Dead Giveaway (Stillwater Trilogy 2)

Portenski lifted his chin. "I believe that, for the deserving, mercy tempers justice."

Clay nodded. Grace was right. The reverend had found the missing pictures or some letters or...something. He must have; he knew too much. He was keeping silent, but not because he thought Clay was innocent. The "deserving" part of what he'd said indicated that he thought God's mercy would be reserved for Grace alone.

And Portenski was probably right. Although Clay hadn't actually killed Barker, he'd indirectly caused the events of that night, and he'd definitely had a hand in the cover-up.

His desire for mercy, for forgiveness and peace of mind, had brought him back to church.

But he was wasting his time.

After living such a lie, he could never be called deserving.

As Allie parked her police cruiser at the curb, Jed Fowler appeared briefly at his front window wearing a stark frown. She wanted to believe it was because he didn't recognize her. But that couldn't be the case. She was the only female officer on the force, and her father had been taking their vehicles to Jed's automotive repair shop for the past forty years.

Jed knew who she was, but he seemed ill at ease around women and children. A simple person, he got up early, worked until late and returned home to the same two-bedroom house where he'd grown up. His father had been killed in an automobile accident while Jed was just a boy. His mother, a cantankerous old woman who used to sit on the porch and rock for hours, glaring at the children who streamed by on their way home from the nearby elementary school, had died while Allie was in college. As far as Allie knew, Jed had lived alone ever since.

She strode up the walk, wondering if his mother was the reason he'd remained a bachelor.

Quite possibly, the old woman had been so demanding that he was unwilling to welcome another female into his home. The stories that circulated about her were a bit scary. Allie remembered a group of her friends telling her they were walking home from a party late one night when they were startled by Mama Fowler. Jed's mother was sitting on her porch in the dead of winter, all bundled up in coats and blankets, and brandishing a shotgun, pointing it at anyone who so much as looked at the house.

With that background, no wonder he's odd, Allie thought.

She reached the stoop and lifted a hand to knock. But the door opened before she could touch it, and Jed's craggy nose and rheumy eyes appeared in the crack.

"Mr. Fowler?"

He made a noise that might've been a response, but he didn't open the door any wider.

Allie leaned close, hoping to win him over with a polite smile. "May I have a word with you?"

He glanced behind him as though he was looking for an excuse not to admit her.

"We could talk out here on the porch, if you like."

Yanking on the red ball cap she'd seen him wear around town, he stepped out, leaving the door ajar. Because he'd been reluctant to invite her in, Allie had assumed the house might not be neat enough for company. But from what she could see, there wasn't a thing out of place.

"You've probably guessed why I'm here."

The frown had left his face. Now he just stared at her, his bushy eyebrows forming a prominent ledge over his deep-set eyes. "No, ma'am."

"I'd like to talk to you about Lee Barker."

His eyes narrowed. "You're reopening the investigation?"

"No. Not officially. I'm doing what I can for Madeline."

"You want to help her?" he said.

"That's right."

"By finding out what happened to her father."

"Yes. I used to be a cold case detective before moving back here," she explained. "I learned a few things that I'm hoping will make a difference. Madeline deserves to know what happened, don't you think?"

Allie wasn't sure what kind of reaction she'd been expecting, but it wasn't the one she got.

"Better off without him, if you ask me."

"What did you say?" He'd mumbled the words.

He pulled the bill of his cap lower. "Nothin'."

"You didn't like Reverend Barker?" Jed had been a regular at Barker's church until a few years before the reverend went missing. One day, Jed got up and walked out in the middle of the service and never returned. She remembered her mother launching a fellowship crusade to reclaim him, but nothing Evelyn or anyone else did made any difference. Jed had never joined the congregation again.

"Can't say as I did."

"I'd be interested to hear why, if you wouldn't mind telling me."

"He's gone. Don't matter now."

"It might," she said. He still didn't volunteer the details she was after, so she resorted to the questions she'd planned to ask in the first place. "You were at the property, fixing the tractor in the barn the night Barker disappeared. Is that correct?"

A single dip of his head served as confirmation.

"In the reports, you said Barker didn't come back to the farm that night."

No comment.

"Is that true?" she prompted.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Would you have seen him, or at least heard his car, if he did?"

"Tough to say."

"You had the radio on, right?"

"Yeah."

"Was it louder than you normally play it at your shop?" Allie knew he always had his radio tuned to a country-western station.

"Maybe. The kids were the only ones home, so I wasn't worried about botherin' anybody."

"The kids?"

"The Montgomery girls."

"Irene wasn't there? Clay wasn't there?" She knew they weren't, of course. She'd read the statements. But she needed to hear the words directly from Jed in order to get a sense of how he felt about the night's events. And to see if his story had changed over the years.

"Mrs. Montgomery--"

"Wasn't she Mrs. Barker then?" Allie asked, watching closely for his reaction.

He seemed undisturbed by the question. "I guess she was."

"Do you remember when she went back to her former name?"

If Allie was right about Jed's motivation for his strange and sudden confession at the farm--if it was true that he carried a torch for the attractive Irene Montgomery and had been trying to protect her--he'd be able to give her this information.

But his expression remained blank as he shook his head.

"Okay," Allie said. "Back to the night in question. Did you see Mrs. Montgomery that night?"

"She came out to the barn to tell me she'd be gone for a spell."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"Somethin' to do with the church."