“She says she didn’t see Melinda at all that night. She saw Jason in the yard with his mother… heard Billie yelling at him. Never saw Melinda, though.” Lorna looked up at him and smiled. “And Mrs. Kemp would have known. She knew everything that everyone was doing, all the time.”
“Nothing like a nosy neighbor.”
“I guess sometimes that’s true, right? Sometimes the neighbors see things that can help out in an investigation.”
“Sometimes.”
She glanced over the other reports in the file, the early investigations following Jason’s questioning right through to finding the body in the back field. The clock in the hall chimed ten. No wonder she was tired. And T.J. still had to drive back to his home.
“I didn’t realize it was so late. May I keep this tonight?” she asked. “Then maybe we can talk tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
“I need to decide how much money and how much more time I want to put into this.”
“I don’t blame you. You take your time.” He stood up. “Actually, I’m busy tomorrow. Call Monday, anytime. I’ll be around.”
“I thought you said you sold the business. Will I be dealing with someone else?”
“No. If you go forward with this, you’ll work with me.”
She walked him to the front door.
“Thanks again for the napoleons. Unnecessary, but very much appreciated.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for being so understanding.”
“You have any thoughts at all on this?” She went out the door with him and across the porch.
“One thing I was wondering. Was the dress ever found?”
“Her birthday dress, the one in the bag?”
“Yeah. I didn’t see any mention of it having been found that night, and it wasn’t on the evidence inventory. Actually, you’re the only person to have mentioned it.”
“I don’t know that anyone else would have been aware she’d had it with her. Her mother didn’t know she had it, and Mellie sure wouldn’t have told Jason. My mom and I knew, but I don’t recall that anyone asked me about it.” She shook her head. “I don’t really know if my mother said anything to the police about Mellie having a bag with a dress in it. But they wouldn’t have been looking for something they didn’t know was missing.”
He walked down the steps with his hands in his pockets.
“What are you thinking?” she asked from the top step.
“Melinda had to have disappeared somewhere between here and her house. According to Jason’s statement, he stopped off at a friend’s house, and his sister continued on through the field. So whatever happened to her, obviously it happened in that field. Or started in the field. Someone else had to have been there, someone had to have taken her from there. If we’re assuming someone grabbed her, chances are the bag with the dress in it would have been dropped someplace. I’d expect her to fight, wouldn’t you? And in fighting, she probably would have dropped the bag.”
“She would have fought. Melinda was tough, chippy.” Lorna nodded solemnly. “She would have fought like a demon if a stranger had tried to grab her.”
“Then where is that bag?” He opened his car door and stood next to it. The driver’s seat looked barely large enough to accommodate a man of his height and broad shoulders. “Where’s Melinda’s birthday dress?”
“I never thought about it. It never occurred to me that it might be missing.” She gazed off into the field. “Maybe it’s buried out there someplace, turned over into the field by the tractor when the field was plowed.”
“Or maybe,” he said as he got behind the wheel and started the car, “it wasn’t a stranger she ran into that night.”
9
Mosquitoes. The bane of summer.
Lorna swatted at the air around her head and pulled the covers up a little higher. Why do they always seem to know when you’re having the best dream?
She hunched under the covers, but the buzzing persisted. It was another long minute before she realized there was no mosquito in her room. Someone was buzzing the doorbell.
She got out of bed and went to the side window. Looking toward the front of the house, she saw a black-and-white police car, engine on and the lights silently whirling. She threw up the sash and called out, “I’ll be down in a minute.”
She pulled on her clothes and slipped her feet into rubber flip-flops and went downstairs, grumbling to herself. It was eight A.M., and she hadn’t had coffee. She hadn’t slept well, what with Uncle Will prowling around, though thankfully he’d settled into his old room at the end of the hall by two this morning and hadn’t been heard from since. And then there was the matter of T. J. Dawson and what to do about him. She’d spent all day Sunday and well into the night wrestling with herself over the issue.
Hire him? Not hire him?
Hire him? Not hire him?
Part of her wanted to hire him, just to have him around, just to be able to spend a little more time with him. Not a good enough reason to spend a considerable amount of money. She couldn’t remember the last man she’d met who’d interested her as much as he did, though.
Actually, she could, but he’d turned out to be a dud, she reminded herself.
She unlocked the front door and opened it to find Chief Walker, looking annoyed.
“I’m sorry, Chief, but I didn’t sleep well last night so I overslept and-”
“Sorry to wake you.” It was obvious to Lorna he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “But we have a problem.”
“Chief, I told Brad I didn’t call the FBI, I only-”
“Not that problem,” he cut her off again. “The construction crew seems to have hit gold again.”
“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.”