Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

“What are you talking about?”

“They found another one.”

“Another…” It took a minute for it to sink in. “Another body?”

“Well, bones. Definitely human bones.”

“Please tell me it’s not a small child,” she whispered.

“It’s not a small child. A bone from one leg is missing, but I’d say the person was five-seven, five-eight, in that range.” He paused. “It wasn’t Melinda Eagan, that much I’m sure of. I just wanted to give you a heads-up, is all, let you know what’s happening. You’re going to be seeing a lot more activity out there this time, once the press gets ahold of this.”

“I appreciate it, Chief.”

“The ME is on his way, same routine as before.” He stared at her for a minute, then said, “Any idea what the hell went on back there, Lorna?”

She shook her head. “I’m as mystified as you are. More so, because that was Palmer land, we owned it at the time Jason and this other person were buried there.”

“I guess it would be too much to hope that at some point over the years, you noticed something funny going on out in your fields.”

“Never. I’m sorry. Finding Jason’s body was one thing, finding another one so soon after…” She shook her head. How could this be happening on her family farm?

“Might give your brother and sister a call, see if they remember anything. If you think of something, even a little thing-like maybe some homeless person you used to see hanging around a lot, anything like that-you give me a call.”

“Will do,” she said, thinking he’d like nothing better than to be able to pin this on some nameless stranger. “Chief, how will this affect the case against Billie Eagan?”

He visibly prickled. “You sound like a reporter. Won’t affect it at all. Why should it?”

“It’s one thing to think that she killed her son in a fit of anger, which appears to be your theory. It’s another altogether to think she killed some stranger.”

“Now, we don’t know that it’s a stranger we found, do we? Let’s not put the horse before the cart.” He turned and walked to his car. “We’ll get back to you if we need you.”

Lorna watched from the doorway while the police car made a circle in the drive. The chief looked straight ahead, not bothering to wave on his way past, though surely he knew she was still standing there. Guess he’s still pretty pissed off.

She closed the door and went back upstairs to look for her keys, debating whether to change her clothes before running out to the mini-mart for her morning coffee. Deciding against changing, she grabbed her handbag from the floor next to the bed, where she’d dropped it the night before. Troubled by the latest finding, she set out, distracted, on her morning errand.

Lorna had just walked into the Quik Stop when she heard someone calling her name. She looked around but didn’t see anyone she recognized. She was pouring her coffee when she felt someone a step or two too close to her.

Then someone whispered in her ear, “That cup’s on the house.”

“Fritz!” She laughed, looking over her shoulder.

“Lorna, put that cup down so I can give you a real welcome-home hug.”

She set the cup on the counter and put her arms around him.

“It’s so good to see you,” she told him. “I stopped to see Mrs. Hammond just the other day, and she told me you and Mike bought this place. I come here every morning and this is the first time I’ve seen either of you.”

“Mrs. Hammond said you were stopping in for coffee every day, so I thought I’d start watching for you. I’m in the office for the first few hours of each day, and Mike comes in around four.”

“I’m late this morning. I’m usually here by seven.”

Another customer reached past her for a cup, and Lorna picked up her coffee and stepped aside.

“I heard you were right in the middle of this thing with Mrs. Eagan,” Fritz said, guiding her out of the way of a woman searching for the right color sweetener packet. “I can’t believe they found Jason after all these years. And right out there, on your farm.”

“That section isn’t ours anymore, but yeah, it’s crazy. And this morning, it got even crazier.” She told Fritz about Chief Walker’s early-morning visit.

“Holy shit, another body?”

Two customers at the pastry counter turned around to stare.

“That was exactly my reaction when he told me.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t believe someone brought bodies onto our farm to bury them, but that’s apparently what happened.”

“Any idea who this latest person was, how he or she died?”

“Nothing so far. The ME hadn’t even arrived yet. I guess it will be awhile before they know anything. And they’re not likely to tell me. I’m persona non grata around the police station right now.”

“I heard about that, too.”

“You did?” She frowned. “What exactly did you hear?”

“I heard that you bailed out Mrs. Eagan-which I can understand you doing. She was a friend of your mother’s, and you and Melinda were friends, right?”

Lorna nodded. “What else did you hear?”

“I heard you pulled some strings and had the FBI brought into the case.”

She shook her head. “Not true. First of all, I have no strings to pull. Second, I did not call the FBI. What I did was talk to a PI about the possibility of him looking into the case. It’s important to me to know the truth. If Mrs. Eagan killed one or both of her children, I want to know. If she suckered my mother into believing she was innocent so that she could use her and their friendship, I want to know that as well.”

“No offense, Lorna, but don’t you think Chief Walker wants to know the truth, too?” Fritz said softly.

“Of course I do. It just seemed to me there was a total rush to judgment to arrest Billie Eagan with only the scantest bit of evidence.”

“I agree it’s circumstantial-from what I’ve heard, anyway-but it does make sense. I can see how it happened the way he thinks it did.”

Before she could respond, he said, “Just think it through logically. Mrs. Eagan’s daughter disappears, and suspicion falls immediately on her, which right there gets a lot of people talking. Then suspicion shifts to the son. Just before the son is going to be arrested, he disappears. Now, suppose for a minute that Jason did kill Melinda. He comes home after drinking with his buddies, and maybe he says something about it. Maybe he even admits it. Mom picks up something heavy and smacks him in the head with it. Maybe on his way down, she smacks him again. Then she realizes what she’s done, and she has to get rid of him. She takes him out into the field and buries the body. Maybe she’s shocked it’s not discovered.”

“It wouldn’t have been.” She shook her head. “Fritz, you didn’t see how deeply those remains were buried. There’s no way she could have dug that deep on her own. And there’s no way she could have gotten his body clear across the field, in the dark. She isn’t strong enough.”

“She was strong enough to beat him good whenever she could.”

“You knew about that?”

He nodded, a look of distaste on his face. “I knew. I was in one of Jason’s classes, I saw the bruises. I never knew why he didn’t fight back.”

“She was his mother.” Lorna shrugged. “I think that’s very common among abused children. They don’t fight their abuser. Whether they think they deserve to be treated that way, I don’t know. And I think it’s too deep a subject for us to resolve in this conversation.”

“But you have to agree, it could have happened that way.”

“Yes, it could have happened that way. If it did, let’s find out.”

“So you hired a PI? That may be a good thing. I think everyone wants to know what really happened.” He got a cappuccino from the machine. “Have you tried this? It’s pretty good.”