Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

“I’m positive.”

“What time did Dustin arrive?” T.J. asked.

“Dustin?”

“Dustin Lafferty, your brother’s friend.”

“Oh. Hey, I’d forgotten about him. Yeah, he was there, too. I think he got there right after me.”

“So you joined in the search? Did you split up, or go in pairs?”

“We split up, we all went off in different directions, but there was nothing. Not a sign of her anywhere.”

“Where did you look?”

“I took the orchard. I don’t remember where anyone else looked.”

“The orchard’s down near the pond?”

“Yeah. I think Jason took the pond. I went around all the apple and peach trees but there was nothing to be found. Melinda was just gone.”

“Now, the night that Jason died, you were all over at Lafferty’s?” T.J. leaned back in the seat.

“Right. Me, Fritz, Jason, Matt, and Dustin.”

“Drinking beer?”

“Yeah, we all had a few. We stayed till a little after two, then Dustin drove everyone home. He dropped me and Fritz off, then took the others home. The next day, we heard that Jason had disappeared, too.”

“You have any ideas, back then, what might have happened to him?”

“No.” Mike shrugged. “He wasn’t the most popular guy in school, but he was okay, if you know what I mean. I liked him. For a while, the kids were saying that Jason and his sister had both run away, to get away from their mother. She used to be really hard on both of them, he told us that.”

“Can you think of anything else we might need to know?” T.J. put both hands palm-down on the table, ready to push himself out of his seat. The interview was over. He’d gotten what he’d come for.

“Just that back then a lot of people thought Mrs. Eagan had killed both her kids. I’m still not so sure she didn’t.”

“You may have heard I put up her bail,” Lorna said.

“Everyone in Callen’s heard about that.” Mike grinned. “You didn’t make any friends in the local police department with that move.”

Lorna got out of her chair, preparing to leave. “If she’s innocent of Jason’s murder, they should be looking for whoever killed him.”

“Well, I think she’s guilty as sin.” Mike stood, too. “I think they had the right person all along. I think in the end, all this investigation is going to prove is that she killed them both.”

“What about all the other boys they’ve found, Mike? Think she killed them, too?”

“Hey, like those FBI guys said, the killer had a thing for teenage boys. Who knows? Maybe that’s how Mrs. Eagan got off, you know? Doing young boys, then killing ’em.”

Mike stood at the end of the deck and looked down at T.J. and Lorna, who’d already stepped onto the grass at the bottom of the steps.

“Yeah,” he continued, “if I were the investigator, that’s what I’d be looking into. Mrs. Eagan’s sex life.”

“What do you think?” T.J. asked as he drove away.

“I think that was a seriously sick thing to say.” Lorna shook her head. “That man clearly watches too much TV.”

“Or reads too many thrillers.” T.J. gunned the engine. “Or maybe not enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either that was all smoke screen, or he and his brother need to get their stories straight. They don’t match up. Fritz said Mike got to Matt Conrad’s house after Jason was called home. That Dustin stopped by after Mike had arrived to tell Fritz it was time to go home.” T.J. eased up to the stop sign at the top of the hill. “Which way?”

Lorna pointed right, and he made the turn.

“Fritz also said that Mike wasn’t with them the night that Jason disappeared, that they were at White Marsh Park till three in the morning. Mike just now said he was with them at Dustin’s-didn’t say a word about White Marsh Park. And he said Dustin drove them home at two. One of them is lying.”

“How do we find out which one?”

“We talk to Dustin Lafferty and see what he remembers.”

“So you got two different versions of the same story?” Mitch sat on one of the oak chairs at the table in Lorna’s kitchen. “Interesting. I got three similar versions of the story I was after.”

“Are we going to hear them?” T.J. stood in the doorway.

“Sure. We’re going to trade notes,” Mitch told him. “We’ll see who had the more productive day.”

“Does everything still have to be a competition with you?” T.J. complained while taking a seat opposite Mitch.

“Not everything.”

“Sorry.” Lorna came through the back door holding several bags. “Burgers and fries from the café down the road are the best I can do.”

“What’s to be sorry about burgers and fries?” T.J. rose to give her a hand. “I don’t think anyone here expected you to be feeding us this week.”

“Well, it makes more sense than all of us going our own ways, then trying to reconvene to share infor-mation.” Lorna set the bag she was carrying on the counter and T.J. did likewise. “Thanks, whoever set the table.”

“That was T.J.,” Regan told her.

“Thank you, T.J.” Lorna turned to him and smiled.

“You’re welcome. What else can I do?” he asked.

“You can get a platter out of the cupboard behind you and stack these burgers on it while I find something to put the fries in.”

“I for one am happy we’re having this info-swap,” Regan said. “I’m going to have to leave tomorrow for a few days and I’d hate to go without hearing the latest.”

“Oh, that’s right. You have a meeting in Chicago on Saturday.”

“TV interview, yes. But if you’re not tired of my company, I can come back later in the week. I hate to miss out on anything.” Regan looked from Mitch to T.J. “You don’t suppose you’ll have solved this whole thing before I get back, do you?”

“Wouldn’t that be the luck?” Mitch took a burger from the platter T.J. set on the table and put it on his plate. Lorna handed him the bowl into which she’d dumped the fries, then placed a bottle of catsup in front of him. “I wish I could wrap this up by the end of the weekend. I have a stack of cases back in my office, I don’t know when I’m going to get to those.”

T.J. handed Mitch a beer.

“Thanks,” Mitch said. “Of course, if we weren’t so shorthanded at the Bureau right now, I wouldn’t be backed up.”

“Who are you trying to kid? The FBI’s well staffed.” T.J. took a bite of his burger.

“Domestic issues are taking a backseat to the terrorist units,” Mitch told him. “A lot of the new agents are going that route. The drones like me who handle the routine same old, same old-serial killers, kidnappings, sex crimes-keep getting further and further behind in our work, because God knows there’s no shortage of predators.” He ran a hand through his brown hair, and his eyes darkened. “Honest to God, it’s tough keeping up with them. You put one away in Florida, another one pops up in Wisconsin.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty…” T.J. rubbed the back of his neck.

“Nah. Guilt didn’t work before, it isn’t likely to work now. It’ll take something bigger than that to bring you back,” Mitch said. “So, we’ll move on. Let’s get to the nitty-gritty here. Story time.”

“How ’bout I eat while you tell us what you found out today, then you can eat while I tell you what we did.”

“How come you get to eat first?” Mitch asked T.J.

“Because my story is probably shorter than yours and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Lorna sat between Mitch and T.J., poured beer from an ice-cold bottle into a glass, and prepared to take mental notes.

“Okay, here’s what happened. We-Regan and I-started with the New Jersey victim first. Sixteen-year-old boy, Sid Calhoun, went missing…” He turned to Lorna. “Guess how many years ago.”