“Someone’s been taking care of them.”

“It must have been Billie.” Lorna shook her head. “I wonder what she’s been doing with the grapes.”

The irony of a recovering alcoholic tending grapes that would be made into wine was not lost on Lorna.

T.J. picked a small bunch of grapes and popped a couple into his mouth.

“These are great,” he said, nodding. “Nice flavor.”

“Those have to be some of the vines Uncle Will brought back from France.”

“I’ll bet they made some delicious wine.”

“Well, they probably did in France. He never got to make any here.” She pointed to the house. “What were you planning on doing here? Peeking through the windows?”

“For starters.” He walked through the backyard, around to the front, and up the one step to the tiny porch, eating the rest of the grapes along the way. When Lorna came around the corner, he was standing on the scruffy front lawn, looking from the road to the porch.

“No neighbors close by, no streetlights. When Jason’s friend dropped him off, he would have gotten out of the car out there, on the side of the road.”

“Oh, the Eagans weren’t living here then. They lived down the road a bit.” She pointed off to the left. “We used to go through the back field as a shortcut. That would only take about ten minutes.”

Lorna held a hand up to her forehead to block the sun’s glare. “That’s the way she went home from my house, that night. Through the field.”

“Anyone else use it as a shortcut?”

“Just about every kid in town. We stopped planting to the end of the property line because whatever crop went in got trampled. If it wasn’t the kids, it was the deer. After awhile we stopped planting about five to eight feet from the edge.”

“Could we walk back that way?”

“Sure. Are you done here?” She nodded in the direction of the cottage.

“For now. I’ll want to come back and speak with Billie once she’s released. At the moment, though, I’d rather see the house they used to live in.”

She stumbled slightly on some rocks and rolled her eyes at her clumsiness. Way to impress the hot guy, she told herself. Story of my life.

“It’s cooler over along the tree line,” she told him as she headed for the shade. Her shirt was sticking to the area between her shoulder blades and perspiration was pooling at the waistband of her shorts. T.J., on the other hand, was barely breaking a sweat. By the time they reached the back of the house where the Eagans used to live, her hair was wet and stringy. This is not a good look for anyone, she told herself as she polished off her bottle of water.

“Do you know who’s living here now?” T.J. asked.

“No. No clue.”

“Let’s walk around to the front.”

He was already on his way, so she followed him along the fence. They reached the road that ran past the house, and he crossed it to take a look at the property from that angle.

“Is this the way the house looked twenty-five years ago?”

“It’s been painted a few times since then, but if you’re asking me if the front door was over there,” she pointed to the front of the house, which actually faced sideways on the lot, “then yes, it looks the same. The front of the house and the porch were always facing the side of the property.”

“And that rise was always there, on this side of the house?”

“Yes, there used to be shrubs growing along it.”

“So cars would have stopped out here, along the road?”

“Yes. There’s no real driveway, as you can see. There never has been one. Mrs. Eagan didn’t have a car, but times when my mother would bring Melinda home from something, or pick me up if I’d been playing here, she pulled along the other side of the house, where the rise slopes to almost nothing.” Lorna pointed to the opposite side from where they’d been looking. “She’d park there, between the house and the fence.”

“Well, as I see it, unless Jason’s friend got out of the car and walked him to the door, there’s no way he could have seen over the rise, or past the house if he parked where your mom did. The front door is on a side of the house that faces away from the road, from any space to park. How could he have seen where Jason went once he got out of the car?” T.J. stood with his hands on his hips.

“Good question. But what difference does it make? Remember, Billie admitted she and Jason argued after he got home, admitted that the argument got violent. What difference does it make whether or not Dustin Lafferty-that was the boy who was driving that night-could see whether Jason went into the house?”

“It’s a minor point, I agree. But it just makes you wonder, if he lied about that, what else did he lie about?”

Lorna was still asking herself that same question-if Dustin Lafferty lied about having seen Jason go into the house that night, what else had he lied about, and why-later that afternoon as she turned into Veronica Hammond’s driveway and parked her car. T.J. had left shortly after they’d walked back to the farmhouse, after he’d given Lorna his card with several phone numbers and the suggestion that she give him a call the next day after she’d had time to think things over.

She still wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed that with every hour that passed, she had more and more questions, and fewer answers. She was hoping that Mrs. Hammond, as an old friend of the family, might be able to shed some light on the situation.

“Lorna, for heaven’s sake, walk a little faster and get out of this heat.” Veronica Hammond stood in the open doorway, looking as tall and formidable as she did when Lorna was a child. Neither her hair, which was now snow white, nor her cane diminished her presence. “Can’t remember the last time we had so many hot days in a row like this, can you?”

“It is pretty hot.” Lorna greeted the older woman with a hug, then stepped inside. Mrs. Hammond quickly closed the door behind her. “Hey, when did you get central air?”

“Summer before last.” Mrs. Hammond led her into the living room. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d held out all those years, thinking I didn’t want to shell out the money, then remembered how old I was and that I wasn’t going to be able to take any of it with me, so I said, ‘What the hell,’ and called Sears. They did a nice job.”

“It feels so good in here. The farmhouse is stifling.”

The room was just as Lorna remembered it, all the same furniture placed in exactly the same spot where it had stood thirty years ago. Iron plant stands, dripping with enormous Christmas cactus and African violets in heavy bloom, stood in front of every window, and the end tables held stacks of books. Even Mrs. Hammond’s old sewing basket sat in the same place next to her favorite chair.

“Well, if it gets too bad, you can always come down here and spend the night. I have extra rooms.” Mrs. Hammond plopped herself into her favorite chair and pointed to the sofa, where Lorna assumed she was supposed to sit. “Johnny’s here for a while, not sure how long this time.”

“Your grandson?”

Mrs. Hammond nodded. “My son Charlie’s boy. I swear, I don’t know what’s wrong with Johnny. Can’t stay married to save his soul. He’s on his third wife, and she just tossed him out.” She shook her head in disgust. “Not sure what the problem is-not sure, frankly, that I want to know-but every time a wife kicks him out, he ends up here.”

Lorna, for her part, didn’t quite know what to say. Offer sympathy? Make some banal remark? She decided to let it pass altogether.

“So, you’re back in Callen. It’s wonderful to see you, Lorna.” Mrs. Hammond leaned over to pat her hand. “I do miss your mother. She was such a darling girl, all her life. It seems like only yesterday Alice was dressing her up and showing her off…”

She sighed deeply.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that she’s gone, Lorna.”