Hard Truth

by Mariah Stewart

  She paused to take a long drink from the bottle, then asked, “How about you? City boy? Small town?”

  “Small New Jersey town near the bay.”

  “Beach town?”

  “Actually, it’s an old seaport town.” He stopped at the top of the ridge and looked over his shoulder. She’d fallen a few steps behind, and he waited for her to catch up before asking, “I’m assuming that’s where they found him? Where the yellow caution tape is on the ground?”

  “I’ll bet the local kids just couldn’t resist coming up here to look at that hole in the ground,” she grumbled as she passed him and kept walking straight ahead.

  “Any of those houses occupied?” He caught up with her easily.

  “I don’t think so. I did hear that one of them was sold, the white one there on the corner. Not sure about the others. The brick one is the sample house for the development.”

  They stepped around the lot markers on their way to the makeshift grave that had recently held the remains of Jason Eagan.

  “I guess the police department has closed down construction for a few days.”

  “I would expect that they did. I saw a few police cars out here this morning. I was wondering if they were looking for Melinda. For her grave, I mean.” Lorna stood with her hands on her hips, about ten feet away from the excavation where Jason had been found.

  T.J. walked to the edge of the excavation, then knelt on one knee. He studied the hole in the ground for a long moment, leaning forward to get a better look. Finally, he asked, “Did the police dig down beneath the remains, do you know?”

  “No, I don’t. Why?”

  “Because if the killer dug the hole to this depth, I’m guessing he-or she-was pretty strong physically. There appears to be considerable rock once you get past the top layer of soil.” He looked over his shoulder to where she stood, and asked, “Is Mrs. Eagan a large woman?”

  “Mrs. Eagan? She’s shorter than I am and probably weighs about half what I weigh. She’s always been thin and on the frail side. She’s a recovering alcoholic, apparently at one time a heavy smoker. Even twenty-five years ago, she was pretty thin. Pale.” She walked to the excavation and looked down. “I see where you’re going. If the killer dug this hole, chances are, the killer was not Billie Eagan.”

  “So that’s one thing in her favor.” He stood up. “When do you suppose she’ll be getting out?”

  “I think she’ll be out today or tomorrow. Do you want to speak with her?”

  “I do. I think we need to hear her side of the story and make certain she’s agreeable to working with us. Do you know where she lives? So you can get in touch with her?”

  “She lives right over there, behind the vineyard.” Lorna pointed off to the left.

  “Think we could walk over and take a look?”

  “I don’t see why not.” She glanced back at the hole in the ground where they’d found Jason Eagan. As she had when she heard his bones had been discovered, Lorna reflected that she’d never liked Jason. That he was mean to Mellie and to her, and had a foul mouth. She couldn’t remember he’d ever had a nice word for his little sister. Still, she wouldn’t have wished this on him. “You ready?”

  “Yeah, I’m finished here.” He fell into step with her.

  “Those are Uncle Will’s vineyards,” she told him as they headed toward the overgrown maze.

  “Was he a winemaker?”

  “No, but he wanted to be. If he’d lived, he would have been.” She told him the story as they walked the distance to Billie’s cottage.

  She had just finished the story-“Unfortunately, the trellises were taken over by weeds and the vines all choked out”-when they came to the back of the small cottage. T.J. pointed to the last few rows of vines, which were obviously alive and doing just fine.

  “Not quite all choked out.”

  “I can’t believe it.” She stared at the vines that twisted gently over the T-shaped structures. “How could they have survived all these years?”

  “Someone’s been taking care of them.”

  “It must have been Billie.” Lorna shook her head. “I wonder what she’s been doing with the grapes.”

  The irony of a recovering alcoholic tending grapes that would be made into wine was not lost on Lorna.

  T.J. picked a small bunch of grapes and popped a couple into his mouth.

  “These are great,” he said, nodding. “Nice flavor.”

  “Those have to be some of the vines Uncle Will brought back from France.”

  “I’ll bet they made some delicious wine.”

  “Well, they probably did in France. He never got to make any here.” She pointed to the house. “What were you planning on doing here? Peeking through the windows?”

  “For starters.” He walked through the backyard, around to the front, and up the one step to the tiny porch, eating the rest of the grapes along the way. When Lorna came around the corner, he was standing on the scruffy front lawn, looking from the road to the porch.

  “No neighbors close by, no streetlights. When Jason’s friend dropped him off, he would have gotten out of the car out there, on the side of the road.”

  “Oh, the Eagans weren’t living here then. They lived down the road a bit.” She pointed off to the left. “We used to go through the back field as a shortcut. That would only take about ten minutes.”

  Lorna held a hand up to her forehead to block the sun’s glare. “That’s the way she went home from my house, that night. Through the field.”

  “Anyone else use it as a shortcut?”

  “Just about every kid in town. We stopped planting to the end of the property line because whatever crop went in got trampled. If it wasn’t the kids, it was the deer. After awhile we stopped planting about five to eight feet from the edge.”

  “Could we walk back that way?”

  “Sure. Are you done here?” She nodded in the direction of the cottage.

  “For now. I’ll want to come back and speak with Billie once she’s released. At the moment, though, I’d rather see the house they used to live in.”

  She stumbled slightly on some rocks and rolled her eyes at her clumsiness. Way to impress the hot guy, she told herself. Story of my life.

  “It’s cooler over along the tree line,” she told him as she headed for the shade. Her shirt was sticking to the area between her shoulder blades and perspiration was pooling at the waistband of her shorts. T.J., on the other hand, was barely breaking a sweat. By the time they reached the back of the house where the Eagans used to live, her hair was wet and stringy. This is not a good look for anyone, she told herself as she polished off her bottle of water.

  “Do you know who’s living here now?” T.J. asked.

  “No. No clue.”

  “Let’s walk around to the front.”

  He was already on his way, so she followed him along the fence. They reached the road that ran past the house, and he crossed it to take a look at the property from that angle.

  “Is this the way the house looked twenty-five years ago?”

  “It’s been painted a few times since then, but if you’re asking me if the front door was over there,” she pointed to the front of the house, which actually faced sideways on the lot, “then yes, it looks the same. The front of the house and the porch were always facing the side of the property.”

  “And that rise was always there, on this side of the house?”

  “Yes, there used to be shrubs growing along it.”

  “So cars would have stopped out here, along the road?”

  “Yes. There’s no real driveway, as you can see. There never has been one. Mrs. Eagan didn’t have a car, but times when my mother would bring Melinda home from something, or pick me up if I’d been playing here, she pulled along the other side of the house, where the rise slopes to almost nothing.” Lorna pointed to the opposite side from where they’d been looking. “She’d park there, between the house and the fence.”

  “Well, as I see i
t, unless Jason’s friend got out of the car and walked him to the door, there’s no way he could have seen over the rise, or past the house if he parked where your mom did. The front door is on a side of the house that faces away from the road, from any space to park. How could he have seen where Jason went once he got out of the car?” T.J. stood with his hands on his hips.

  “Good question. But what difference does it make? Remember, Billie admitted she and Jason argued after he got home, admitted that the argument got violent. What difference does it make whether or not Dustin Lafferty-that was the boy who was driving that night-could see whether Jason went into the house?”

  “It’s a minor point, I agree. But it just makes you wonder, if he lied about that, what else did he lie about?”

  7

  Lorna was still asking herself that same question-if Dustin Lafferty lied about having seen Jason go into the house that night, what else had he lied about, and why-later that afternoon as she turned into Veronica Hammond’s driveway and parked her car. T.J. had left shortly after they’d walked back to the farmhouse, after he’d given Lorna his card with several phone numbers and the suggestion that she give him a call the next day after she’d had time to think things over.

  She still wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed that with every hour that passed, she had more and more questions, and fewer answers. She was hoping that Mrs. Hammond, as an old friend of the family, might be able to shed some light on the situation.

  “Lorna, for heaven’s sake, walk a little faster and get out of this heat.” Veronica Hammond stood in the open doorway, looking as tall and formidable as she did when Lorna was a child. Neither her hair, which was now snow white, nor her cane diminished her presence. “Can’t remember the last time we had so many hot days in a row like this, can you?”

  “It is pretty hot.” Lorna greeted the older woman with a hug, then stepped inside. Mrs. Hammond quickly closed the door behind her. “Hey, when did you get central air?”

  “Summer before last.” Mrs. Hammond led her into the living room. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d held out all those years, thinking I didn’t want to shell out the money, then remembered how old I was and that I wasn’t going to be able to take any of it with me, so I said, ‘What the hell,’ and called Sears. They did a nice job.”

  “It feels so good in here. The farmhouse is stifling.”

  The room was just as Lorna remembered it, all the same furniture placed in exactly the same spot where it had stood thirty years ago. Iron plant stands, dripping with enormous Christmas cactus and African violets in heavy bloom, stood in front of every window, and the end tables held stacks of books. Even Mrs. Hammond’s old sewing basket sat in the same place next to her favorite chair.

  “Well, if it gets too bad, you can always come down here and spend the night. I have extra rooms.” Mrs. Hammond plopped herself into her favorite chair and pointed to the sofa, where Lorna assumed she was supposed to sit. “Johnny’s here for a while, not sure how long this time.”

  “Your grandson?”

  Mrs. Hammond nodded. “My son Charlie’s boy. I swear, I don’t know what’s wrong with Johnny. Can’t stay married to save his soul. He’s on his third wife, and she just tossed him out.” She shook her head in disgust. “Not sure what the problem is-not sure, frankly, that I want to know-but every time a wife kicks him out, he ends up here.”

  Lorna, for her part, didn’t quite know what to say. Offer sympathy? Make some banal remark? She decided to let it pass altogether.

  “So, you’re back in Callen. It’s wonderful to see you, Lorna.” Mrs. Hammond leaned over to pat her hand. “I do miss your mother. She was such a darling girl, all her life. It seems like only yesterday Alice was dressing her up and showing her off…”

  She sighed deeply.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that she’s gone, Lorna.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hammond. And thank you for the lovely card you sent. My sister and brother and I all appreciated your kind words.”

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Rob hadn’t bothered to read any of the cards, but why get into that?

  Mrs. Hammond nodded again, acknowledging Lorna’s thanks. “How long will you be staying? And what are you planning to do with the old place? And please tell me what you were thinking when you offered to post bail for Billie Eagan.”

  Lorna almost laughed out loud. Mrs. Hammond definitely had her priorities.

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here. We have pretty much agreed to sell off the property, as much as we all hate the idea. None of us can afford to buy out the others right now, and we’ve all established ourselves elsewhere. So selling makes the most sense. I don’t know what else to do with it. It hasn’t been an easy decision, I assure you. That farm has been Palmer land since the eighteen hundreds, as I’m sure you know. We just don’t have many options.”

  “Have you contacted a Realtor yet?”

  “No. I was putting that off. I’ve only been here since Sunday, and I think I’d like a little time to unwind. Between my mother’s illness and getting my business off the ground, it’s been a tough few years for me. I want to take my time, and make sure that whatever decisions I make now are the right ones.”

  “That’s smart of you.” Mrs. Hammond was nodding that head of white hair, and once again patting Lorna’s hand. “Don’t rush into anything you’ll regret. Once the farm is sold, it will be gone forever. You’re wise to take your time.”

  “Well, I don’t have all that much time. I do want to get back to Woodboro. My business is there, my friends…” Lorna was getting tired of the same old explanation. “In any event, I’ll need to go through the house, see who wants what, that sort of thing.”

  “It’ll take you forever,” Mrs. Hammond said bluntly. “Your grandmother was a collector. You’re going to have to get people in who know what they’re looking at, or you’ll get robbed.”

  “I promise, I’ll check out the reputation of every dealer who passes through the front door.”

  “Your grandmother would appreciate that, I’m sure. She did have some lovely things.”

  Lorna was about to respond, when Mrs. Hammond leaned forward and tapped her on the left arm. “Now, about Billie Eagan’s bail. Not that it’s any of my business, of course…”

  “I did offer to put up her bail, and I spoke with the attorney who was appointed to defend her. He didn’t seem to be too interested, frankly, so I-”

  “Overworked, they all are. Too many cases, too little time to prepare. I watch all those law shows on TV, I know what’s going on.”

  “I’m sure overwork has something to do with it. But it seems to me that everyone has basically decided that Billie’s guilty.”

  “Pretty much everyone has,” Mrs. Hammond agreed, as if Billie’s guilt was a given. Lorna decided to let it slide. She wasn’t about to go toe-to-toe with an eighty-something-year-old woman.

  “Mrs. Hammond, did you see my mother very often before she got sick and came to live with me?”

  “Oh, yes. At least once a week. She stopped by on her way to the supermarket, to see if I needed anything, bless her heart. And she always checked to see if I had my heart medication, or if I needed a ride someplace. She was very thoughtful that way, you know. She looked out for everyone, it seems.”

  “Do you know if she had much of a relationship with Billie Eagan?”

  “Well, I can tell you that after Billie was evicted from that house she’d been living in, and rambled about for a while, Mary Beth moved her into the cottage out there on the farm. So I guess she was her landlord. Not that Billie paid much in rent, but that was between her and Mary Beth.” She shook her head and said, “You know, once your mother got something into her head, that was that. And she never asked me for my opinion, but if she had, I would have told her-”

  “Do you know if they were friends?” Lorna interrupted, trying to steer the conversation back on track. She had a feeling she knew what Mrs. Hammond would have tol
d Mary Beth.

  “Friends?” Mrs. Hammond appeared to consider it. “I don’t know that you couldn’t call them friends, as unlikely as it was, Mary Beth being as sweet as she was, and Billie being the ornery little piece of work that she was. I do know that Mary Beth shopped for Billie’s groceries and took Billie to her doctors when she had no other transportation. She did a lot for Billie, but Billie wasn’t the only one she helped.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “Well, like I said, she picked up things at the store for me, mailed packages if I needed it. Even went to the library to get books for me. She did the same for two others I know of.” Mrs. Hammond tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. “But friends? I don’t know if I want to call it friendship. I can’t imagine why your mother would even want to be her friend. Though I do know Mary Beth was defensive where Billie was concerned.”

  “In what way?”

  “Always reminding people how hard Billie had had things, how her husband up and left her for that young girl who worked in the flower shop. How Billie had two small kids to raise by the time she was twenty.” Mrs. Hammond’s head bobbed up and down. “I even asked her, ‘Why would you want to be friends with a woman who treated her kids so bad, Mary Beth? How can you overlook all she did to those children?’ ”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said Billie’d spent the last twenty-odd years paying for what she’d done, that losing her kids should be punishment enough, and that she wasn’t about to judge someone else’s past.” Mrs. Hammond paused, then added, “And she said that she felt somewhat responsible for what those kids went through. Said she had wondered about bruises she’d seen on Melinda, and had been tempted to ask, but never had. She said maybe if she’d done something back when it might have mattered, things could have turned out differently for all of the Eagans.”