“His demeanor?” Jeremy repeated sarcastically. “His demeanor was that of a man who’d just found out his daughter was missing and probably had been since the night before and he hadn’t known it. What the hell do you think his demeanor was?”

He continued to glare at Andrew. “Look, we had an eyewitness who placed her in Eric Beale’s car-Eric’s speeding car-on the road out to the lake. We searched the lake, we searched the woods, we searched the park. The FBI had their team out there with us, even had a few divers. We had better’n half the town searching for that girl for two, three days. She was nowhere to be found. The only trace of her was in Eric’s car.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and softened just a little.

“Look, not trying to make excuses now, but back then, no one gave more’n a passing thought to the possibility that Shannon might have run away. She just wasn’t the type to do that, you know what I mean? Everyone in town knew her, everyone knew she was a happy kid, a good kid from a good family. She never got into any trouble, she was a good student, she played sports, she didn’t hang with a bad crowd. She was an all-around solid kid. So for a kid like that to be gone, someone had to have taken her. And for her not to be found, we just all figured she had to be dead. And with her blood in Eric’s car and him being seen with her, it just followed that he’d done something really bad to her. No one ever figured it had been any other way than what Chief Taylor said it was.”

“That Eric had killed her and hidden her body in a place where it couldn’t be found?” Andrew stood. There was nothing else to be learned here.

“Even the FBI believed it.” Brinkley stood as well. “That made it so, far as everyone around here was concerned. No one ever doubted that Eric was guilty. The chief said he was. Said he’d all but confessed to him. Why would he have told us that if it wasn’t true?”

“Good question,” Dorsey said.

“Yeah.” Brinkley rocked back and forth on his heels thoughtfully.

“Sure makes you wonder what was at the bottom of all that, don’t it?”

13

“So, what do you say we stop at the Widow Taylor’s and see if she has any thoughts on where we might find that file?” Andrew made a U-turn and headed back toward Hatton.

“Good idea. We have a few hours before we meet with the sisters. Bowden said Aubrey’s house was about a half hour from Hatton, so there’s time.”

“The more answers we get, the more questions we find,” Andrew said thoughtfully. “It almost seems Chief Taylor deliberately steered the investigation toward Eric Beale, but why would he do that?”

“Would it be a stretch to think it might have something to do with whatever was going on between Eric and Jeff Feeney?”

“Not to my mind.” Andrew slowed to round a bend in the road. “But I don’t expect Feeney to admit to anything.”

“It would have to be something really big for Taylor to have knowingly framed Eric, and let an innocent man be executed.”

“You’d think, but who knows what goes on in these little towns.”

“And who’s going to tell, all these years later?” Dorsey wondered aloud.

“So far, maybe only Jeremy Brinkley and Chief Bowden. Unfortunately, neither of them seem to know. And I think Brinkley was really rattled by this.”

“I think so, too. I think he was a good cop, and I think he liked to think Taylor was, too.” She gazed thoughtfully out the window. “But I also think that if he believed his chief pulled something back then, he’d be shocked, but he’d do what he could to make it right.”

“Well, I gave him my card. I hope he uses it.”

The drive back to Hatton proper took less than ten minutes. They drove along the main street where the renovated houses stood like newly polished jewels.

“Oh. Taylor.” Dorsey turned in her seat to look back at the mailbox they’d just driven past. “Slow down. Back two houses.”

Andrew checked his rearview mirror, then pulled to the side of the road.

“Shall we make a cold call?” he asked.

“Why not?”

They walked up the neatly trimmed sidewalks to the house where the pale blue mailbox announced the Taylor home.

“What a place.” Dorsey stood at the end of the driveway. “It looks like something out of a magazine.”

“Is there a magazine called Antebellum?” Andrew observed the house and the grounds. “It’s not all that big compared to some of the plantation houses you see in this area, but it’s clearly the same era and the same style. Interesting, don’t you think, this whole row of mini-mansions, all renovated?”

“It takes a lot of money to do this kind of restoration,” Dorsey told him as they walked the length of the drive.

“Brinkley said she’d inherited a lot of money from her father,” Andrew reminded her. “Her money. Her nephew…”

“So maybe Miz Taylor might have been holding a lot of the cards back then.” Dorsey stepped onto the flagstone walk that led to the front door and Andrew followed.

“Hold onto that thought.” He reached past her and rang the doorbell.

Moments later, a woman who looked to be in her mid-seventies appeared and opened only the inner door.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“I’m Special Agent Andrew Shields, FBI.” Andrew held his badge to the door. “Are you Mrs. Taylor?”

“I am.” She remained motionless on the other side of the screen.

“We’d like to talk with you for a moment, if that’s all right.”

“About?”

“We’re trying to track down some old files of your husband’s. Chief Bowden said files had been stored here at one time.”

“They were all sent to the new police department.”

“Mrs. Taylor, if we could just have a minute of your time.” Dorsey put on her best manners. “We’d like to ask you about an old case that your husband handled.”

“I never involved myself in my husband’s work. I’m sure I’d be of no help at all.”

“Mrs. Taylor, if you don’t mind-” Andrew started to plead with her, but he didn’t get far.

“Oh, but I do. You all have a nice day, now.”

The inner door closed.

“Well, was it something we said?” Dorsey asked.

“Apparently. I’d say we’ve been dismissed.”

They turned to walk back to the car.

“I’m feeling overwhelmed by all this hospitality,” Andrew told her.

“Me, too. That was so strange.”

“Do you think she’s just an inhospitable, cold, ornery bitch, or do you think she knew why we were here and wasn’t having any of it?”

“Both. I think she’s a cold and ornery bitch and I think she knew why we were here and doesn’t want to talk about the Randall case.”

They reached the car and got in.

“Word has to be starting to get around town. No doubt it’s reached the chief’s widow that the FBI is questioning the old investigation,” Andrew said.

“She could just be protecting her husband’s name,” Dorsey suggested, “or she could be protecting something-or someone-else.”

“You think her nephew?”

“I think it’s a possibility.”

“Me, too. Let’s see what Chief Bowden knows about Jeff Feeney.” Andrew took out his phone and dialed the chief’s private line. After several minutes of conversation, he snapped the phone closed and slid it into his pocket.

“So, what did you find out?” Dorsey asked.

“Jeff Feeney was three years older than Eric Beale, and had the reputation of being a bully.”

“Three years older, that makes him about the same age as Eric’s brother Tim, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Andrew appeared thoughtful as he started the car and pulled onto the roadway. “He said there was definitely bad blood there, but he didn’t know why.”

“That’s all he said?”

“That, and the fact that Jeff Feeney was one of the witnesses in the assault case that sent Tim Beale to prison.”

“We need to talk to Jeff Feeney.”

“And in about another minute, we will.”