Hard Truth (18 page)

S
eventeen

“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.”

“Twenty-something,” she replied immediately.

“Damn, you are smart. You ever think about working for the FBI?” Mitch said.

“She owns her own business,” T.J. reminded him. “Why would she want to work for the FBI?”

“Good point.” Mitch nodded. “Anyway, we sat down first with his mother—the father died last year—who basically told us nothing about her son. Oh, sure, he played in the school band, he liked the beach. She showed us his room. The life-sized
Saturday Night Fever
poster—complete with Travolta, posed in that white suit—still hangs on the wall. The room has been cleaned, but nothing has been moved in all these years. It was pretty creepy, actually.”

“That is really sad,” Lorna said.

“It gets sadder,” Regan told her. “Just as we were leaving, Sid’s older brother, Bob, shows up outside. We introduce ourselves, we chat, he tells us to stick around for a few minutes, Mom is leaving for work, and we can talk.”

“Did Bob have something worthwhile to share?” T.J. asked.

“Did he ever. Seems Sid had known at a very young age that he was more interested in guys than in girls. He apparently tried to come out to his family when he was thirteen, but Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear of it. They told Sid it was just a phase he was going through and he’d grow out of it.”

“Poor Sid.” Lorna put her burger down on her plate.

“Well, poor Sid knew better, and just more or less went with it. Bob said over the next few years, Sid became actively homosexual and sought out relationships. He said that on more than one occasion, he’d had to drive into Philadelphia or Wilmington to pick up his brother, because he’d gotten himself into a jam with someone who turned out to be not so nice.”

“Sounds like Sid wasn’t very discriminate in his choice of partners,” T.J. said.

“I think it was more inexperience than anything else,” Regan told him. “I think he just hadn’t learned how to tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

“So maybe he hooked up with someone who was badder than he’d bargained for,” Lorna thought aloud.

“That’s what Bob thinks,” Mitch agreed. “And in view of what we learned about the other victims, I’d say Bob was right on the money.”

“Are you going to tell us?” T.J. gestured for Mitch to continue.

“Victim number two. Hugh Costello. Newark, Delaware. Age seventeen. Same deal,” Mitch told him. “Only difference was, his parents were more rational. We met with both of them. They’re retired now, living in a small beach community on the Delaware Bay. While they admitted that the gay lifestyle would not have been their first choice for their only son, they tried to be loving and understanding. And you have to give these folks credit, this was before the current openness about homosexuality. I think they tried really hard to be accepting, and twenty-five years ago, that must have had its difficult moments.”

“They obviously loved their son very much,” Lorna observed.

“It was very apparent. But like Sid’s brother, Bob, they worried Hugh would fall into bad company. Apparently, he did,” Mitch told them.

“And neither Bob nor Hugh’s parents had any idea who this bad egg was?” asked T.J.

“None. It sounded to me as if it was a one-night thing, both times. Both times, the guy went to a club and never came home. The only difference is that the Costellos were pretty certain that the club was somewhere outside Wilmington.” Mitch bit off the end of a French fry. “Same with the third victim, Tim Gossette. Disappeared after leaving the house to go to a club around Wilmington.”

“I guess you already know the name of the club,” T.J. said, “given your superb computer skills.”

“Actually, I do. It was called the Purple Pheasant.”

“Was?” T.J. asked.

“It closed about twenty years ago. But with my superb computer skills and my trusty laptop, I was able to find the name of the owner. Who, unfortunately, is not available.” Mitch looked around the table, then asked, “Anyone want to take a guess?”

“Don’t say he disappeared.” Lorna’s jaw dropped.

“About a month before the club closed. Which, incidentally, was the reason it closed down. He simply vanished. According to the newspaper archives I was able to access, the club had been very popular and appeared to be operating in the black. In spite of the fact that it was visited often by the state police and closed down more than once for serving underage boys.”

“So the owner . . . what was his name?” Lorna asked.

“Lorenzo Blair,” Regan told her.

“So Blair runs this club . . . which all of the victims so far had frequented. They disappear and are found buried in my woods. Then he goes missing?” Lorna bit her bottom lip. “Do you think he could have been the killer?”

“I think it’s more likely he was one of the victims,” T.J. replied. “No one is going to walk away from a venture that’s making money. You’d sell it, but you wouldn’t just walk away. Maybe we can track down a relative, see if we can get some DNA, perhaps get a match to one of the remains found back there.”

“Already on it.” Mitch smiled. “I have a meeting with his mother next week. First, however, I’ll be meeting with Chief Walker to fill him in. Gotta keep the locals in the loop. Besides, I want to see what he’s found over the past few days. He’s been awfully quiet.”

“Wouldn’t he have told you if another body had been located?” Regan asked.

“I’d certainly expect that, yes. But I’m interested in the other things, the little things they might be digging up or putting aside. Things that might contain DNA or fingerprints.”

“After all these years, you can get fingerprints and DNA?” Lorna stood and began clearing the plates. All the burgers and fries had been devoured and nothing remained but a few crumbs.

“Sometimes. Both depend on a number of factors. Exposure to the elements, temperature, that sort of thing. I spoke with the county techs the other day and they all seem to be on the ball. I just want to see if anything that’s been recovered looks like something we might want to expedite to the FBI labs.” Mitch then turned to Regan. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

“It’s early evening, from Baltimore, but I need to run home and pack a few things first.”

“So you’re going to do your TV thing, then see if you can find Eddie Kroll?” Mitch asked.

“I’m going to hunt him down.” Regan grinned. “I am so curious about this guy. I’m wondering if maybe he wasn’t a friend or even a distant relative of my dad’s. That would be great, to find a relative, after all this time.”

“Didn’t you know any of your father’s family?” Lorna stood at the sink, cleaning scraps from the dishes into the trash can.

“No. I never met any of his relatives. His parents died while he was in college, and his only brother died while we were living in England,” Regan told her.

“How long did you live abroad?” T.J. rose and walked across the kitchen. To Lorna, he said, “You wash, I’ll dry.”

“You wash, I’ll put things away after I dry.” She smiled. “And thanks.”

“We lived in England until I was twelve. My mother was born there, and she very reluctantly left to move here. I knew all of her family, we’re still close. But I never met anyone on my dad’s side.”

“No cousins?” T.J. asked.

“He didn’t have any. Just the one brother who died.” Regan smiled wistfully. “I miss my British cousins. I wish I had someone here to feel connected to. It’s just . . . odd. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles or cousins. You feel very much alone without family.”

“How often do you see your English relatives?” asked Mitch.

“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.”