Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

“I usually visit twice a year, my cousins have been over at one time or another. My cousin Polly used to take her vacation-her ‘holiday’-here every year, but she’s married now and has small children. It’s been too difficult for her to arrange a visit, between her husband’s business and her having babies.” Regan rested her chin in the palm of her hand and sighed. “I do miss her.”

“Hey, I have about forty cousins, I’d be happy to loan you as many as you want,” Mitch offered. “There is no shortage of Peytons in Maine.”

“I’ll remember that, if I ever get to Maine again.”

“And you’re always welcome here,” Lorna assured her.

“I appreciate that. I really like it here.” Regan looked out the kitchen window. “Maybe when I come back, we can get that garden along the back fence cleaned out. I started pulling some weeds the other afternoon, but I stopped when Mitch arrived.”

“Thanks for the reminder. I do have to clean up that entire section. It’s one of the places my mother wanted her ashes.”

“You still have your mother’s ashes?” T.J. turned to her.

She nodded. “Two more urns of them. Smallish ones. She wanted to be in three places. So far I’ve only managed to get to the family plot. The third spot was the pond. I’ve barely even been down there since I got home.”

“Any particular reason?” T.J. asked.

“No.” She shook her head. “I just haven’t had time. Between trying to keep my business running, going back to Woodboro for the meeting yesterday, and everything else that’s been going on around here, I haven’t had much quiet time to myself.”

“Well, maybe this will all be over soon and we’ll be out of your hair,” T.J. told her.

Lorna smiled weakly. She was just getting used to having them all around. Especially T.J.

“Hey, you can always fire Dawson.” Mitch grinned. “Which reminds me, we’re still waiting for the rundown on your meetings today. Did you find out anything important?”

“We discovered that Mike Keeler and his brother have different recollections of the nights that both the Eagan kids disappeared.” T.J. finished rinsing the last plate and handed it to Lorna, then dried his hands on a towel.

“How different?” Mitch wanted to know.

“Different enough that I don’t think the variations are due to the amount of time between then and now. One of them is lying.”

“Any feel for which one?”

T.J. shook his head. “On the one hand, there’s Fritz, who we know travels out of town a few times each month. I’d like to know where he goes, who he sees. Then there’s Mike, who believes the police already have the right suspect in mind.”

“He thinks Billie’s guilty?” Mitch leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah. His time line is so different from his brother’s-when he arrived, who was there at what time, that sort of thing. It will be interesting to see how Dustin Lafferty remembers things. We’re going to be meeting with him tomorrow at his office. He owns an insurance agency in a place called Elk Run, which Lorna assures me isn’t too far from here.”

“Between here and Lancaster,” Lorna said.

“And what about that friend of Melinda Eagan’s you were going to visit?” Mitch drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What did she have to say?”

“She said as little as possible,” T.J. told him. “She claimed to barely remember Melinda. Even Lorna’s attempts to jog her memory seemed to bounce off her.”

“Which was really hard to believe,” Lorna interjected. “Since I happen to know that Melinda spent quite a few weekends at Danielle’s house that last summer and fall.”

“Why would she deny knowing her?” Regan asked.

“I have no idea. Obviously I knew she was lying. And she said she sort of remembered my name. I was never a friend of hers, was never at her home, never socialized with her, but she remembered my name, not Melinda’s?” Lorna shook her head. “Not even close to being credible.

“And the second we left she was on the phone to someone,” Lorna said.

“Oh, right, the number you wanted the phone records for. I should have them by tomorrow, depending on how busy my buddy is back in the office.”

“I can’t wait to find out who she felt needed to know we were asking about Melinda.” Lorna slipped the last of the dinner plates into the cupboard. “I wonder who would be that interested, after all these years.”

“Well, hopefully by this time tomorrow, we’ll know.” Mitch stood and pushed his chair in, obviously preparing to leave. “And with any luck, we’ll have IDs on the last three remains, maybe even a better idea of who killed them, and why.”

The ride north on I-95 at nine-thirty in the morning was always an exercise in patience. As another weekend approached, the travelers who saved their vacation until late summer were in a hurry to get to their destinations. That usually meant taking the quickest route, which-north to south and back again-was I-95. Add the commuters to the mix, and you had heavy volume. Throw in a little road repair and you had yourself a backup.

T.J. moved his seat back to give his legs a little extra room. For some reason, when he was driving, the space didn’t seem quite as narrow as it did when the car was sitting still. He toyed with the idea of putting the top up. Stopped on a major highway in three lanes of traffic that were going nowhere, you felt pretty much exposed to your fellow travelers with the top down. With the temperature rising steadily, and the sun blazing, you just knew all the other drivers were sitting there watching you fry.

He hunted in the console for a paper towel or a tissue to dry the sweat from his face. He found a crumpled but unused yellow napkin from a fast-food restaurant, and put it to work, blotting the area around his eyes and the back of his neck. Leaning against the headrest, he slipped his dark glasses back on and closed his eyes.

The drive to Callen wasn’t more than forty minutes in light traffic. He’d told Lorna to expect him around ten. Their appointment with Dustin Lafferty was at noon, at his office in Elk Run. Lorna figured that was about an hour from her place, so they had time to spare. Or would have, if traffic got moving again.

Being stuck in the car, with nowhere to go and nothing else to do, gave him plenty of time to think about things he’d been trying not to think about for the past few days. His future. The voice-mail message on his cell phone from John Mancini. Lorna.

He figured the future was wide open. He didn’t have to rush to make any decisions right away. Selling the business had provided more than enough cash to live on for a while. Money wasn’t going to be a problem, unless he did something really stupid, which wasn’t his style. Once the sale of his house in Baltimore went through, he’d be sitting even prettier. Until, of course, he found another place to buy, but he was in no hurry to do that, either. He could always rent something for a few months, or a year if he had to, until he decided where he wanted to go, and what he wanted to do.

Bored, he listened to the message from his former boss again, disconnected from voice mail. He didn’t know how he felt about the Bureau right now. He’d loved that job. Loved being Special Agent Thomas Jefferson Dawson, loved the challenge of putting together the facts and circumstances of a crime in order to solve it. He’d been good at it-so good, they’d asked him if he was interested in being assigned to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and taking on some of the duties generally termed “profiler.” T.J. had jumped at the opportunity, and over the next few years had developed analytical skills that had set him apart from most of his peers. Over time, he’d honed those skills and had become sought after more and more for consultation in the most complicated cases. He’d loved the work, loved the role he’d played in bringing down vicious criminals. He could have gone on with the Bureau until retirement, had all intention of doing exactly that. Until Lakeview, Georgia, and Teddy Kershaw…