Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

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.”