“Who could resist that act?” Laughing, Rachel took a peanut from the bag Simon produced and reached through the wires of the cage to drop it into the bowl. Mr. Piggles scurried away and disappeared into a box that served as a private den. “Hey, you could say thanks, at least.”
“Rachel?” Simon slipped his small hand into hers.
Rachel looked down into the boy’s troubled eyes. His ebullient mood had evaporated. “What is it, Simon? What’s wrong?”
“She’s not gonna be Uncle Tom’s girlfriend again, is she? Lindsay, I mean.”
“No,” Rachel said. “I promise you that won’t happen.”
***
Back at headquarters, Tom logged the items from Meredith’s bank box into the evidence register and placed everything except the sealed envelope in the evidence room safe. Checking his watch, he debated whether to take a look at the CD in the envelope now or head out to question Angie Hogencamp and her father. The CD won. He took it into his office.
Waiting for his computer to boot up, Tom sifted through the stack of call-back messages on his desk. Newspapers and TV stations in Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and other big cities wanted more details about the death of Senator Abbott’s daughter and her husband. By tomorrow out of town reporters would be on the ground in Mountainview, but for now he didn’t have to deal with them. He crumpled the messages into a ball, dropped them in his wastebasket, and tore open the sealed envelope.
The CD he pulled out wasn’t labeled. Meredith had set it apart for some reason, but he doubted it would yield information that would lead him to the killer. It probably held nothing more than tax or medical records. Anything he could learn about the Taylors’ lives, though, might aid the investigation in unexpected ways.
He was disappointed by what came up on his computer screen—apparently the title page of yet another unsold novel, this one called Outside Agitators. What was special about it? Tom clicked to the opening chapter to take a quick look.
Chapter 1: September, 1968
Every fiber of my being thrilled with excitement and anticipation when I stepped off the Trailways bus with Chad and three other new VISTAs in Greenview, a little mountain town in southwestern Virginia. For the first time in my twenty-one years, I was free of my parents’ supervision and doing something that demanded selfless courage.
I was beginning to wonder, though, whether we had been sent by mistake to the wrong place. Greenview didn’t look desperately impoverished. It looked like an ordinary small community, surrounded by mountains dressed in gaudy autumn colors. But I reminded myself that we wouldn’t be working in town. We were destined for the hills and hollows of the county’s poorest district.
This was real life, and I was ready for it.
The other members of my training class had predicted I wouldn’t even make it this far. Tourist. That was what they called me. They thought I was a little rich girl who wouldn’t last a day without the luxuries of my privileged life. To them I was a naive child who joined Volunteers in Service to America for my own amusement, whose ignorance would alienate the people I was supposed to help. It didn’t seem to matter that the others had grown up in affluent middle-class homes and never experienced anything more demanding than summer camp. I came from a wealthy family, so they had to show me I was too pampered to handle the hard work ahead. I wasn’t a serious person.
Of course, I realized what the true source of their animosity was: I was the daughter of a U.S. Senator who supported the war in Vietnam and denounced protesters as unpatriotic. A lot of young people thought he was evil, and they despised me for being his daughter.
Chad, however, treated me with respect. He believed I was capable of feeling empathy for the poor and helping them make their lives better. I had fallen in love with him the moment we met. Lanky and handsome, with shaggy brown hair, blue eyes, and a charming crooked smile, Chad could have any girl he wanted, but I was the one he chose. He demonstrated his trust by telling me things he had never told anyone. He confessed that he had shot off part of one of his fingers to make himself unfit for military service, and he begged me not to think of him as a coward. Of course I didn’t. All I felt was relief that he would never be sent off to be killed in the war.
Chad also confided in me about his family. His parents owned a chain of several loan companies—he said they offered something called “pay day loans”—that made money by charging exorbitant interest on small cash loans and locking working class people into a cycle of debt they couldn’t escape. Because no one was at home in the afternoons, he often went to the loan office his mother ran, and he saw the way she manipulated people and drew them deeper into debt. He heard her threaten legal action against people who fell behind in their payments. Those experiences gave birth to Chad’s need to help others who are less fortunate. He was deeply ashamed of his parents, and he wanted, in some small way, to make up for the damage they did. He swore me to secrecy because he believed others would hold him responsible for his family’s shameful business. He knew I wouldn’t judge him for his parents’ actions, and he trusted me to honor his confidence.
Chad and I were embarking on a great adventure together. Our future could be anything we wanted to make it.
The man who ran the Marsdon County Community Action Program met us at the bus station and walked us three blocks—almost the full length of Main Street—to the CAP office. He had been a high school social studies teacher before he was hired by the antipoverty program. I expected him to give us a pep talk about the good things we would do during our year in the county. Instead, we sat on metal folding chairs for an hour while the director recited the rules we had to live by. No drinking, not so much as a beer. No loud music. No dating local young men and women. We were forbidden to lend money to the locals. We couldn’t discuss Vietnam with anyone, because this was a place where parents were proud to have their sons fight, and die, in their country’s wars, and “hippies” were despised. Local politicians regretted allowing the antipoverty program into the county and didn’t like young outsiders coming in to work with the poor. If we messed up, we would jeopardize the program and the poor would suffer. We were expected to behave with dignity and to show consideration for the people we worked among.
At the end of the meeting we received keys to the old cars we would use on the job, and we drove single-file behind the CAP director, our caravan making its way out of Greenview and into a foreign land.
The other three girls would live with local families, but I would have a place to myself, and because the CAP director was concerned about my safety, Chad was assigned a house within sight of mine. Could it get any better than this? I thought. As we drove, I drank in the beauty of the mountainsides, soaking up the autumn colors that reminded me of the Adirondacks, where my family had a lodge. The sad little houses we passed were mere blotches on the periphery of my vision, and I never looked directly at them.
Only when I saw the one-room shack assigned to me did I start feeling panicky. The place didn’t even have running water. In every kind of weather, I would have to use the privy in the back yard and the water pump next to the back door. For heat, I would have to keep wood or coal in the potbellied stove. I stood on the front steps, watching the CAP director drive away, and I wanted to run after him, begging to be rescued.
Then Chad called out from his car, “I’ll be over in a few minutes, after I stash my stuff. Hang loose.”
I forced myself to smile to show him I wasn’t fazed, that I was ready to tackle any challenge. But secretly, I felt ashamed of my weakness.
I can last a year, I told myself as I walked back inside my awful little house. I didn’t even have a chair, so I crossed the room, making the floorboards creak with every step, and sat on the iron-frame bed. I looked up at the single bare light bulb that dangled from the ceiling and said a prayer of thanks that I had electricity.
Beneath me, I felt big, solid lumps in the thin mattress. And what was that odor rising off it
? Oh my god! Urine! I jumped up. At the CAP office, I’d been given two sheets and a pillow case, but I didn’t think bed linen would mask the smell.
One year. I would get through this. Chad was with me, and I had my dreams of the future to hold onto. After we fulfilled our commitment to the antipoverty program, Chad would go to law school and I would begin my career as an author. My experiences in Marsdon County were going to be priceless material for the novels I planned to write. I’d brought a thick notebook along to jot down my observations.
One year, I told myself, then we can get out of this place and start our life together.
I couldn’t have imagined, when I stood in the little house with my suitcases at my feet, what lay ahead for me in Marsdon County, Virginia.
***
When he reached the end of the chapter, Tom leaned back in his chair, eyes still fixed on the final line. What was this? Bad fiction with a few dashes of reality drawn from Meredith’s own past? Or the straight truth with only the names changed? If it was the truth, Meredith hadn’t loved her life in Mason County after all—at least not in the beginning. That had been decades ago, before Tom was born, and people could change a lot in that amount of time. But the story was probably ninety-nine percent fiction. It might offer some useful insight into the Taylors’ marriage and their relationships with other people, but he doubted it would help him solve their murders.
Tom glanced at his watch, then closed the file and ejected the CD from his computer. He had to question the Hogencamps. The rest of Meredith’s tale would have to wait.
Chapter Fourteen
Rachel had only the flimsiest excuse to visit Lloyd Wilson, but it would do. She set off to see him after dropping off Simon and Billy Bob.
She wished she could trust Tom to be fair, to assume Ben was innocent unless proven guilty. But that wasn’t Tom’s job. His job was to find a killer. He already disliked Ben and viewed him as a suspect, and Lindsay was probably pushing the theory that Ben killed her parents. To her own disappointment, Rachel realized she didn’t have much faith in Tom’s ability to be objective in this case.
She braked when she saw the roadside mailbox with TAYLOR painted on its side. Yellow crime scene tape drooped along the perimeter of the property, but no one was working the scene now. In the middle of the lot, dwarfed by the mountain that rose behind it, lay the ruins of Cam and Meredith Taylor’s house, a pile of ash outlined by a cinderblock foundation.
Rachel had met Mrs. Taylor a couple of times when she’d brought her dog Cricket to the vet clinic, once for routine vaccines and once for a cut on a paw. The wound was minor, but Mrs. Taylor had been distraught, worried about infection and blaming herself for not watching the dog more closely. A little over twenty-four hours ago, Meredith Taylor had lost her life in the fire, and her beloved dog had probably died with her. An image of flames licking at flesh invaded Rachel’s head and made her shiver at the horror of it.
What am I doing here? Rachel doubted Lloyd Wilson would tell her anything he hadn’t told Tom. But Tom wouldn’t reveal what Wilson had seen or heard, and Rachel wanted to know what kind of evidence the police had.
She pulled onto the strip of bare dirt that served as a driveway and parked behind Wilson’s pickup truck. His two dogs loped around the side of the house, tails wagging and tongues lolling. Rachel got out and crouched to pet them. Maggie and Lisa were littermates, ten years old now, large brown mutts with suggestions of Labrador in their solid bodies and hints of German shepherd in their erect ears and long muzzles.
“Well, hey there,” Wilson called as he hobbled up the side yard toward Rachel. Raising a hand in greeting, he gave her a broad smile that almost made his eyes disappear in the bunched wrinkles around them. “Now how did I rate a house call?”
Rachel rose, returning his smile. “When I realized you live so close to the house that burned down yesterday, I wanted to make sure Maggie’s breathing hasn’t been affected by the smoke.” You are such a liar. The dog panted in the heat, and even without a stethoscope Rachel could tell her bronchial passages were clear. “I just want to have a listen, okay? I won’t charge you for the visit, since you didn’t call me.”
“I’d be willing to pay you to come visit me.” As soon as he said it, a bright pink flush rose on Wilson’s cheeks and he averted his eyes. “I mean—”
“Let me get my bag,” Rachel cut in, “and I’ll give Maggie a quick exam.” She’d always been amused and flattered that this tough old man had a crush on her, and the last thing she wanted to do was embarrass him.
“Now where are my manners?” Wilson said, still a little flustered. “Keepin’ you standin’ out here in the hot sun. Come on in the house, and I’ll give you a nice cold glass of tea. It’s sun tea, real smooth, best tea you’ll ever drink.”
“Oh, thanks, I’d love to have some.”
They walked together, the two dogs keeping pace. In the small living room, Wilson steered Rachel away from the easy chair. “Bad springs,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable on the couch, and I’ll get the tea.”
When Rachel sat on the sofa the dogs stationed themselves on either side, a canine chin resting on each of her knees. As she scratched their heads and looked around the room, a deep melancholy ambushed her. This house had never been grand, but she could see it had once been pleasant, perhaps even pretty. An oblong patch of light blue where a picture had been removed showed what the living room walls looked like before they acquired scratches, dents, smears, and grime from fireplace smoke. The braided rug bore so many spots and so much dirt that Rachel couldn’t tell what the original colors had been, but she could imagine it as the anchor in a homey, welcoming room. A woman had once lived here. Without her, Rachel guessed, the husband who had outlived her scarcely noticed the deterioration of his home, and wouldn’t care if he did.
While Wilson bustled in the kitchen, Rachel went through the motions of examining Maggie, listening to her lungs and heart, checking her eyes for signs of irritation. Nothing out of the ordinary. The second dog shouldered Maggie out of the way and presented herself with an expectant air, so Rachel examined her too.
Wilson returned with a tin tray that held two glasses of tea and a saucer of sugar cookies. Rachel took a glass and sipped. “Mmm. This is delicious.”
“Have a cookie.” He placed the tray in front of her on the coffee table and took a seat at the opposite end of the couch. “Fresh from the bakery this mornin’.”
She reached for one, took a bite. Not-so-fresh from a supermarket package was more like it. “It’s good.”
Wilson smiled and nodded. “How’s the dogs?”
“Perfectly fine. Maggie’s asthma is very well-controlled. I can tell you’re getting her pills into her on schedule.”
“Oh, yeah. If I ever let anything happen to these dogs, my wife—” He paused and cleared his throat. “Well, I feel like she’s watchin’ everything I do for them. These two was her babies.” His voice faded to a near-whisper. “She just barely lived to see them full-grown.”
“I’m so sorry.” In the silence that followed, Rachel told herself, Remember why you’re here. “It’s terrible what happened to the Taylors. No one’s life should end that way.”
Wilson dropped his gaze to his gnarled hands, clasped between his knees, and didn’t answer.
“I guess you’ve talked to Captain Bridger about what you saw and heard yesterday.”
“Didn’t see nor hear much of anything,” Wilson said with a shrug. “I told the Bridger boy about seein’ Scotty Ragsdale’s car over there.”
“Scotty Ragsdale? Isn’t he the son of the Ragsdales who own the hardware store?”
“Yep. Him and Mrs. Taylor was real close, if you know what I mean.”
That was interesting. Rachel didn’t know whether to trust Lloyd Wilson’s assumptions, but the very existence of Meredith’s friendship with another man gave Rachel hope that the relationship had something to do with the Taylor murders.
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Wilson went on, “But I seen Scotty’s car way before the fire started. Only other thing was that sports car. A Jaguar, that’s what it was.”
Rachel caught her breath. Ben drove a Jaguar. So did his mother, but she’d left the county hours before the Taylors were killed. At least, that was what everyone believed. “What time did you see the Jaguar? In relation to the fire.”
He shook his head. “Bridger asked me that, and I couldn’t place it just exactly. Now that I think about it, though, I reckon it was about the same time I heard some hunters shootin’ in the woods up the mountain.”
“Hunters?” Rachel said. “This time of year?”
“Oh, lord, the time of year don’t stop them. I hear shots in the woods all the time. And I heard some that morning—well, one, anyway—and it sounded closer than it ought to be. But that’s not out of the ordinary either. Damn fools don’t pay a bit of attention to where they’re pointin’ their guns. Anyway, I brung the dogs indoors. I was afraid them or me might get hit. But I didn’t hear any more shots, so after a while I went back out to work on my chicken coop.”
“You’re sure the shooting was in the woods? Could it have been at the Taylor house?”
He frowned at her. “You sayin’ the Taylor woman was shot? How could they tell? I thought if she was all burned up—”
“I haven’t heard anything about her being shot.” It made sense, though. If the killer hadn’t disabled Meredith first, she might have escaped the fire. Maybe the fire was the murderer’s attempt to make the death look accidental. “Did you tell Captain Bridger about hearing a shot?”
“No, I don’t reckon I did. It just come to me a while ago.”
Rachel wiped her damp palms on the knees of her jeans. Was this good for Ben, or bad? Was it possible he had committed these awful crimes? The memory of what she’d seen in the woods popped into her mind, and she blurted, “I was the one who found Cam Taylor’s body. Right after he was killed.”
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