from her-she’d only wanted to play. She was certainly Alice ’s pride and joy…”

  Making a mental note to pay a visit to the Hammond home before she left Callen for good, Lorna checked her mirrors for traffic before pulling out onto the road again. She drove another three-quarters of a mile, then slowed, her turn signal clicking away as she made a right into the wide drive.

  The red brick house she’d grown up in never changed, for all of its one hundred fifty-plus years. The door was painted dark green, the shutters black. The magnolia tree she’d climbed as a child still stood in the backyard, though a lightning strike two years ago had resulted in an ugly split down the middle. Her mother would have had the tree taken down had her focus not been on other things. Like putting up a fierce fight against the disease that, in the end, took her in spite of her bravado and her most valiant efforts.

&
nbsp; Lorna parked under the magnolia and looked through the open windows to the fields beyond the barn, which long ago had been painted white but now was weathered to a pale gray. The parcel of land her mother had sold to the developer sat at the far end of the property, so the new homes would not be visible from the farmhouse, except from the second or third floors. She wondered how many homes were being built on the land where several generations of Palmer farmers had planted every spring and harvested every fall. Maybe tomorrow she’d take a walk across the back field and see just what was what.

  Her last correspondence from anyone in Callen who’d mentioned the development was a short note from Gene Enderle, who graduated from the local regional high school a few years before Lorna. He’d written her hoping she could do something to override her mother’s decision to sell the land, citing everything from concern for the wetlands to the potential for overcrowding and too many cars clogging the local roads. Lorna had called him after receiving his note, a call that had left her with the distinct impression that Gene just didn’t like change in general, and change in and around Callen in particular. Some people didn’t, but she’d been surprised to find that sort of resistance in someone so young.

  Lorna was well aware that if circumstances had been different, none of the Palmer farm would have been sold. If her father hadn’t died of that heart attack eighteen years ago, for example, leaving her mother to raise and educate three kids alone. As it was, with her mother’s expenses already in excess of her insurance to the tune of one hundred thirty thousand dollars, the family really hadn’t had much choice. It was sell off some land, or her mother went without the radiation and chemotherapy her doctors had recommended.

  Put in that context, no discussion had been necessary among Mary Beth’s children, other than how much land to sell off at any given time. Lorna’s younger sister, Andrea, married, the mother of two young children-she was now expecting her third-and living in Oklahoma, had left it all up to Lorna. Rob, the youngest and only boy, an aspiring actor who had left for Los Angeles the day he turned eighteen and had never come back, hadn’t bothered to respond to the several messages Lorna had left on his answering machine, which really hadn’t surprised her at all, though he’d had plenty to say about it when he came home for the small, private memorial. Once he found out how much the land could be worth, that is.