Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

She did like the sound of that.

“I would like to think it over before I sign anything with you.”

“I won’t hold it against you, either way.”

“You’re awfully accommodating. How do you stay in business with that take-it-or-leave-it attitude?”

He laughed. “Well, actually, we just sold the business, my partner and I. He got married and moved to Ocean City, Maryland, and it got to be too much for him to be driving back and forth to Baltimore. There’s too much work for one person, and after these past three years working only with my partner-who’s also my cousin-I’m not inclined to hire another PI. There was someone interested in buying us out, so we sold the business, the building, the whole works. So, basically, I’m more or less unemployed right now.”

“Oh.” Lorna frowned. “Maybe it isn’t a good time for you to take this on.”

“I still have my license, and I’m coming off a month at the beach. I’m ready to get back to work. And I have all the time in the world.”

“Are you sure?”

“I would have referred Mitch to someone else if I weren’t. This doesn’t sound like a very complicated case. If you’re still undecided, I can always get copies of the police reports and look them over with you, see if there’s anything there that’s worth pursuing.”

“I don’t know what I want.” She stopped rocking. “I think I’d just really like to know what happened to Melinda and Jason. I want to know the truth.”

“And if the truth leads back to Billie Eagan and proves she killed one or both of her kids?”

“Then I hope she’s convicted and rots in prison.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

“So, where do we go from here?”

“You tell me.”

“Where would you start if I hired you?”

“Like I said, I’m going to want copies of the old police reports. Then I’d track down the kids Jason was with that last night, talk to them. Talk to Billie. And I’d like to take a look at the place where his body was found.”

“That’s easy enough. It’s across the back field.”

“Maybe we could take a look while I’m here.”

“Sure. I’ll get my keys and drive us over,” she said, rising from the rocker.

He stood as well, asking, “How far is it?”

“Not far. But it’s already so hot and humid, I figured you’d be more comfortable driving.”

“Won’t bother me if it won’t bother you.”

“Then we’ll walk.” She smiled in spite of the fact that the very thought of walking in the hot sun across acres of dry, dusty field made her want to whine unpleasantly in protest. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

They started toward the porch steps, then Lorna paused and said, “Be right back,” before grabbing the near-empty glasses of iced tea and disappearing into the house. She returned in less than a minute, carrying two bottles of water, one of which she handed to T.J. “Just in case.”

“Good idea.”

He moved closer to the steps, then stopped while she locked the house behind her.

“We didn’t used to have to do that,” she explained, “but since I’m here by myself, I try to remember to keep the door locked. It annoys me that I have to do it, but you never know.”

“I noticed you have an alarm system, though.”

“After my younger brother and sister left home, Mom lived here with my grandmother until Gran died, about six years ago. Mom had the alarm installed then.”

“You don’t use it?”

“I know the code to disarm it, but not the one to set it.”

“Isn’t it the same code?”

“Oh. Maybe.” She frowned. “I guess I could call the alarm company. I just figured with the locks on the doors, I should be all right.”

“Still, if you’re paying for the service, you should look into it.”

“I don’t know if it will be worth it, frankly, since I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.”

They walked past the barn, and a few of the feral cats poked out tentatively to watch. Lorna noted the water bowl she’d left for them was empty, as was the bowl of dry food.

“I wonder if they’re eating that,” she muttered.

“What?”

“The barn cats. I was just wondering if they were eating the dry cat food I left for them, or if it was being eaten by raccoons or field mice or whatever.”

“I doubt the mice would stand a chance. I counted four cats in the doorway. How many more are there?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been out there in the barn for as long as I can remember. A few years ago my mother rounded up the kittens and took them to the vet down the street to neuter them so they’d stop multiplying, but who knows if there aren’t others? Gran liked them because they kept the mice population down, and she never had to resort to traps or chemicals to get rid of them.” Lorna smiled. “Gran called the cats ‘nature’s mousetraps.’ ”

At the edge of the field, T.J. stopped and took in the vista.

“How much is yours?” he asked.

“All of it, except for the back section, where the body was found. We sold off thirty acres a year and a half ago to pay for my mother’s radiation and chemo.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Lorna pointed off to the right. “There’s a pond behind that wooded section, and a small orchard. There’s also a small family burial ground.” She turned toward the left and said, “Down there is an old vineyard my great-uncle started back in the 1940s. It was pretty much ignored after he died.”

“I thought I smelled grapes.”

“That wouldn’t have been from Uncle Will’s vineyard, I doubt there’s much going on down there after all these years. The grapes you smelled were from the arbor in the backyard. My gran’s jam grapes. An altogether different kind of fruit.”

“Can’t you make wine from jam grapes, and jam from wine grapes?”

She laughed. “All I know is that the grapes on Gran’s arbor are big and dark purple. I only saw the other ones-the wine grapes-when I was little, before the weeds and the trees started taking over the vineyard and it got too spooky to play in.”

“Spooky?” He cracked a smile. “Did your young imagination convince you that it was haunted?”

“Oh, sure. I went through a stage where I saw ghosts and haunts everywhere. I think it started after I found out that there really were bodies buried in the family cemetery. Then when Uncle Will started acting up, it made a believer out of me.”

“Uncle Will acts up?”

“He died in the late forties, and he’s never really left.” When T.J. chuckled, she shrugged and said, “Hey, you can believe it or not, but I’ve heard him and seen him. Once you’ve met a ghost head-on in your upstairs hall, it isn’t much of a stretch to believe that those weird sounds coming from the vineyard are caused by demons. The older kids in the neighborhood used to tell me that, and I believed them.”

“I noticed that up along the main road there were a bunch of houses that had really large properties in the rear. Makes it more of a real neighborhood, I suppose, than a typical farm community.”

“Right.” Lorna pushed a long strand of hair from her face. She wished she’d grabbed one of the straw hats hanging near the back door. Sweat was beginning to bead on her face and some more ran down the front of her shirt, making her skin itch. “Most of those houses have ten acres or more out back. Callen was founded by six brothers-they each built one of those red brick houses along Callen Road, where you came in. Three on one side, three on the other. They wanted their houses fairly close together, but also wanted to farm. The three brothers on one side shared the acreage behind their homes, the brothers on the opposite side of the street did the same. It’s only been in the last fifty years or so that the farms have been broken up and the properties sold individually. When I was growing up, there were kids in every one of those houses, and we all went to school together and played together. Summers, everyone swam in our pond and we played in everyone’s yards.” She twisted the cap off her water bottle. “We really had the best of everything. Farm life, and town life, too. It was a great way to grow up.”