Hard Truth

13

“Fritz, I really appreciate you making time to see us on such short notice,” Lorna said as Fritz led them into his living room.

“Hey, I’m just glad you were able to catch me before I left town,” he told his visitors. “Is it okay if we talk in here, or would you rather go out to the sunporch?”

“I’d love the sunporch,” Lorna replied. “I’ll bet there’s a beautiful view of the garden from there.”

“The best.” He winked and gestured them to follow him through the house to the back. “Some areas are starting to fade out now, sadly. The daylilies, for example, peaked a few weeks ago. July was spectacular, and we did have fabulous roses this year, if I do say so myself.”

“You mentioned leaving town,” T.J. said. “Vacation?”

“Just a mini. I don’t have time to take a full week off right now-the store is always so busy in the summer, you know, with all those people using Callen Road as their shortcut out to I-95. From there it’s just a short hop to the Delaware beaches.”

Fritz led Lorna and T.J. through a white louvered door onto a screened-in porch that overlooked the backyard. “Sit,” he instructed. “Make yourselves comfortable.”

Lorna and T.J. took the chairs on either side of the door, leaving Fritz to sit on the sofa.

“You really outdid yourself this year,” Lorna noted, looking out the back screen to the lush gardens beyond. “The colors are just wonderful.”

“Everything came up as planned. That doesn’t always happen. And of course, my mother always took great pride in her roses. I try to keep them going in her memory.” He looked from Lorna to T.J., then said, “But you didn’t come to talk about gardening.”

“You’re right. We came to talk to you about Jason Eagan,” T.J. told him.

“Right. You’d be Lorna’s private eye, then.” He nodded knowingly. “What is it you want to know?”

“Just your recollections of the night Melinda disappeared. Your name is on the list of people interviewed, though the notes on that interview and several others appear to be missing.”

“Probably because I didn’t tell them much of anything. I had nothing important to say.” Fritz shrugged. “We were over at Matt Conrad’s, just hanging out in the backyard.”

“Matt’s house was that big white clapboard one on Callen Road, the first house past our fence,” Lorna explained to T.J. “It’s the only house between our farm and the house the Eagans lived in at the time.”

“Right. We used to all hang out there a lot because Matt’s parents both worked and we usually had the house to ourselves till seven o’clock or so, when they got home from work, then we’d all leave.”

“Tell us about the night Melinda Eagan disappeared,” T.J. prompted.

“Matt and I were in his backyard, then Jason stopped by. He said he was on his way to get his sister but he’d stop by after. He was back in maybe five, seven minutes. It hadn’t taken him very long.”

“Did you see his sister?” T.J. asked.

“No, I didn’t. Matt and I were sitting on the stump of a tree that had been cut down, smoking cigarettes Matt had swiped from his mother’s purse before she left for work that morning. Our backs were to the field. As I said, Jason joined us a few minutes later. He had a bag with some of his sister’s birthday cake, and we polished that off. Then, maybe after he’d been there for ten or fifteen minutes, we heard Jason’s mother calling him from their house. He handed me the cigarette he’d just lit and took off like a bat out of hell.” Fritz glanced at Lorna and added, “Mrs. Eagan had quite a temper. When she told Jason to jump, he jumped.”

“So he went home, and you stayed there for how much longer?”

“Maybe another fifteen, twenty minutes after that. Then my brother, Mike, came by to get me home for dinner, and Dustin stopped over. But before we could leave, Jason came back and asked if any of us had seen Melinda. We hadn’t, but we all started looking for her.”

“How did you go about doing that?”

“We just all went through the field, calling her. I went down to the pond, thinking maybe she was there, then back through the orchard. Everyone pretty much fanned out.”

“Were you able to keep track of where everyone else was?” T.J. asked.

“Nah,” Fritz replied. “Most of the corn had been cut by then, but in spots it was still maybe knee high or a little better. And of course the field is hilly, so you didn’t have a good straight-on view of where anyone else was. And by then it was getting dark. You couldn’t see much of anything.”

“So if someone had been hiding there, you could have missed him,” Lorna said.

“It’s possible, but we covered that field pretty well. And then after awhile, the police came, and they covered it, too. If anyone had been hiding back there, I think they would have been seen by someone.” He stopped for a minute, then added, “I seem to recall your mother and father were there, helping us search.”

“That’s right,” she said, nodding.

“There wasn’t a sign of that kid. Later, after we’d been through the field for what seemed like about the tenth time, the police went in to talk to Mrs. Eagan. We gave our statements-pretty much what I just told you-then we went home. It was all anyone talked about for the next couple of months, though. Melinda Eagan disappearing like that, then Jason…” Fritz glanced at Lorna. “You might have been too young to remember, but I’ll never forget the sense of panic that went through the school back then. That anything like that could happen around here was inconceivable.”

“Did Jason ever talk about his sister?” T.J. asked.

“Not really. Oh, he liked to give her and her friends a hard time. Creep them out, harass them a little, nothing that would really hurt them. I had the feeling he really did like his sister, but he never would have shown it. It wouldn’t have been cool, you know?”

“Creep them out, how?”

“Just do things to scare them a little. One time, I remember, he caught a couple of little garter snakes and put them in her room to scare her and that other girl she was friends with, the one from Arnold?” Fritz looked at Lorna.

“Danielle Porter,” she supplied.

“Right. Danielle.” He nodded.

“How about the night Jason disappeared?” T.J. looked at his notes. “Which most likely was the night he was murdered.”

“Again, we were all together. We met up at Matt’s, then we went to Dustin’s, and he drove us to White Marsh Park. He was sixteen that year, had his license.”

“How old were you?” T.J. asked.

“I was sixteen,” Fritz told him. “Jason was fourteen, but he looked older.”

“So did Mike,” Lorna recalled.

“True. He’d turned fourteen at the end of the summer, but he was always a big kid. He shot past me when he was twelve. He got the genes from our dad’s side of the family, I guess,” Fritz said. “Anyway, Matt, Jason, and I walked out to Dustin’s. His parents were out for the night, and he’d managed to score a couple of six-packs, I guess one of the older guys picked it up for us. I honestly don’t remember who we got it from. We took it out to White Marsh Park and drank it. Talked about stuff. Girls, of course. Matt had just been kicked off the soccer team for arguing with his homeroom teacher, so we had to talk about the injustice of that for a while. Later, Dustin drove me home, then Matt, and he was going to drop Jason off last, on his way back to his house. And that’s what he said he did.”

“Your brother wasn’t with you that night?”

“No, I don’t remember what he was doing that night.” Fritz glanced at Lorna, then asked, “What’s that little grin all about?”

“I was just wondering how you managed to sneak in half-drunk in the wee hours of the morning.”

“Oh.” He laughed. “My mother visited her sister in Rehoboth once a month. That was her weekend at Aunt Kitty’s.”

“How did you find out about Jason disappearing?” T.J. asked.

“When he didn’t show up in school for a couple of days, we stopped out there at his house, and his mother told us she didn’t know where he was, that the police were looking for him, and if any of us heard from him, we should let her know.” Fritz raised his eyebrows, as if revisiting the surprise of that moment. “We were just stunned, you know? He was just gone.”

“And you had no thoughts about that? What did you think might have happened?” T.J. probed.

“Truthfully, we figured he’d run away. That after his sister disappeared, maybe he figured, what the hell, there was no point in hanging around.” Fritz looked at T.J. “And right about then, the story was going around that the police wanted to question him about Melinda’s disappearance. Some people thought maybe he’d done something to her.”

“Did you?”

“No, Mr. Dawson. I knew he hadn’t done anything to her. For all he liked to tease and torment her, I always thought she was the only person he really cared about. I figured it was more likely that he thought that, with her gone, he didn’t have much reason to hang around.”

“He ever talk about running away?”

“Back then we all talked about running away. Kids do that. No one took him seriously. But then when he was gone like that, we-Matt and me-thought maybe he’d done it after all. Dustin believed Jason’s mother might have had something to do with it, but I never did. She just didn’t have the strength to take down someone who was bigger and stronger.”

“Do you know if he ever saw his father?”

“No. He never saw him, far as I know. Mr. Eagan had nothing to do with either Jason or Melinda. And frankly, Jason wanted nothing to do with his dad. There was no love lost there, on either side, I think.”

“I know you’ve been asked this before, and it has to be something you’ve thought about yourself, so I have to ask.” T.J. leaned forward a bit. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm either Melinda or Jason?”

“Jason could be a bully sometimes, so I know there were a lot of people who didn’t like him, maybe some who wished he’d disappear. But not liking someone, and killing them, that’s two different things. And as far as his sister was concerned, I’m sorry. I didn’t really know her well enough to have a feel for what could have happened to her. All we knew back then was that she disappeared one night, then a few weeks later, Jason disappeared the same way.”

He paused, then added, “Only now, we know what happened to him. Maybe she’ll turn up soon, too.”

“Is Matt Conrad still around?” T.J. asked.

“No, but Dustin lives out near Elk Run. Last I heard, they’d been in touch. I can get his phone number for you.” Fritz rose and started out of the room.

“And your brother?”

Fritz seemed to pause momentarily in the doorway. “He’s still around. You can probably catch him down at the store till seven.”

“How about this cop who made out the reports, Duncan Parks?” T.J. asked. “He still around?”

“Last I heard, he retired to Florida about ten years ago, had a heart attack, and died a month later.”

T.J. stood and went to the back of the sunporch and stared out at the rose garden. When Fritz returned a minute later, he handed the paper with the phone number on it to Lorna.

“Matt is married now and lives out near Reading, I think. Dustin’s still pretty friendly with him, so he should know how to get in touch with him.”

“You didn’t stay in contact?” T.J. asked.

“Not really.” Fritz shrugged. “We don’t have a whole lot in common anymore.”

“That happens, doesn’t it? Anyway, we appreciate the number, Fritz. Thanks.” Lorna tucked the slip of paper into her jeans pocket. “And thanks for taking some time from your travel schedule for us.”

“No big deal. Besides, I want to help if I can. That was such a sad thing, those two just disappearing like that.” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Sure would be a shame if Melinda had met the same fate her brother did, wouldn’t it?”

“How well do you know Fritz?” T.J. asked when they were back in the car.

“I used to know him pretty well. He was a bit older than me, but we were neighbors. The Keelers live right up around the bend on Callen Road. He taught me how to drive a stick shift after my dad died. I had just turned sixteen a couple of months before and Dad was teaching me how to drive his old pickup when he had his heart attack. Fritz later showed me how to work the clutch so I could drive the truck around the farm, like I’d wanted to do. He’s always been a nice guy. Quiet, for the most part, and devoted to his mother, who died a few years ago. She’d been ill, and he stayed home to care for her.”

“And his brother?” T.J. started the car and backed out of Fritz’s driveway.

“Mike had a different agenda.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was much more popular, especially with the girls. Everyone wanted to go out with him-me included-but he was really selective. Didn’t date a whole lot. His wife was a quiet girl all through school. I think a lot of people were surprised when he married her.”

“Why?”

“Well, like I said, he could have had his pick.” Lorna thought for a minute, then added, “She’s not as flashy as he is, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe he figured one peacock in the family was enough.”

“I think you might be right.” She stared out the window, then said, “Slow down. The pizza place is up here on the left. I know we just had pizza last night, but I have the feeling we’ll have a lot of ‘splaining to do if we go back to the house without it for Regan, and this pizza place is better. The state liquor store is right across the road there, so we can grab a few sixpacks of beer while we’re here.”

T.J. parked in front of the restaurant and turned off the engine. They went inside and read the menu, debated topping options, then agreed on one large pepperoni, one large with everything. T.J. went for the beer, and when he returned he joined Lorna at a small table while they waited for the pizzas.

“I got two six-packs of Sam Adams and two of Bud Light, that okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Thanks.” She pushed a can of Diet Pepsi across the table. “Soda will have to do for now.”

“No problem.” He leaned back in his seat, then thought better of it when the plastic back groaned slightly. He sat forward and asked, “Who’s this other girl Fritz mentioned?”

“Danielle? She went to our school, and was about two grades ahead of us, if I recall correctly. I think Melinda had just started to get to know her the spring before she disappeared. I don’t know how well they knew each other, or how Mellie got to know her. She didn’t say much about her, but that last summer and fall, she spent a lot of time at Danielle’s house. Weekends, mostly.”

“The police did interview her, I saw her name on the list.” He popped the tab on the soda can. “She didn’t have much to add, though.”

“I don’t know why she would. She wasn’t around that night.”

“They would have talked to anyone who might have been in contact with Melinda during that time,” T.J. told her. “They’d want to know if Melinda had mentioned any stranger who might have approached her, or if she’d felt someone had been watching her, that sort of thing.”

“I always thought there was something odd about Melinda’s relationship with Danielle.” Lorna got up and went to the counter and returned with two straws, one of which she silently offered to T.J.

“No, thanks,” he declined. “What did you think was odd?”

“I could never figure out how Melinda knew her. Or when she got to know her.”

“She never talked about her?”

“She talked about her, but she never really said anything about her.” Lorna appeared pensive. “I can’t explain it.”

“Did she go to Danielle’s house, or did Danielle go to hers?”

“She almost always went to Danielle’s. I can only think of one time when Danielle was at Melinda’s. But Mellie never talked about what they did at Danielle’s. I just remember that she was always excited about going. As a kid, I was probably a little jealous-you know, my best friend had a new friend. I guess I was afraid Melinda would dump me for her and then I wouldn’t have a best friend anymore.”

“Did you know Danielle?”

“I knew who she was. As I said, she went to our school, but she was a couple of years older. The school we attended was a regional elementary, it went up to grade eight. It was odd that a sixth grader would want to be friends with a fourth grader. Especially since they didn’t seem to have much in common.”

“Why would you say that, if you didn’t know Danielle?”

“The girls she hung around with were a little more advanced than Melinda and I were, socially. So it just never struck me as a good fit, that’s all. The one time I remember Danielle stayed at Melinda’s for an overnight, she seemed bored to death.”

“Well, now I’m intrigued,” T.J. said. “I think we’re going to have to find this Danielle person and see what was going on. In the meantime,” he said as he pushed his chair back from the table, “it looks as if our dinner is ready. Let’s continue this conversation back at the house. Maybe we can get Mitch to use his FBI skills to track down Danielle.”

As it turned out, Mitch had already begun to apply his skills to the case.

“First thing in the morning, I’ll be making the acquaintance of your local police force,” Mitch told Lorna.

“Good luck there.” She laughed. “Are you planning on just walking in and introducing yourself?”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.” He grinned. “As the special agent assigned to the case, I’ll be-”

“Whoa, back up.” T.J. twisted the cap off a beer and handed the bottle to Mitch. “The FBI is in on this now?”

Mitch nodded. “As of about three this afternoon.”

“How the hell did that happen?” T.J. joined him at the table.

“I started discussing the case with my boss, and told him about Regan getting involved through Lorna.” He took a swallow of beer. “He’d seen the coverage on the news, of course, and thought by now we’d have had a request from someone to send an agent in to assist. Since this is apparently a serial killer’s work, and they have a small police force here with no experience in this area.”

“So what did…” T.J. paused. “You still working for John?”

Mitch nodded.

“How did he manage to get you in?”

“He called the district attorney and asked if he thought the Bureau could be of service. And the DA was happy to get the call, from what I understand. He’s up for reelection next year and the last thing he wants is something like this hanging over his head for the next twelve months.”

“So John graciously offered to send a man down to assist.” T.J. nodded. He knew John Mancini’s MO all too well.

“Who’s John?” Lorna distributed four plates from the stack she’d set on the table.

“John Mancini. He’s the head of the unit I work for,” Mitch told her. He turned to T.J. and said, “He told me to tell you he’d pull the reprimand from my file if you came back in to talk to him.”

“What reprimand?” T.J. asked.

“The one he gave me after I sent that fax to the Callen Police Department asking for the reports on the Eagan case.”

“Who’s he kidding?” T.J. shook his head. “He didn’t put any such thing in your file. Not his style. Not for something like that. And you’re on the case, so you know he’s not even pissed off at you.”

“I told him you’d see through that, but he wanted me to give it a try.” Mitch shrugged. “He would like you to come in for a sit-down, told me to tell you he has a few select openings he needs to fill.”

“I’m not looking to go back to the Bureau, Mitch, but tell John I appreciate the offer.” T.J. got up and grabbed a beer from the six-pack he’d left on the kitchen counter.

“You worked for this John Mancini?” Lorna asked.

“With Mitch,” T.J. told her. “We went through training together, actually.”

Lorna stepped aside to permit Regan to place both pizza boxes on the table.

“You’ve been out now for what, six years?” Regan asked.

T.J. nodded. “Something like that.”

Lorna handed out napkins, then took the seat across from T.J. She opened the lids of both boxes and told her guests, “Pepperoni on the left, the works on the right. Please help yourselves.”

“So, you left the FBI to start your private investigation business?” Lorna asked T.J.

“My cousin and I started one, yes.” The slice of pizza he’d just slid onto his plate appeared to have garnered an inordinate amount of his attention.

Lorna didn’t have to be hit over the head. His leaving the Bureau was off-limits. Okay by her.

She turned to Mitch. “So, what’s your plan to aid and assist the Callen Police Department?”

“The first thing I want to do is see if we can start putting together a list of young men who went missing over the past twenty-five to thirty years from the Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey area.” He drew an imaginary circle on the table, encompassing the points where those states came together. “Then we’ll see what evidence we have that will enable us to start matching up the remains with the missing. At least, that’s the goal. Once we’re able to start identifying victims, we’ll try to find some commonality among them.”

“Meaning?” Lorna asked.

“There has to be a reason why each of these victims was chosen. Once we figure out what that reason was, we’ll be closer to figuring out who we’re looking for,” Mitch explained.

“After all these years, isn’t it likely that the killer is gone from here? All of these victims were killed a long time ago,” Lorna pointed out. “What are the chances the killer stayed in Callen?”

“That’s a good question,” Mitch told her. “Right now, we have no way of knowing if he moved on, or if he simply found another means of relieving whatever it was that compelled him to kill in the first place.”

“So he could still be here,” Regan said, “but he might not be feeling any pressure to kill.”

“Swell.” Lorna put her pizza on her plate. “What happens if he starts feeling the pressure again?”

Mitch looked at T.J.

“This is really your area of expertise, Dawson. I defer to you.”

T.J. shook his head. “Not anymore, pal. I hung up that hat a long time ago.”

“Hey, you know what they say around the Bureau.” Mitch took a sip of beer, then set the bottle back down quietly on the table. “Once a profiler, always a profiler.”

“You were a profiler?” Lorna tried to keep her jaw from dropping.

“Long ago and far away,” T.J. said, as if to dismiss it as having no importance.

There were other questions she could have asked, questions she wanted to ask, but he’d clearly closed that door. She glanced beside her and met Regan’s eyes.

Later, Regan told her silently.

“So, Regan,” Mitch turned his attention to her. “What’s the latest on your search for Eddie Kroll?”

“Who’s Eddie Kroll?” Lorna asked.

“I don’t know who he is. I know a little about him, but I don’t know who he is,” Regan told her. “I found his name in a file in a box of things that belonged to my father.”

“What kind of things?” T.J. appeared relieved to have the topic of conversation shift from his former occupation.

“Old report cards, mostly. All from a Catholic grade school in Illinois from back in the forties. I did try to contact the school, but it closed about fifteen years ago.” She smiled. “I tried tracking the name through the diocese schools, but the trail seems to end in ninth grade. There was no record of him after early March of his freshman year at St. Ambrose High.”

“You’re not giving up, are you?” Mitch asked.

“Are you kidding? I’m hot on this guy’s trail.” She grinned. “I’ll be in Chicago at the end of the week, Saturday, to do a TV show. If Eddie Kroll is out there, I’m going to find him.”

“He probably changed schools-maybe his family moved out of the city-and is happily retired in Florida by now,” Lorna said. “And what’s the big deal with him, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“My dad kept all kinds of things, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards, you name it, that related to specific incidents. But in this case, he kept this guy’s report cards. Why?” She put down her glass. “Why have them? Why keep them? What significance could they have had to my father, who wrote true crime books?”

“Then what you really want to know is, who is Eddie Kroll, and what was he to Josh Landry,” Lorna summed it up.

“Exactly.” Regan nodded. “And one way or another, I’m going to find out. However long it takes, I’m going to find Eddie Kroll.”

“Well, you’ve got your mystery man, I’ve got my serial killer,” Mitch said. “Sounds like we’re both going to have our hands full for a while.”

He looked at T.J., who was working on another slice of pizza.

“Would you at least be willing to take a look at whatever information I get, once we start compiling data on the victims? Sort of a thank you for me getting those reports for you this weekend?”

T.J. looked distracted, as if chewing on Mitch’s question along with the pepperoni.

Finally, he nodded slowly. “Your paybacks are a bitch, Peyton, you know that? But, okay, I’ll take a look. As a thank you. Then we’re even.”

“Sure.” Mitch looked pleased with himself. “Then we’re even.”