Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

“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 told 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.”

“Mom said that?”

“Billie did have her hands full, that’s for sure. That Jason was one nasty boy, even when he was a small child. You wouldn’t believe the things I heard come out of that mouth of his.”

Oh, yes I would. Lorna thought back to the many times Jason had hurled curses at her and Melinda. She knew firsthand how vile he could be.

“And your mother always told me how Billie was remorseful, how much she regretted that she’d been so rough with her kids. Well, sorry’s easy to say, when both kids are gone God knows where and you don’t have to deal with them anymore, isn’t it? Of course, now we know where Jason had gone. Most people think he only got what was coming to him. There are a lot of folks who still think he killed his sister.”

“There are people who think Billie killed her.”

“I don’t know about the girl, but I do think there’s a good chance Billie killed the boy.”

“Why?” Lorna asked.

“Everyone knows that Billie and Jason had a screaming match that night when he came home so late.”

“How does everyone know that?” Lorna asked.

“Well, that’s what Nancy Lafferty says, anyway.”

“Dustin’s mother?”

“Yes. He was a friend of Jason’s. He knew what was going on down there.”

There was a rumble from outside the windows, and Mrs. Hammond started out of her chair.

“You sit, I’ll see what that was.” Lorna stood and went to the window. “Must have been thunder. There are a lot of low, dark clouds up toward Route One.”

Someone dashed out the back of the house next door and ran to the black pickup in the driveway. He opened the driver’s-side door and turned on the ignition, then rolled up the windows before jumping out of the pickup and running back toward the house.

“Is that Fritz Keeler?” Lorna asked.

“Yes, he still lives in his parents’ house. You’d think a good-looking young man like Fritz would have found himself a nice girl to marry by now. I swear, I don’t know what he’s waiting for.” Mrs. Hammond shook her head. “Now, Michael-you remember Michael, his younger brother?”

“Sure. My first crush.” Lorna turned away from the window.

“He’s married to Sarah Watts, you remember her?”

“Two years ahead of me in school, sure.”

“Yes. Well, they live out on Cannon Road in a nice little ranch house. Two kids. Michael and Fritz bought that gas station and convenience store, the one that sits right before the intersection, after their mother died. Pooled their inheritance, I suppose, and bought the business.”

“Quik Stop?” Lorna frowned, trying to recall if she’d heard that news before. “I don’t think I knew that. I’m surprised I haven’t seen Fritz or Mike there. I buy my coffee at Quik Stop every morning.”

“I heard lots of folks do, they say the coffee’s good. The boys are doing real well, from what I hear. But Fritz,” another solemn shake of the head, “he’s an odd duck.”

“In what way?”

“Well, he’s got no life. Spends most of his time in that house or working. Takes a week off here and there and takes himself on trips. Don’t know where he goes, but he leaves every other week or so.”

Sounds like me. Without the trips. Hope he goes someplace good. “I’m sure he gets bored, staying in that house alone all the time. And if he works that much, he’s probably tired and just needs to relax.”

“Yes, well, then there are the roses.”

“What roses?”

“I swear, every time I look out the window, Fritz is planting another rosebush. Says his mother loved roses, so he plants them for her.”

“Did he plant them for her when she was still alive?”

“Oh, yes. Just look at their backyard. It’s one huge rose garden.”

“I’d think you’d like that. It must be very fragrant early in the summer. And it’s got to look beautiful from your house.”

“Well, it does that. Strange, though. He’s still odd, in my book.”

“Fritz always was a little shy, Mrs. Hammond. Maybe he still is.”

“Could be. His father never had much to say either, though God knows his mother made up for that. She could talk the ears off a-”

Another rumble of thunder, louder, closer.

“I think I should go before the rain hits,” Lorna said.

“I won’t argue with you, dear. They’re predicting quite a storm.” Mrs. Hammond reached for her cane, then eased herself out of her chair. “But you’ll have to come back to see me again soon.”

“I’d love to,” Lorna said.

“Well, I’ll look forward to that.” The old woman leaned upon her cane. “Now, I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, far as Billie is concerned, and I don’t know that anything I say could sway you, one way or another, and that’s fine. We’re all entitled. I suspect you’re inclined much as your mother was, and if I told her once, I told her a hundred times, I said, ‘Mary Beth, that is not a good woman. She beat her children, she drank half of every dime she ever made,’ and like I told you, she’d say, ‘Miss Veronica, that was a long time ago. Billie’s stopped drinking, she’s worked hard to clean up her life, she’ll never forgive herself for the way she treated her kids,’ ” Mrs. Hammond sighed. “Sounded like too little too late to me, but you know how your mother was, Lorna. If any woman ever had a softer heart, I swear I never met her. I suppose if Billie Eagan said the right words and shed enough tears, Mary Beth would have bought into it. I never did. I’m thinking you have, though.”

“You really think she’s guilty?”

“Yes, I do. I think sure as I’m standing here, Billie Eagan smacked that boy in the head and broke his skull. And I can’t help but wonder if she hadn’t done the same to that little girl of hers.” Mrs. Hammond leaned heavily on her cane. “And don’t you have to wonder what your mother would be saying if she were alive today.”