“I wonder if they’re eating that,” she muttered.

“What?”

“The barn cats. I was just wondering if they were eating the dry cat food I left for them, or if it was being eaten by raccoons or field mice or whatever.”

“I doubt the mice would stand a chance. I counted four cats in the doorway. How many more are there?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been out there in the barn for as long as I can remember. A few years ago my mother rounded up the kittens and took them to the vet down the street to neuter them so they’d stop multiplying, but who knows if there aren’t others? Gran liked them because they kept the mice population down, and she never had to resort to traps or chemicals to get rid of them.” Lorna smiled. “Gran called the cats ‘nature’s mousetraps.’ ”

At the edge of the field, T.J. stopped and took in the vista.

“How much is yours?” he asked.

“All of it, except for the back section, where the body was found. We sold off thirty acres a year and a half ago to pay for my mother’s radiation and chemo.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Lorna pointed off to the right. “There’s a pond behind that wooded section, and a small orchard. There’s also a small family burial ground.” She turned toward the left and said, “Down there is an old vineyard my great-uncle started back in the 1940s. It was pretty much ignored after he died.”

“I thought I smelled grapes.”

“That wouldn’t have been from Uncle Will’s vineyard, I doubt there’s much going on down there after all these years. The grapes you smelled were from the arbor in the backyard. My gran’s jam grapes. An altogether different kind of fruit.”

“Can’t you make wine from jam grapes, and jam from wine grapes?”

She laughed. “All I know is that the grapes on Gran’s arbor are big and dark purple. I only saw the other ones-the wine grapes-when I was little, before the weeds and the trees started taking over the vineyard and it got too spooky to play in.”

“Spooky?” He cracked a smile. “Did your young imagination convince you that it was haunted?”

“Oh, sure. I went through a stage where I saw ghosts and haunts everywhere. I think it started after I found out that there really were bodies buried in the family cemetery. Then when Uncle Will started acting up, it made a believer out of me.”

“Uncle Will acts up?”

“He died in the late forties, and he’s never really left.” When T.J. chuckled, she shrugged and said, “Hey, you can believe it or not, but I’ve heard him and seen him. Once you’ve met a ghost head-on in your upstairs hall, it isn’t much of a stretch to believe that those weird sounds coming from the vineyard are caused by demons. The older kids in the neighborhood used to tell me that, and I believed them.”

“I noticed that up along the main road there were a bunch of houses that had really large properties in the rear. Makes it more of a real neighborhood, I suppose, than a typical farm community.”

“Right.” Lorna pushed a long strand of hair from her face. She wished she’d grabbed one of the straw hats hanging near the back door. Sweat was beginning to bead on her face and some more ran down the front of her shirt, making her skin itch. “Most of those houses have ten acres or more out back. Callen was founded by six brothers-they each built one of those red brick houses along Callen Road, where you came in. Three on one side, three on the other. They wanted their houses fairly close together, but also wanted to farm. The three brothers on one side shared the acreage behind their homes, the brothers on the opposite side of the street did the same. It’s only been in the last fifty years or so that the farms have been broken up and the properties sold individually. When I was growing up, there were kids in every one of those houses, and we all went to school together and played together. Summers, everyone swam in our pond and we played in everyone’s yards.” She twisted the cap off her water bottle. “We really had the best of everything. Farm life, and town life, too. It was a great way to grow up.”

She paused to take a long drink from the bottle, then asked, “How about you? City boy? Small town?”

“Small New Jersey town near the bay.”

“Beach town?”

“Actually, it’s an old seaport town.” He stopped at the top of the ridge and looked over his shoulder. She’d fallen a few steps behind, and he waited for her to catch up before asking, “I’m assuming that’s where they found him? Where the yellow caution tape is on the ground?”

“I’ll bet the local kids just couldn’t resist coming up here to look at that hole in the ground,” she grumbled as she passed him and kept walking straight ahead.

“Any of those houses occupied?” He caught up with her easily.

“I don’t think so. I did hear that one of them was sold, the white one there on the corner. Not sure about the others. The brick one is the sample house for the development.”

They stepped around the lot markers on their way to the makeshift grave that had recently held the remains of Jason Eagan.

“I guess the police department has closed down construction for a few days.”

“I would expect that they did. I saw a few police cars out here this morning. I was wondering if they were looking for Melinda. For her grave, I mean.” Lorna stood with her hands on her hips, about ten feet away from the excavation where Jason had been found.

T.J. walked to the edge of the excavation, then knelt on one knee. He studied the hole in the ground for a long moment, leaning forward to get a better look. Finally, he asked, “Did the police dig down beneath the remains, do you know?”

“No, I don’t. Why?”

“Because if the killer dug the hole to this depth, I’m guessing he-or she-was pretty strong physically. There appears to be considerable rock once you get past the top layer of soil.” He looked over his shoulder to where she stood, and asked, “Is Mrs. Eagan a large woman?”

“Mrs. Eagan? She’s shorter than I am and probably weighs about half what I weigh. She’s always been thin and on the frail side. She’s a recovering alcoholic, apparently at one time a heavy smoker. Even twenty-five years ago, she was pretty thin. Pale.” She walked to the excavation and looked down. “I see where you’re going. If the killer dug this hole, chances are, the killer was not Billie Eagan.”

“So that’s one thing in her favor.” He stood up. “When do you suppose she’ll be getting out?”

“I think she’ll be out today or tomorrow. Do you want to speak with her?”

“I do. I think we need to hear her side of the story and make certain she’s agreeable to working with us. Do you know where she lives? So you can get in touch with her?”

“She lives right over there, behind the vineyard.” Lorna pointed off to the left.

“Think we could walk over and take a look?”

“I don’t see why not.” She glanced back at the hole in the ground where they’d found Jason Eagan. As she had when she heard his bones had been discovered, Lorna reflected that she’d never liked Jason. That he was mean to Mellie and to her, and had a foul mouth. She couldn’t remember he’d ever had a nice word for his little sister. Still, she wouldn’t have wished this on him. “You ready?”

“Yeah, I’m finished here.” He fell into step with her.

“Those are Uncle Will’s vineyards,” she told him as they headed toward the overgrown maze.

“Was he a winemaker?”

“No, but he wanted to be. If he’d lived, he would have been.” She told him the story as they walked the distance to Billie’s cottage.

She had just finished the story-“Unfortunately, the trellises were taken over by weeds and the vines all choked out”-when they came to the back of the small cottage. T.J. pointed to the last few rows of vines, which were obviously alive and doing just fine.

“Not quite all choked out.”

“I can’t believe it.” She stared at the vines that twisted gently over the T-shaped structures. “How could they have survived all these years?”