Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

Well, she’d deal with that later. Right now, she hadn’t paid anyone anything, so no harm, no foul. Besides, at the moment, she had a client waiting for his monthly accounts receivable number, and she had another hour’s worth of work before she could send it to him. She pushed Billie Eagan from her mind, and went back to work.

She finished the receivables and went on to the payables report for the same company, pausing only to heat up a frozen pizza, which she ate sitting on the front porch. At one point, Brad Walker’s wife, Liz, passed by-at least, Lorna had been pretty sure it was Liz-but she hadn’t stopped and hadn’t returned Lorna’s wave. Maybe it hadn’t been her.

Lorna was still working when the doorbell rang at two-fifteen, startling her. She hadn’t realized how late it was.

The man standing on the front porch was tall-almost a foot taller than Lorna’s five feet six inches-and sported a baseball cap over curly blond hair. He wore dark glasses, and a beige T-shirt over deeply tanned arms, and cut-off denims over legs that were long and muscular. She knew he had to be the PI, but wished she could see the look on her face. She’d been expecting Barnaby Jones. What she got was more like a fair-haired Magnum, PI.

“Mr. Dawson?” She opened the inside door, leaving the screen door locked. Just in case.

“It’s T.J., yes. You’re Lorna Stiles?”

“Yes. Come in.” She opened the screen door and he stepped into the foyer and pretty much filled it. She took a step back unconsciously. The man looked as if he was feeling the heat as much as she was. “We can talk in here, or out on the porch. It might be cooler out there, though.”

“Then the porch gets my vote.”

“Can I get you something cold to drink first? Iced tea?”

“That would be great, thanks.”

He followed her into the kitchen, and on her way past the window she looked into the driveway where he’d parked his car under the magnolia-a taupey-colored convertible, the top down. It was exactly the car she’d expect a man who looked like he did to drive.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing out the window.

“Crossfire.”

“It’s lovely.”

“Lovely is just one of its attributes.”

“Fast?”

“Sure.” He grinned. “What’s the point of having a slow sports car?”

“True.”

“So, tell me about your friend,” he asked as she took a glass from the cupboard.

“It’s a long story.” She opened the freezer for ice cubes, which she popped into the glass.

“Start at the beginning. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Are we on the clock?” She reached into the refrigerator and took out the pitcher of tea she’d made earlier, and filled the glass. “Because I might have some reservations about this.”

“The clock doesn’t start ticking until I decide if I want to take the case, so you can give me the long version. And it will be strictly up to you, if you want to think about it a little more, or if you decide against hiring me. There’s no obligation. We haven’t signed any contracts. Right now, we’re just talking. So go on. Tell me from the beginning.”

She did.

“So that’s it, that’s all they have on this woman? A body with skull fractures front and back, and old signs of child abuse? And a kid who said he dropped Jason off at home and he was never seen again?”

She nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very solid arrest to me.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You might not have much of a decision to make after all. I think they’re going to end up dismissing the charges.”

“Why would you say that?”

“They really don’t have anything of substance. Can you think of any reason why the chief of police would jump on an arrest this fast?”

“You mean some personal issue?”

“Right.”

“Not off the top of my head, but I haven’t lived around here in a long time. All I know is what I remember from before, and what the police are telling me now. I do know that the boy Jason was with that last night said he dropped him off around three and saw him go into the house. No one-except his mother-admits to having seen him after that.”

“Maybe the other boy didn’t drop him off at home. Maybe he took him someplace else. Maybe he killed him.”

Lorna stared at him. Had anyone considered that?

“The point is, there’s only the boy’s word that he’d taken Jason home, just as there’s only Mrs. Eagan’s word that she didn’t kill him.” He sipped his tea. “Why would the boy’s word be more credible than the mother’s?”

“One, because the mother was an alcoholic and an admitted child abuser. Two, because her daughter had disappeared a few weeks before Jason and she had been one of the first to be suspected, and I think they might have still harbored some suspicion there. Chief Walker was a patrolman at the time, and was involved in that investigation. Maybe he has some issues with having let her go back then, I don’t know. And three, because the boy who dropped Jason off was the son of a woman who, at the time, worked for the county.”

“So they might have taken his story as gospel?”

She shrugged. “I have no way of knowing if they had corroboration for that or not. I was only nine at the time, and my best friend was missing. I had no real understanding of what was going on, as far as the investigation was concerned, and I didn’t care. I just wanted my friend to come home. I knew the police suspected Mrs. Eagan-and, to be honest, I sort of did myself. I knew she’d been rough with Melinda, and I knew that Mellie was afraid of her. To my nine-year-old’s mind, that was enough to make her a bad person.”

“What changed your mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re willing to put up bail, willing to take on the expense of a private investigator to prove her innocent. Why?”

“I guess because there’s no one else to help her. I think everyone is going to assume the worst about her. She was an alcoholic. She did hurt her kids. Easy enough to believe she killed at least one of them.”

“But you don’t?”

Lorna hesitated.

“No, I don’t. And I believe that if my mother were still alive, she’d take Billie’s side. If for no other reason than to make sure the truth came out. My mother’s no longer with us.” She could have said more, but her throat tightened right about then, so she let it go. How important was it that he understand that she felt honor-bound to her mother, as well as to Mellie, to help find the truth?

“Your mother and Mrs. Eagan were close friends?”

“She says they were.”

“Who says they were? Mrs. Eagan?”

Lorna nodded.

“You mean, you only have her word that she and your mother were friends?”

Lorna nodded again, slowly. “Does that make me appear as stupid as I’m starting to feel?”

“Not stupid, no.”

“You’re searching for another word-perhaps, oh, gullible ?”

“ Gullible could work.” He smiled. “Can you think of any reason Billie Eagan would lie about being your mother’s friend?”

“Not offhand. The truth is, I don’t have any more reason to believe her than to not believe her. I just don’t know.”

“But you jumped in with an offer to help, all the same.”

“An emotional reaction, I’m afraid. One I’m not certain I’m not beginning to regret.”

“Hey, so far, this has cost you nothing but a little bit of your time. Like I said before, there’s no fee for talking to me about it. You can take all the time you need to think it over. And if you decide to go forward with an investigation, you can call it off whenever you want. Two hours or two days, it’s up to you. I work for you.”