Her Mother’s Grave_Absolutely gripping crime fiction with unputdownable mystery and suspense

by Lisa Regan

  “Anything you can remember would be helpful,” Josie prodded.

  He scratched over his left ear. “I’m sorry, Boss,” he said. “I don’t remember. I don’t even remember there being a cleaning service back then. I was on patrol, you know? Brand new from the academy. Didn’t spend much time in the station house.”

  Josie sighed and waved toward her office door. “Thanks anyway, Sergeant.”

  Lamay lumbered toward the door but stopped before crossing the threshold. “Boss,” he said, “I bet there are records of it upstairs. I had to go up there last year to get an old case file. There were records going back to the ’70s—not just closed cases, but receipts and stuff too.”

  Excitement propelled Josie out of her chair. “Let’s take a look,” she said.

  * * *

  They hardly ever used the third floor of the Denton Police Department. The old, historic building didn’t have elevators, and no one particularly wanted to climb another set of steps, so it was used primarily for storage. Josie had only been up there a few times, mostly to help the women from the historical society lug holiday decorations back and forth from one of the storage closets. She had never noticed all the document boxes stacked in the hallways—or rather, she had never noticed just how many of them spilled out of the various rooms and into the hallway.

  She, Noah, and Gretchen stood at the mouth of one of the hallways, staring at the stacks of boxes. Beside her, Gretchen said, “This is worse than the Bellewood PD storage room.”

  Noah said, “This looks like a fire hazard.”

  “Do we really have that many closed files and old records?” Josie asked.

  They moved down the hallway, and Josie swung the door to the first room open. Inside were shelves along each wall, all of them packed with more boxes covered in dust nearly a quarter-inch thick.

  Noah said, “Chief Harris kept everything.”

  “So did everyone who came before him, by the looks of it,” Josie said.

  Gretchen sneezed.

  “I think none of them had the time to organize any of it and shred the old stuff,” Noah explained.

  Josie sighed. “Well, I’m not authorizing overtime to clean up this mess, that’s for sure, but have a couple of people start doing it bit by bit on the slow days, would you?”

  “Sure thing,” Noah said.

  “All right, let’s see what we can find.”

  They split up, each one taking a different room, quickly searching the boxes for old receipts and contracts from the mid ’80s. An hour later, Josie’s back ached from leaning over the boxes and riffling through their contents, when she heard Gretchen call from the hallway, “I got it!”

  Josie and Noah met her in the hallway, where she dragged an old white document box along the floor. “Here,” Gretchen said, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand. “Handy Helpers Cleaning Service. They had contracts to clean the building after hours in 1981, 1982, and looks like 1983. No personnel records, only the contract between the service and the police department. I don’t see anything after 1983. It must be in a different box.”

  Josie said, “That’s okay. Pull what you’ve got. What we really need is the name of the owner. I doubt they’d keep personnel records over thirty years old, but the owner might remember my mother, or know someone who would.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Josie said, looking from Gretchen to Noah, who stood in front of her desk like a couple of school children being reprimanded by the principal.

  Noah shook his head, a mournful look in his eye. “I’m sorry, Boss. Handy Helpers Cleaning Service went out of business in 1984, when the owner died. Car accident. Not long after Belinda disappeared.”

  “I talked to a couple of his relatives—a niece and nephew. No one kept any of the records from the business,” Gretchen said.

  “So there wouldn’t be any personnel records,” Josie said.

  “Sorry, Boss,” Noah offered.

  Gretchen said, “There is still Sophia Bowen, the judge’s wife. If she used to hang around with Belinda and the girl from the cleaning service, maybe she can offer us a lead. She said she can meet with us later today, and she lives in Denton now.”

  Josie considered this. Interviewing Sophia Bowen had been a priority to begin with, but she had really hoped that the cleaning service personnel records would give them something more solid than someone’s memories. A first and last name. A date of birth. A social security number. Anything that might tell them the identity of Josie’s mother before she stole Belinda Rose’s life.

  “I’ll go with you,” Josie said. “Where are you with the list of girls who lived in Maggie Lane’s care home during the time Belinda was there?”

  “Well, that’s the good news,” Gretchen said, pulling a sheaf of papers from her back pocket and handing them to Josie. “I have a complete list, and Angie is on her way to the station to talk to us.”

  The disappointment Josie felt just moments earlier gave way to hope. “That’s great.”

  Gretchen helped Josie spread the pages across her desk. “There are fourteen girls in all who lived at Maggie Lane’s care home while Belinda was there. Two of them we can eliminate because they were adopted out before Belinda turned ten. Three of them are dead. One is in prison. Two were moved to different foster homes before Belinda reached high-school age. That leaves six of them, including Angie Dobson—that’s her married name—who is on her way here.”

  Gretchen pointed to a photo of a woman in her early fifties with long brown hair just starting to show strands of gray. The photo looked as though it had been pulled from a social media account. In it, Dobson stood on a beach at sunset, smiling with sunburned cheeks, a Hawaiian-print sleeveless sundress wrapped around her thick frame. The straps of her bathing suit peeked from beneath the dress, cutting into her tan shoulders. “She lives outside of Philadelphia, but her daughter goes to college here, and she’s in town to visit. She graduated the same year that Belinda would have graduated.”

  “What about the others?” Josie asked, studying each of the photos, most of which had been pulled from social media. There was one mug shot and the photos of the three women who had already passed on, accompanied their obituaries. All looked to be in their forties or fifties. None resembled Josie’s mother.

  “I’ve spoken to them all,” Gretchen said. “They didn’t have much to offer. Belinda did her own thing. Most of them didn’t like her because Mrs. Lane seemed to favor her. Then she got the job at the courthouse and was hardly ever home. They confirmed her gaining weight shortly after she started at the courthouse, running away for three months, and then when she came back, always being over at Lloyd Todd’s place. A couple of them said they suspected that she was pregnant, but they couldn’t say for sure. None of them recall her talking about where she went when she ran away. Two of them said they thought she had a few friends at the courthouse, but they don’t remember any names. None of them remembered the names of any of her friends other than Lloyd and Damon Todd.”

  “So, this Angie is our last hope as far as the care home girls go,” Josie said.

  Gretchen nodded. “Yeah, hopefully she knows something the others didn’t.”

  “Well if Belinda didn’t confide in anyone at the care home,” Noah piped up, “there’s still Judge Bowen’s wife.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Angela Dobson made herself comfortable at the head of the conference room table while Gretchen flipped to a new page in her trusty notebook and Noah got them all coffee. Her shoulder-length hair showed even more gray than in the Facebook photo that Gretchen had found. When she smiled, clusters of crow’s feet appeared at the corners of her brown eyes. A variety of colorful butterflies dotted the sweater she wore over a pair of pressed jeans. “I always wondered what happened to Belinda,” she told Josie and Gretchen. Her hair swished as she shook her head. “So sad. I didn’t believe she had met prince charming and gotten married, but I ne
ver thought she was dead. Murdered too. How sad. How did it… how did it happen?”

  Gretchen and Josie exchanged a look. Josie said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dobson, we’re not at liberty to divulge those details yet.”

  Angie nodded sagely. “I understand. I guess it will all come out eventually anyway.”

  Noah appeared with three coffee-filled paper cups squished together between his palms. He doled them out and then produced packets of sugar, creamers, and plastic stirrers from his pockets. Angie smiled at him. “My kind of guy,” she remarked.

  Leaving her coffee untouched, Gretchen began, “How well did you know Belinda?”

  Angie dumped three sugars into her coffee and stirred. “Pretty well, I guess. We were the same age, you know. Our birthdays were only a month apart. I came to the care home two years after Belli though. That’s what Maggie called her. Did she tell you that?”

  “Yes, she did,” Josie answered.

  Angie rolled her eyes. “None of the rest of us had nicknames, but Belinda did. Maggie would never say it, but we all thought Belinda was her favorite. She was a nice lady, Maggie was, but she didn’t hide her preference for her precious Belli.”

  “Maggie said that Belli became quite the troublemaker in her teens, though,” Noah remarked.

  Angie waved a dismissive hand. “Oh sure, we all were. Belinda just got caught more often.”

  “Did you and Belinda spend a lot of time together?” Gretchen asked.

  “At Maggie’s we did, but that was about it. Especially once she got the job at the courthouse. She was never home.”

  Josie said, “Did Belinda ever talk to you about her pregnancy?”

  She expected shock and surprise, but Angie simply laughed and said, “She didn’t talk to anyone about that pregnancy.”

  “You knew about the pregnancy?” Noah asked.

  “Well, I suspected. She never came out and admitted it, but she didn’t deny it either. One time I caught her raiding the fridge in the middle of the night, and she asked me not to tell Maggie. I said, ‘I won’t tell her you were sneaking food, but that’s the least of your worries ’cause she is gonna flip when she finds out you’re pregnant,’ and she didn’t say anything. Didn’t even blink. She just waddled off to bed. That’s when I knew I was right.”

  “Did you ever ask her about who the father was or what she intended to do about the baby?” Gretchen asked.

  Angie shook her head. “No, not like that, anyway. I got her in private a few times and told her if she wanted to talk about it, she could tell me anything and I wouldn’t tell Maggie, but she always walked away from me.”

  “You noticed she was pregnant,” Josie said. “How come no one else did?”

  Angie shrugged and sipped her coffee. “Belinda was one of those girls who gained weight all over when she was pregnant. She didn’t really have a belly, she just got wider everywhere, so it looked like she was just putting on weight. I only knew because we shared a room, and she was always throwing up in our trash can. Plus, the foster mother I was with before Maggie got pregnant right before I was transferred, so I knew what to look for. Actually, that’s why I ended up at the care home, because once she had her own baby, she was finished with us foster kids. I guess I just knew the signs—the morning sickness, the big appetite, the weight gain—and like I said, if we didn’t share a bedroom, I might not have even known. We hardly saw her at the care home. She worked all the time back then. She’d leave for school with the rest of us in the morning and not come home till half the girls were already in bed. Maggie was so overwhelmed, she didn’t have time for noticing things.”

  This last statement was without malice. Even when Angie complained of Maggie playing favorites, her tone betrayed quite an affection for the foster mom.

  “Did you say anything to anyone when she ran away in the winter of 1982?” Gretchen asked.

  “No,” Angie said. “It wasn’t my place.”

  “You were a couple of fifteen-year-olds,” Noah said. “Your foster sister was hiding a pregnancy. You didn’t mention it to Maggie when Belinda disappeared? Weren’t you worried about her?”

  “Look,” Angie replied, “Belinda was pretty independent, you know? Yeah, she hid the pregnancy, but she didn’t seem like she was in trouble. She wasn’t the kind of girl you worried about. She always got by. Sure, Maggie was worried about her, but Maggie also had the rest of us to care for, and before Belinda left, the fights those two used to have were off the charts. I hate to say this, but it was kind of a relief when Belinda took off. I knew she was getting close to delivering, and I figured she had made arrangements. Plus, it wasn’t my secret to tell, you know? Then she was back a few months later like nothing ever happened.”

  “Did you ask her what happened to her baby?” Josie asked.

  “Of course I did. She would only say that everything worked out. She was really cryptic about the whole thing.”

  “She didn’t tell you what she did with the baby?” Gretchen asked.

  “No, not a word.”

  “She never gave you any indication as to where she was during those three months?” Josie asked.

  “None. She just said that she was fine and that everything had worked out.”

  “Assuming she carried to term and the baby was born healthy, she couldn’t have gone through any official channels,” Noah remarked. “No way she gave birth at a hospital. If a minor showed up at a hospital—particularly one who’s already in the foster-care system—to give birth, there’s no way that would have gone unnoticed or unreported. And an adoption—the courts would have had to be involved.”

  Angie finished off her coffee and set her cup on the table. “That is true.”

  “What do you think happened to the baby?” Gretchen asked.

  Angie thought for a moment. “I honestly don’t know. But someone must have helped her. I mean, she had to stay somewhere those last few months, right? Maybe someone took the baby from her. Did you know that if you have a home birth, you can fill out the birth certificate whenever and mail it in to the state?”

  Josie frowned. “Don’t you need a midwife to file that paperwork?”

  “No, you can have an unassisted birth in Pennsylvania. I had my first daughter at home in the bathtub. Same thing. I mean, I went to a real doctor throughout my pregnancy, but my husband helped me deliver. We were lucky there were no complications. But all I had to do was fill out the paperwork to file for a birth certificate. I don’t know what the laws are now, but back then, you just needed two witnesses to sign a form saying you were pregnant. Not impossible to come up with.”

  “You think that’s what happened to Belinda’s baby?” Noah asked. “That she found someone to take it?”

  Angie stared at the table, her face looking drawn. “It’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?”

  “Which is what?” Noah asked.

  Josie knew what Angie was going to say before she said it. “That the baby died, and Belinda buried it somewhere.”

  “Do you think she was capable of dealing with something like that?” Josie asked.

  Angie held her gaze, dark eyes penetrating, sending a chill from Josie’s scalp to her toes. “When you’re a fifteen-year-old foster kid with no resources and no good choices, you’re capable of dealing with just about anything.”

  “Did she ever talk about who the father was?” Gretchen asked.

  “No. She wouldn’t talk about him.”

  “Was she seeing anyone before she got pregnant?”

  Again, Angie shook her head. “No, not that I know of. Maggie would have killed her anyway. We weren’t allowed to date until we were seventeen. Most of us did anyway, starting at thirteen or fourteen, but we kept it a secret. Obviously, Belinda was seeing someone, or she couldn’t have gotten pregnant, but I don’t know who it could have been.”

  Gretchen said, “Or she could have been sexually assaulted.”

  Angie considered this. “I guess that’s true, but I think she was seeing
someone. I mean, she wasn’t torn up or anything. Although by that age, most of us had been assaulted or molested at one point or another.”

  Angie said this in such a matter-of-fact way, Josie didn’t know whether to be saddened or in awe of her strength and candor. “Come to think of it,” Angie went on, “she did come home after the pregnancy with this pretty little locket. She never took it off and would never tell anyone who gave it to her. So, wherever she was and whoever helped her—I don’t think it was against her will.”

  Josie said, “What about friends? Do you remember who she hung out with?”

  Angie’s lips twisted as she thought for a long minute. Then she said, “No one at school, that’s for sure. People teased her mercilessly, especially about her teeth. You know about those, right?”

  “We’re aware,” Noah said.

  “In her junior year she started seeing that Todd kid—I think he’s the same one who just got arrested. That’s something isn’t it?”

  Steering her back to the topic of Belinda, Gretchen said, “How about people she worked with?”

  “Oh yeah, there were a couple of girls she was friendly with at the courthouse. One was a judge’s wife, if I’m not mistaken. The other one worked there too.”

  “Do you remember their names?” Josie asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  “We have the name of the judge’s wife,” Gretchen told her. “Sophia Bowen. We don’t know the name of the other woman she hung out with.”

  Angie said, “I know it began with an L, but that’s all. Linda? Lilly? Laura? Something like that. She was a few years older than Belinda. I remember that because Belinda kept talking about how cool she was that she had her own apartment.”

  “Did she say where that apartment was?” Josie asked.

  “No. I just assumed it was in Bellewood.”