Mariah Stewart - Hard Truth

“T.J.,” she said, relieved.

“Hey, are you all right? Your message sounded a bit jumbled. Want to run through all this for me again?”

She did.

“Does it sound right to you?” she asked after she’d related the events of the entire afternoon. “Did you think it was Fritz?”

“Well, like Mitch said, you have to look at the evidence,” he said carefully. “But no. I didn’t have that feeling about him. On the surface, he does seem to fit the…”

When he paused, Lorna said, “You can say it, T.J. He seems to fit the profile.”

“I hate to fall back on that. Profiles can be misleading. You can get way too wrapped up in all that; you can miss other key information if you let yourself believe too much in your own fiction.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that profiling isn’t an exact science, but a lot of people think it is. A profile is only as good as the person compiling it, and it’s not something that’s written on stone tablets. At best, it’s a guide. At worst, it can blind you to the truth.”

“If you were to work up a profile on this killer, would you have come up with Fritz?”

He fell silent for a long moment.

“Maybe not.” He thought for another few seconds. “Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I felt all along that the killer was obsessed with hiding, not just hiding his crimes, but hiding who and what he really is.” He paused, then added, “If I were to guess, I think the killer picked up these boys, had sex with them, and then killed them. I think he’s been repressing his homosexuality for a long time.”

“Refusing to admit even to himself that he’s gay.”

“Exactly. I think the killer is someone who fought long and hard against his feelings, and when he finally gave in to what he wanted, he had to get rid of the evidence. He killed his partners.”

“Like a black widow.”

“Sort of. But he wants to keep them close to him, he doesn’t want to part with them. So he keeps something of them, then buries them someplace nearby. It’s enough for him to know that his victims are right there, right down the road.”

“If your theory is right, then Fritz can’t be the killer. Fritz hasn’t repressed the fact that he’s gay. He’s kept it under wraps here at home, in deference to his family’s wishes, but he doesn’t deny it and he’s had a relationship with the same man for many years. Does that sound like someone who’s repressed enough to behave the way you just described?”

“No,” T.J. admitted. “When did Fritz discuss this with you?”

“Earlier today. After Mitch questioned him. He brought me some roses from his garden.” She bit her bottom lip, thinking, then said, “You don’t think he made that up to throw me off, do you?”

“Not unless he thinks like a cop. And he might. Someone who kills over a long period of time has learned how to be cagey. Manipulative. Perhaps he’s good at it. There’s always the possibility that Fritz is actually a really good manipulator.”

She sighed heavily. “Maybe so. Maybe I just don’t know him at all.”

“Look, I’m a little tied up right now, but as soon as I can break free, I’ll head on up there and you and I can talk this through. I’ll see you in a while.”

Lorna hung up and tried to go back to work, but it was futile. Something was nagging at the back of her brain, and she couldn’t keep her mind on the numbers until she remembered what it was. It had to do with her brother. And the reason why he left home as soon as he could, and never came back.

She logged off her computer and went into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and went out the back door. Her mother always said she did some of her best thinking while she was weeding. Lorna figured it was worth a try. Besides, if she was going to scatter the last of her mother’s ashes in the garden, as she’d promised, it had better be cleaned up a bit.

She found her gardening gloves on the ground near the gate, where she’d dropped them a few days earlier. She pulled them on and started to work on the nearest of the beds. She weeded through the lilies and around the herbs, all the while trying to put her finger on whatever it was that had been eluding her.

She was halfway through the mint when it came to her.

She stripped off her gloves and tucked them through the pickets on the fence, then took her phone from her pocket and dialed Rob’s number. When he didn’t answer, she left a message on his voice mail.

“Robbie, it’s Lorna. I need you to call me as soon as you get this. It’s about what happened to you, years ago, when you were… honey, I don’t even know how old you were when it happened, but I’m pretty sure something did. I’m talking about Fritz Keeler, Rob. Please give me a call. We need to talk about it.”

She hung up and slipped her cell phone into the pocket of her jeans and resumed weeding. She wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have left the message; it might upset her brother too much to listen to it. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything at all. And there was a chance she was wrong. Maybe Robbie hadn’t been molested as a boy, maybe there were other reasons why he’d stayed away from home for so long, why he’d sounded relieved when she told him the police were narrowing the suspects to the individuals who’d been around both nights the Eagan kids had disappeared. Could be there was some other explanation, and she’d stuck her foot in it, big-time.

She continued to fret, and even thought of calling back and asking him to ignore the message. Right. As if he could, once he’d listened to it.

The sound of tires on the gravel out front drew her attention to the drive. She walked around the front of the house and watched an unfamiliar car park near the walk. The driver’s door opened, and Mike Keeler got out.

“Hey, Mike,” she called to him, and felt suddenly tongue-tied. What do you say to a man whose brother has been picked up on suspicion of being a serial killer?

“Hi, Lorna.” He walked toward her. “I just heard about what happened here today, and I wanted to stop over and tell you how sorry I am that you got pulled into the middle of it. And how embarrassed I am about… well, you know. Everything.”

“I wish I could think of something to say to you, Mike. But I can’t. And I can’t believe that Fritz is guilty.”

“I can’t believe it, either, but, well, you’re his friend, and I’m his brother. Maybe we’re prejudiced, you and I. And the police or the FBI must have some pretty strong evidence, to have taken him to the station in the back of a cop car like that. I heard all about it. I was at the store when they took him in, and of course, they had to drive right past the Quik Stop.” He paused. “I heard they took some stuff out of the attic, but I don’t know what. Did Walker mention, when he was here, what they found?”

“No, but I did hear from the FBI agent who interviewed Fritz at the house this morning. Mitch Peyton is a friend, and he knows that Fritz and I are friends. He said there were a number of items in a trunk. Things that belonged to the victims.”

“Is that legal, do you think? To go into someone’s house like that, and just take stuff?”

“It is, I suppose, depending if the owner gave permission for the search. There may be some specifics, some technicalities I don’t know about, but I think if you give permission, they can search.”

“Well, I guess that’s that, then, isn’t it?” Mike shook his head slowly. “My poor mother must be tossing in her grave right now.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I can’t believe this has been going on all these years and I didn’t even have a clue.”

“People who have something like that to hide get pretty good at keeping it hidden after awhile. Or so I’m told.”