“I’ll be right over,” Tom said. “You can fill me in when I get there.”
***
Tom drove up the curving, tree-lined driveway and into the parking circle outside Ben’s front door. A coal company executive had built the stately brick Georgian-style house at a time when coal was still a booming industry in the area. The man’s widow lived out her life there. When Ben wanted a quiet refuge from fame and people with outstretched hands, he followed Rachel, a childhood friend, to the mountains and bought the house and ten surrounding acres—paying for it in full up front, Tom had heard.
Ben stood on the stone steps, his face grim. When Tom climbed out of the cruiser, Ben said, “I thought I had a state-of-the-art security system. Whoever got inside knew what he was doing. Even the damned cameras were turned off.”
Following Ben’s gesture, Tom glanced up at a tiny lens over the door lintel that he wouldn’t have spotted without direction. Hern opened the front door and led them in. “I’m relieved he didn’t hurt my dog and cat.”
The pets in question sat side by side in the foyer. Hamilton, the gray Maine Coon cat, was as big as the dachshund, Sebastian. Tom patted Sebastian and rubbed his knuckles against Hamilton’s head. The dog had always been friendly, but Tom had visited several times with Rachel before the cat allowed him to get close.
“This is starting to sound like the same guy who got into the vet clinic,” Tom said. “But why would anybody think Shelley left something in your house?”
“Like I said, she used my computer when she needed to do research. Her family doesn’t have an Internet connection at home. And in case you’re wondering, Angie was always here when Shelley came over. I was usually upstairs in my studio and didn’t even see Shelley except when she stuck her head in to say hello and goodbye.”
Tom scanned the living room off the foyer on the right. “Everything looks okay. They didn’t exactly trash the place.”
“No, that’s the creepy part.” Ben gestured for Tom and Brandon to follow him down the hall. “A straightforward break-in and robbery, that’s one thing. But this was something else. I was surprised the alarm was off when I got home—I always set it when I leave the house—but nothing seemed to be missing or out of place, so I thought maybe I’d forgotten to do it for once. I didn’t know for sure somebody had been here until I saw my office.”
Tom followed him to the office, across from the kitchen at the rear of the house. Ben stood back while Tom studied the room from the threshold. The desk drawers were closed, the few papers on the desktop next to the computer lay in a neat stack. Small sofa, coffee table, book-filled shelves—all of it looked to be in order. “What made you think somebody was in here?”
“My computer was on, for one thing.” Ben edged past Tom into the room, walked to the desk and rolled the trackball with one fingertip. The black screen sprang to life in brilliant color. “I never leave it on. I haven’t even used it since yesterday, and I turned it off then.”
“Okay, come on out and don’t touch anything else.” Tom wasn’t persuaded that Ben had turned off his computer and an intruder had been there using it, any more than he was convinced that Ben always set the alarm. People often made firm statements about their habits that proved to be exaggerations. “Why do you think this has something to do with Shelley?”
“That drawer on the bottom was standing open a few inches.” From the doorway. Ben pointed at the lower right desk drawer. “I closed it without thinking after I found it open. I’m sorry, it was just a reflex. Anyway, that’s the drawer I let Shelley use.”
And why the hell haven’t I heard about this before? Tom pulled latex gloves from his back pants pocket and drew them on. “What did she leave here? Is it all missing?”
“I gave everything she left behind to her parents.”
“When?”
“A couple of weeks ago. I tried to believe she’d turn up okay, but after two or three weeks, I was giving up hope. I thought her parents would want her stuff.”
It wasn’t likely, Tom thought, that the super-secretive and careful Shelley Beecher had stored anything of value in a drawer at Hern’s house. But he would go see the Beechers after he left here and find out what Ben had turned over to them.
“You know,” Ben said, “the computer being on, the drawer being open—I wonder if he, whoever it was, if he was still in here when I got home. He probably would have turned the alarm back on if he’d had the chance. Maybe I interrupted him, and he got out through the back.”
“That’s a pretty good assumption,” Tom said. “By the way, where’s Angie? Wouldn’t she normally be here this time of day?” Angie Hogancamp served as Ben’s secretary and general assistant.
“She hasn’t been in today. Her mother and father both have the flu.”
Tom slid the bottom drawer open. Empty. “I’ll get somebody over here to take prints.” Maybe this guy was sloppier than Michelle’s stalker and had left something of himself behind.
***
Tom drove directly from Ben’s place to the Beecher family’s house. When he pulled into the driveway, Megan stood on the lawn, tossing a ball for Scout. The dog did all the playing, charging after the ball, pouncing on it, racing back to drop it at Megan’s feet and look up at her with a panting, wide-eyed appeal for another round. After tossing the ball again, Megan turned toward Tom, her pretty young face solemn.
Tom didn’t want her to think he had come with news, so he said quickly, “I just need to ask your mother something.”
“About what?” Sarah spoke from behind the screen door. When Tom mounted the steps, she pushed the door open to let him enter. “What do you need to know now?”
Inside the house, Tom said, “Ben Hern told me Shelley left some research material at his house, and he gave it to you and Dan. I’d like to see it. I don’t know that it can help us, but I want to make sure I don’t miss anything.”
Sarah’s weary sigh made Tom wonder how close she was to breaking. The slightest request, the simplest effort, could be the final weight that would crush her fragile heart and mind. Without speaking, she began climbing the stairs. Tom followed, keeping pace with her laborious steps, pausing when she needed to stop for a few seconds.
She opened the door to the room Shelley and Megan had shared. Blue walls, fluffy throw rugs over sisal carpet. Four black and white stuffed panda toys sat on shelves among books. An ancient computer with a bulky CRT monitor occupied a wooden desk. The machine looked barely adequate for typing school papers. After Shelley disappeared, Tom had thought Shelley’s Internet and e-mail activity might yield clues to a stalker or to men in her life, but the Beechers had never had Internet service.
Sarah opened the closet, reached to the shelf and pulled down a small cardboard box. Clear tape sealed its flaps. “Here it is. This is all Ben gave us. We haven’t even looked at it. I forgot we even had it until you mentioned it just now.”
Tom felt a stab of impatient anger. Why hadn’t they turned this stuff over to the police? He quickly suppressed the reaction. Sarah and Dan could barely function these days. He shouldn’t be surprised that they had put this box away and forgotten it.
“I’d like to take this to my office and go through it.”
Sarah gave a half-hearted shrug. “Sure, go ahead.”
Didn’t she wonder what was in it? Now that she knew her daughter was dead, maybe nothing else mattered.
They didn’t speak again until they were at the bottom of the stairs and Sarah held the door open for him.
“The funeral home is going to get her tomorrow,” Sarah said, her voice soft. “So we can say a proper goodbye. We’re having her cremated. She always said she didn’t want to be buried in the ground.”
Tom waited, but she said nothing more.
He touched her arm. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”
She nodded, and Tom left with the box.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Megan Beecher sat in the waiting area at the animal hospital, her head bowed, her pale hair fa
lling forward over her cheeks and hiding her face. She didn’t seem to notice Rachel’s approach, and she started at a touch on her shoulder.
“Hi, Megan.” Rachel took the chair beside her. Two white-haired women waited with their dogs to see other vets, and Rachel kept her voice down so they wouldn’t overhear. “What can I do for you?”
Megan’s blue eyes, enormous in a delicate face ravaged by weight loss and grief, glistened with unshed tears. “I know you’re busy. I won’t take much of your time. I can’t stay long anyway. I have to do the grocery shopping for Mom.”
Waiting for her to work her way around to the point of her visit, Rachel watched Megan fidget with several keys attached to a keyless remote for a car. She was always a little surprised when reminded that this petite girl, whose appearance and quiet manner made her seem younger, was seventeen and could do things like driving the family car to the grocery store.
“I have a little time.” Rachel glanced at the nearby women, a pair of elderly sisters who openly regarded Megan with pity while they restrained their sweet-faced little mongrel hounds from venturing over to give her a sniff. “My next patient isn’t even here yet. Come back to the pharmacy with me while I get some vaccines ready.”
In the small pharmacy room, a narrow space with a sink, a counter, and three walls of cabinets containing drugs and supplies, Rachel gave Megan her full attention instead of preparing the vaccines. “What is it, sweetie?”
“Shelley used to talk to me about things,” Megan began, then broke off and bit her lower lip so hard Rachel was afraid she would draw blood. After a moment, she cleared her throat and continued in a tremulous voice. “She never treated me like a kid, you know? She always said I was her best friend, and she could trust me to keep secrets.”
Rachel’s skin prickled. When Megan paused, Rachel asked, “Did she tell you something that you think other people ought to know about now?”
Megan nodded. “She made me promise never to tell anybody, because Mom and Dad would’ve been worried, and they would have made her quit what she was doing.”
“Do you mean her work for the innocence project?”
“Yeah. She was home the weekend before she disappeared, and she told me she was sure she knew who really killed Brian Hadley. But she couldn’t prove anything yet, and she needed real solid proof or nobody would believe her.” Megan drew a deep breath and released it, her body shivering. “She said she was afraid the killer knew she’d figured it out. But she thought she was real close to getting a witness to talk, and it would all be over soon.”
So there it was. Tom was on the right track. “Did she tell you who the real killer was? Or the witness?”
“No. I’m pretty sure she didn’t tell anybody. I tried to get her to. I mean, I was freaked out of my mind that he was going to hurt her. But she said she could take care of herself. I almost told Mom and Dad so many times. But every time I was about to, I didn’t, because I knew they’d stop her, and it meant so much to her. You can’t imagine how important it was to her to save an innocent man and put the real killer in jail. She just needed a little more time. Then, the next thing I knew, she was gone.” Tears spilled down Megan’s cheeks. “If I’d just told Mom and Dad, they would’ve made sure she was safe. She’d be mad at me, but she’d still be alive.”
***
Brandon shoved aside the mountain of files on the Hadley murder to make room for Tom to set the cardboard box on the conference room table.
“Don’t expect much.” Tom slit the tape over the flaps with his pocket knife. He could feel the buzz of Brandon’s excitement and hated to see it crushed, but he knew it probably would be in the next few minutes. “Everybody says Shelley kept the important material with her, and it all disappeared when she did. This is incidental stuff.”
“Hey, you never know,” Brandon said. “I say it’s about time we caught a break.”
Tom lifted out the contents of the box piece by piece and spread them on the table. Mostly photos, with a few newspaper and magazine clippings. “Looks like it’s all about Brian Hadley’s band. No notes about the case.”
The two of them leaned over the table to study the pictures and clippings. Candid as well as posed photos showed the entire band, with Rita always beside Brian, a tambourine in her hand. Brian played guitar and fiddle, Skeet played both guitar and banjo, and Vance Lankford was on bass. Rita played piano when one was available at a concert site. Brian and Rita were the lead singers, together and solo, and Skeet and Vance sang backup.
“Man, they were good,” Brandon said. “They had this kind of polish, you know? Like they’d been doing it forever. You could tell they were going places. You heard them play, didn’t you?”
Tom nodded. “I wonder where they’d be now if Brian was still alive, if none of that mess had happened.”
“Top of the charts, that’s where they’d be.”
They were silent a moment. Tom thought of Rita slamming groceries into customers’ bags, her expression as sour as her life had become, her dreams nothing but memories. “It’s crazy how much people will throw away in a fit of jealousy.”
“Crazy love, it’ll get you every time. Hey, I’ve never seen this before.” Brandon picked up pages that had been clipped from a newspaper and stapled together. “It’s from the Leesburg paper. A long story and some pictures.”
“Published while Vance Lankford was on trial.” Tom took the pages from Brandon and pointed out the date in the lower corner of the top sheet. Flipping through, he saw photos of the band members talking backstage and performing. One large picture showed a cheering concert crowd. Attached to the page was a Post-it note on which Shelley had written Last performance, night of the murder.
Brandon leaned closer. “Something’s written on the picture too. What is that, names?”
In tiny block letters, Shelley had jotted names across the chests of many people in the audience. The overflow crowd filled the space at the rear, but shadows obscured their faces and Shelley had named only one person, a man who stood out because he was the only one not clapping or cheering. A dark baseball cap cast its own shadow over the man’s face, and Shelley apparently hadn’t been positive about his identity. Above his head, she’d written Jordan Gale?
“You see anything that rings your bells?” Brandon asked.
Shaking his head, Tom dropped the clippings onto the table. He swept his gaze over the photos, considering the fates of these people who had seemed on the brink of stardom. Brian was the one who lost his life, but the other band members had been profoundly affected by his death. Vance was in prison, Skeet was consumed by bitterness and anger, Rita had nothing left but memories and, Tom suspected, the self-contempt that came from knowing she helped set the catastrophe in motion. Two other guys had moved to Nashville in search of success, but from what Tom had heard, they’d struck out.
“We ought to talk to Jordan Gale, though,” Tom said. “A lot of people from the audience were interviewed, but I don’t remember seeing a statement from him in the files. You never know when something useful will turn up. He might have seen or heard something that night that could help us.”
Tom’s cell phone rang, and he dug it out of his shirt pocket. Rachel was calling. “Can you come over here right away?” she asked. “Megan Beecher’s here, and she has something to tell you about Shelley.”
***
Tom knew he was inviting trouble. Standing just inside the front door of the animal hospital, he told Rachel in a near-whisper, “I shouldn’t be talking to her without one of her parents present. Dan’s going to have a fit.”
“He wants to know who killed Shelley, doesn’t he?” Rachel said. “If this can help, why on earth would her father object? Look, she’s here, she wants to talk. Don’t put obstacles in the way.”
Tom blew out a sigh. “Where is she?”
“I put her in the staff lounge. Michelle’s using my office.” Rachel led Tom down the rear hall to the so-called lounge. It looked more like a closet to To
m, with four wooden chairs, a table, and a small fridge crammed into it.
Megan sat on one of the chairs with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her legs. When Tom walked in she uncoiled, brushed her hair back behind her ears, and assumed a stiff posture with her hands clasped in her lap.
“Hey, Megan.” Tom and Rachel sat down. “Dr. Goddard said you wanted to talk to me.”
The girl’s words poured out in a rush. She told him about Shelley’s concern that Brian Hadley’s real killer knew she had identified him.
“But she didn’t tell you who it was?”
“She said it wasn’t safe for me to know,” Megan said. “She said it would all be over soon, though, because she was real close to making a breakthrough. She said there was one person who could set Vance Lankford free if she would just come forward and tell what she knew.”
“But she didn’t tell you who that was either?”
Megan shook her head.
Tom had heard only one detail that might open a small crack in the case for him. “You’re positive she was talking about a woman? This person who could help clear Vance?”
“Yes, I’m positive.”
“Megan,” Tom said, trying to keep his voice level and nonjudgmental, “why haven’t you said anything about this before now? Why didn’t you tell somebody when Shelley went missing?”
Tears welled in her blue eyes and she screwed up her face in anguish. “Mom and Dad kept saying she was okay, she was going to show up. And I prayed every day that she’d come back. I couldn’t stand thinking she might have been hurt by the same person who killed Brian Hadley, and I could have prevented it. But that’s true, isn’t it? If I’d told somebody, she would’ve been mad because I broke my promise, but she’d be safe now.”
Megan bent double, her arms over her head as if protecting herself from an expected blow. Tom felt like a louse for making this grief-stricken girl feel worse than she already did.
Rachel left her chair and stooped next to the girl, an arm around her shoulders.
“I didn’t want Mom and Dad to know it was my fault,” Megan gasped between sobs. “But I can’t keep it to myself anymore. They’re going to hate me, and I deserve it.”
Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 20
