Just Cause

by Susan Page Davis

  *****

  On Tuesday, Judy went to work and Laurel cleaned the sparsely furnished house and rested. Time and again her mind went back to Dan. His face had become so dear, his earnest endeavor to help her precious. She yearned to believe as he did that they could have a future together. A rambling old white house with lilac bushes in front and a vegetable garden behind. A porch swing, a dog, and children. Dan’s love and protection.

  But the bars of the county jail superimposed themselves over the daydreams. She would not let him lock himself into a promise with that in view. She kept busy, but still the thoughts came.

  “What smells so good?” Judy asked when she came home.

  “Banana bread. It was bake and scrub the bathroom, or go crazy thinking about the case.”

  Judy set a bag of groceries on the counter. “Great. Did you get the bathroom cleaned yet?”

  “It sparkles.”

  “I knew you were the perfect roommate the moment I saw you.”

  Laurel grinned. “I wish I could stay longer with you, but that’s not to be. We’re taking a chance staying here together as it is.”

  “I was extra careful driving home,” Judy admitted. “I’m sure no one followed me.”

  “I’m so sorry!”

  “Let’s not start that again. Just remember that I’m keeping your room open at the house, for when you come back.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Where are you and Dan staying in Maine?”

  “A hotel, I suppose.”

  “Pretty expensive.”

  “I know.” Laurel walked out to the garage with Judy for more groceries. “It could be an expensive trip for Dan, just to see me convicted.” She reached into the back of the car for a sack.

  Judy laid a hand on her arm. “Stop that! You are not going to be convicted. It would infuriate Dan to hear you say that.”

  “I’ll try to be more positive,” Laurel said tentatively.

  “Well, that’s a start.” Judy grabbed the last bag of food. “Look, I know this trial is about you, but you must realize what it’s doing to Dan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s putting everything on the line for you.”

  Laurel slowly trailed her to the kitchen. “I can see all that he’s doing for me.”

  Judy turned, a plaintive look on her face. “He loves you so much.”

  Laurel set her bag on the table. “I ... can’t consider that right now. When I know the verdict, then I can think about love and the future and having a life. If it’s a good verdict.”

  Judy shook her head. “You can’t talk that way to Dan. Don’t let him feel like he has to hold you up, too. He wants to go out and slay dragons for you. He’ll have a lot better chance if you quit tripping him up with negative thinking.”

  Laurel sat down at the table. “You think it would make that big a difference?”

  “Of course.” Judy leaned down and wagged a finger under Laurel’s nose. “It’s awfully hard for knights in shining armor to get up again once they fall.”

  *****

  Dan arrived before supper, wearing his uniform.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come tonight,” Laurel said.

  “What, because of last night?”

  She nodded. “I was pretty rough on you.”

  “No, you were practical. I need that sometimes.”

  She smiled warily. “At least I know how you feel now.”

  “You know some of it,” he agreed. “I’ll tell you the rest sometime. When you’re ready.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I think I’d like to hear it ... When the time is right.”

  He resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. They went to the kitchen, where Judy was setting the table.

  “Have you bought your plane tickets yet?” Judy asked.

  “I thought we’d drive,” Dan said.

  Judy nodded. “Slower, but cheaper.” She took a meat loaf from the oven and set it on the hot mat. “I’ve decided to take a couple of weeks’ vacation while you’re in Maine.”

  “Good,” said Laurel. “You need a break from all the headaches we’ve given you.”

  Judy and Dan sat down while Laurel speared the baked potatoes with a fork and plopped them into a serving dish.

  Judy said, “Actually, I might see you during my vacation.”

  Laurel froze. “You’re ... going to the trial?”

  “Not necessarily. But my sister, Jackie, can’t get away as soon as I’d like to go, and I found myself envying you two and your trip to Maine. So I went online and found the classified ads from the Kennebec Journal. I’m renting a cottage on a lake for a few weeks. Jackie will join me when she’s able.” She smiled at them.

  Dan eyed her suspiciously. “Judy, you’re being sneaky. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that I found I could rent this three-bedroom cottage for half the price of a good hotel room. It’s stocked with linens and dishes, has a dock and a rowboat. I thought, ‘Why not? I’ll just soak up the sun in Maine for a couple of weeks.’” She turned eagerly to Laurel, then back to Dan. “How about it?”

  “It’s brilliant,” Dan said. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

  “Dan booked rooms for us in Augusta,” Laurel said.

  “Great.” Judy unfolded her napkin. “For the first week, but I hope you’ll consider spending weeks two and three with me on the lake. It’s fifteen miles from the courthouse. I checked.”

  “You’re asking us to stay with you?” Dan looked eagerly at Laurel. Even though Laurel instinctively hated the idea of her friend seeing her on trial, he knew Judy’s presence would bring her comfort.

  “It would save you a bundle, and I don’t like to vacation alone.” Judy sounded determined.

  “We’ll pay half,” Dan said firmly.

  Judy shrugged. “If you insist, but it’s really unnecessary.” She scooped a generous portion of meat loaf onto her plate. “I’ll run errands and cook. Anything to help you out. And if you want me to stay away from the courthouse when the time comes, I will.”

  Laurel pushed her chair back and opened her arms to Judy. “You are the dearest friend I’ve ever had. How can you do this?”

  “Hey, I hate vacationing alone.”

  *****

  Judy insisted on doing the dishes after supper, and Dan and Laurel settled in the living room with the briefcase.

  “What did you learn from compiling all this information?” Laurel stared at the folders of documents.

  Dan took both her hands in his. “Mostly, I learned you really loved this guy.”

  She nodded, and tears welled in her eyes. “He wasn’t perfect, but he was decent.”

  “The two of you talked about him leaving Hatcher & Brody as late as March that year,” Dan noted.

  “Yes. He wanted to be independent of the family, but his dad begged him to stay. And Uncle Jack had given him that car. I thought it was an attempt to make him feel guilty, you know? So he wouldn’t leave them.”

  “But why did they care so much? Was it a matter of pride for Wayne Hatcher to have his son in the firm? Or was it just anger that he would consider leaving?”

  “Maybe a little of both.” The ache of Bob’s disharmony with his family came back to her. He had wanted his parents to have the faith he had, and to love Laurel as a daughter. But his intercession for her had only seemed to alienate Renata further, and both parents refused to listen to him about spiritual matters.

  She faced Dan with new resolution, eager to go on and learn the truth about Bob’s death. “Bob wanted to please his folks with his work, and he wanted them to love me. He tried several times to talk to Renata about the way she treated me, but that only seemed to make her angrier.”

  “Near the end,” Dan said, “you told me Bob was stressed, and you thought he wasn’t telling you everything.”

  “I was frightened,” she admitted. “When the Maple Grove bridge came up, Bob was upset for weeks. I’m not positive the bids ha
d anything to do with it, but that was all I could figure. I asked him about it twice, but he didn’t want to talk about it. The second time, he said, ‘Laurel, just let it be. When I can tell you about it, I will.’”

  “But he never did.”

  “No. I never knew how they did it, but they always underbid their competitors, just enough to get the contract and still make a good profit. Simon Brothers accused Wayne of cheating somehow. Wayne denied it, and the next time, when they were bidding on the airport in Lewiston, Hatcher & Brody bid too high. But Bob told me afterward that his father didn’t want that project, anyway.”

  “So Bob thought Wayne bid high on it just to mollify the competitors?” Dan asked.

  She nodded. “He told me that much. When the bridge project came up, he wouldn’t talk about it. But he was trusting the Lord, even then. I know he was. He read his Bible a lot, and we would pray together. I guess he thought I was better off not knowing the details.”

  “Hatcher & Brody was the lowest bidder on the bridge,” Dan said.

  “Not actually, but they promised to use this special kind of steel—oh!” She clapped her hand to her mouth.

  “What is it?”

  “You said the prosecutor mentioned inferior materials being used in the bridge.”

  Dan nodded. “The city of Maple Grove filed a complaint. The flanges on some of the beams have cracked. It scared them, so the state of New Hampshire sent out an inspector. He claims the girders were made from a lower grade of steel than the plans called for. Hatcher & Brody is having to spend a lot of money to repair it.”

  “I can’t believe they would do that,” Laurel said. “How could they? It would ruin their reputation.”

  Dan shrugged. “I’m just telling you what the report says.”

  Laurel didn’t like where her thoughts were heading. “But substandard materials? People could be killed.”

  Dan reached for the briefcase. “Let me take that spec list and compare it with the inspector’s report.”

  “Do you think maybe Bob knew they’d substituted the materials and made a fuss about it?”

  “As a motive, you mean?”

  She nodded. “The bridge wasn’t actually finished until the fall after Bob’s death. We have the report of the engineer who took over the project, don’t we?”

  “Yes, they completed it five months later, just under the bid.”

  “So, maybe they underbid their competitors, then realized they couldn’t do it for that amount.”

  Dan frowned. “If they decided to cut corners instead of taking the loss, and Bob got wind of it—”

  “Of course,” said Laurel. “He was the project manager. He was right out there when the materials were delivered. If something shady was going on in that project, he’d have known.”

  “When did Hatcher & Brody start laying in the materials?”

  “Over the winter. Bob made several trips to Maple Grove to keep an eye on things. I went down a couple of times and stayed through the week at the motel with him.” She paused. “But if someone was substituting low-grade materials, they could have brought in the cheaper stuff any time Bob wasn’t there.”

  “Yes,” Dan reflected. “That would upset Bob when he discovered it.”

  “But this is all speculation. It could have been someone else in the company, not his family.”

  “When did Uncle Jack give him the car?”

  She glanced at him uneasily. “January, I think.”

  “Before his first trip to Maple Grove?”

  “Yes. He drove it down there the first time.” She stared at Dan as she thought about that. “You’re saying the Corvette is somehow related to the bridge project. Jack wanted Bob to keep quiet about the shoddy materials, so he gave him the car in advance.”

  “If he’d given it to him after Bob saw the switch, it would have been a little obvious,” Dan said. “This way, it just made him feel guilty to have to do something that would hurt his nice old Uncle Jack.”

  “Bob would have reported it to Wayne anyway,” Laurel insisted.

  “And if Wayne already knew about it?”

  Laurel tried to get a deep breath, but she felt as if her lungs were constricted. “Bob wouldn’t let that happen.”

  Dan laid the papers on the coffee table and slid closer. “I don’t want to upset you, but we’ve got to consider the possibility that Bob knew about it.”

  She jumped to her feet. “All right, maybe he did. But if he had suspicions, he’d look for proof as to who was responsible. And if he had proof, he wouldn’t look the other way and take bribes. He’d confront that person.” She shouted the words, unable to hold back the panic that filled her.

  “I think he did,” Dan said gently. “On May twenty-eighth. At your house, while you were shopping in Bangor.”

  *****

  Laurel stared at him, then turned and walked slowly toward her bedroom. When the door closed, Dan joined Judy in the kitchen and told her of his confrontation with Laurel. “She can’t accept the idea that he knew and didn’t call the police.”

  Judy frowned. “Maybe Bob was trying to get solid proof before he reported it.”

  “I think he had proof,” Dan said. “That’s what those thugs were after when they attacked us. Bob had something that would implicate the killer, and they believe Laurel has it now.”

  “Why didn’t it come out before, when she went to trial last winter?”

  “I don’t know.” Dan sighed. “What do I do now?”

  “Just wait. Give her time to absorb this. Then ask her if she’s ready for you to discuss this theory with the lawyer.”

  Judy made a pot of coffee and brought him a mug in the living room. Dan sat on the couch, staring at the bouquet of daffodils Judy had placed on the coffee table that evening. It made a bright splash among the neutral colors of the room, the way Laurel had splashed into his ordinary life.

  Judy sat down on the arm of the sofa. “She’s been through so much, Dan.”

  He nodded, his lips tight together. “I’ve tried not to think about it too much, but I know it was terrible.”

  “Discovering the body in itself was traumatic,” Judy agreed. “What came after would have put most people over the edge.”

  He glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “Maybe I should stop talking about it. Just leave her be. But I can’t help thinking there’s more to this.”

  “Those men who shot at you were certain.”

  Dan sensed her anger and squeezed her arm. “I’d say I’m sorry again, but after the first hundred times, it loses its impact.”

  Judy smiled ruefully. “Don’t make the same mistake again, Dan.”

  “You mean, don’t park Laurel here at my house too long?”

  “They found her before.”

  “Yes. But I can’t leave until Friday. My superiors are being generous as it is.”

  She sipped her coffee. “I can take her to a hotel the last couple of nights, if you think it would be safer.”

  That was like Judy, worrying about anyone but herself. “We’ll see. Thanks.”

  The bedroom door creaked open, and Laurel came out. Her face was streaked with tears and her eyes red-rimmed.

  “Excuse me,” Judy murmured, and she disappeared into the kitchen with the empty mugs.

  Dan stood and waited for Laurel to speak. She stopped three feet from him and met his eyes.

  “If it happened that way,” she whispered, “why didn’t he tell me?”

  Dan took one step and held her safe in his arms. He cradled her head against his shoulder, caressing her hair, thankful that she had come back to him for comfort.

  “I think he wanted to protect you. If you didn’t know, no one could accuse you of spilling the beans. He was going to expose them, sweetheart. That’s why they had to stop him.”

  Her hands fluttered against his chest, and she shook her head. “His parents couldn’t do that, could they? Kill their own child in cold blood?”

  “Maybe not, but
what about Jack Brody? Maybe he was behind all of it, the underbidding, the poor materials, everything, and Bob knew. Bribes didn’t work. Bob was going to turn him in. Does that make sense?”

  “I don’t know. We have no proof Jack is the killer.”

  “They have no proof it was you, either. If we can cast enough suspicion on Jack, the jury will have doubts about you.”

  “Is that a successful type of defense, Dan? I want to be found innocent. I don’t just want to be not guilty because of reasonable doubt.”

  He wanted that, too. He wanted the world to acknowledge her innocence. He wanted to see it in print that Bob Hatcher was killed because he was an honest man, not because his greedy wife wanted his money and her freedom.

  He ran his hands over her tense shoulders and her rigid back.

  “We’re going to find out the truth, and when we do, everybody will know it. They’ll know you didn’t do it, and they’ll know Bob was a hero. He was a good man in a bad situation, and he tried to fix it. We won’t forget that he stood up to them. We won’t ever forget.”

  Laurel leaned limply against him. “Danny, he’s in heaven.”

  “I know, sweetheart. And I’m glad.”

  “You would have liked him,” she whispered.

  “I think so.”

  Chapter 12

  Dan puttered around in the kitchen of his house Thursday evening while Judy helped Laurel with her packing. Although Laurel had few possessions, she seemed to find the task overwhelming. When he ventured to the bedroom doorway, she was looking uncertainly around the room where she had slept for the past three nights.

  “Maybe I should just take all my things.”

  “You’re coming back,” Judy said firmly.

  Dan leaned with one arm on the doorframe. “Leave anything you don’t think you’ll need on the trip.”

  Laurel sighed. “I wish I knew how many clothes to take, and what Jim will want me to wear to court.”

  “Just use your best judgment,” Judy said softly.

  “I’d better take my black skirt. Jim told me to go with widow’s weeds the first time around, but that wasn’t too successful. Maybe he’ll want sophisticated this time, or professional, or an ingénue look, although I’m a bit old for that. Girl-next-door, perhaps. Should I take this?” Laurel held out a yellow gingham jumper.