“This is it.” Lorna slowed at the first red light on the outskirts of Elk Run, a small town just southeast of Lancaster. The office of the New Security Insurance Agency was located in the brick strip mall to their right. The light changed to green, and she made the turn into the parking lot. There was a space right in front of the storefront with Dustin Lafferty’s name on the door, so she parked and turned off the engine.

“That was so much fun.” She handed T.J. the keys. “I felt as if I were flying.”

“Actually, you were flying there for a while.” He took the keys and unhooked his seat belt. “Fortunately, no one seemed to notice except me.”

“I tried to keep the speed down,” she said as they got out of the car. “It’s just so hard to drive slowly when you get behind that wheel.”

“Well, shall we go in and see which version of the truth Mr. Lafferty has for us?” T.J. dropped the keys into his pants pocket and held the door to the office open for her.

“Sounds as if he already has one strike against him.”

“He does. We know he must have been lying about having seen Billie and Jason arguing after he dropped Jason off that night, because we’ve already established he couldn’t have seen into the house if he’d stayed in his car. I can’t think of one good reason to lie about something like that. So yes, I’m going into this interview with a healthy bit of skepticism. Let’s see what develops while we’re here.”

They stepped inside and were greeted by a young woman wearing a knee-length skirt and a short-sleeved sweater over her T-shirt. The air-conditioning in the room was apparently set to frigid, and Lorna wondered how the receptionist managed to avoid frostbite.

Dustin Lafferty heard them enter, and came out of his office to greet them. In his early forties, he had the beginnings of a bit of a paunch around the middle and thinning dark brown hair styled in what came dangerously close to a comb-over.

“Well, Lorna, I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were maybe in junior high. You’ve changed a lot since then,” Dustin told her as he shook her hand. “And you’re Mr. Dawson.”

“T.J.”

“Right. Come on in.” He waved them into his office. “ Charlotte, hold my calls, and see if you can bring some iced tea in for us.”

He closed the door, not bothering to wait for her response.

“So, you want to talk about the Eagans.” Dustin held a chair out for Lorna and indicated to T.J. to take the side chair. “I heard about all those bodies they’re finding out there on your farm. Or should I say, The Body Farm?”

Lorna visibly winced.

Dustin addressed T.J. “You’re working as a consultant for the FBI, huh?”

I am?

Before T.J. could respond, Dustin went on.

“Lorna told me all about it. I thought about joining the FBI when I was younger, but I kept putting it off. You know what the cutoff age is for new agents?”

“Last I heard, it was thirty-seven,” T.J. told him.

Dustin snapped his fingers. “Damn. I missed it.”

He folded his hands on the desk in front of him and looked at T.J.

“So. What do you want to know? Where do we start?”

“Let’s start with Melinda Eagan,” T.J. said, jumping right into the questioning. “You were around the night she went missing, from what I understand.”

“That’s right. I stopped at Matt Conrad’s on my way home from school.”

“Do you remember what time that was?”

“Must have been around six. It was already getting dark out.”

“You were just on your way home from school at six?”

“Detention.” Dustin smiled. “I got a lot of that back in those days. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, Agent Dawson…”

“Please, it’s T.J. I’m not-”

“… but I used to have a problem with my mouth. Just couldn’t keep it shut.”

“Really.” T.J. stared at him.

“God’s truth. Anyway, since I was already late getting home, I stopped at Matt’s to see what the guys were doing. See if I could bum a smoke.”

“Who was there when you arrived at Matt’s?”

“Oh, let’s see. Matt, of course. Fritz Keeler and his younger brother, Mike. They were getting ready to leave, but then Jason came back and asked if anyone had seen his sister, and none of us had, so he asked if we’d help look for her. So, sure, we did. We went all through that field. Didn’t find her, though. Not that night, not any night.”

“Did you look for her after that night?”

“Not really. She was just gone.”

“Any thoughts on what might have happened to her?”

“Not a clue.”

“Are you sure both Keeler boys were there when you arrived?”

“Absolutely. They were getting ready to leave.”

“Let’s jump ahead a few weeks, to the night Jason disappeared.”

“Night he was murdered, you mean.”

“We don’t have any proof that he was killed that night.”

“Hey, there’s no way anyone would have held him for a day or something, and then killed him. Someone like Jason, if you’re going to kill him, you’re going to have to kill him fast. He was one tough mother.” He glanced at Lorna. “Sorry, Lorna. He was one tough guy.”

“You were all drinking beer at your house.”

“We started out at my house, later on that night we went out to White Marsh Park.”

“You, Matt, Fritz, Jason, Mike.” T.J. ticked off the names.

“Mike?” Dustin frowned. “I don’t remember that Mike was there, but maybe.”

He thought for another minute before saying, “I don’t remember about that.”

“You drank for a while and then drove everyone home.”

“Right. I was the only one with a license that year. I think Fritz might have already been sixteen. With Mr. Keeler being dead, Fritz could’ve gotten a hardship license, but his mother wouldn’t let him get his license right away.” He rolled his eyes. “What a piece of work she was. A miracle either of them turned out normal. If you think Fritz is normal, that is.”

Lorna spoke up for the first time. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.” Dustin paused while his receptionist came in with a pitcher of iced tea and three glasses. The room fell very silent while she poured and distributed the drinks.

“Anything else?” she asked Dustin.

“Not right now, thanks,” he told her. After she closed the door behind her, he said to Lorna, “Well, you know that Fritz is gay, right? I mean, everyone in Callen knows that, right?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Not that I care,” Dustin was quick to assure her. “ ‘Course, back then, when we were kids, none of us had any idea. But everyone knows how his mother bullied him and Mike. It never seemed to affect Mike so much, he was always such a man’s man, you know? Aggressive, cocky. Big football star, wrestler. Bigger personality. He played in college, you know that? Over at West Chester. Then he got hurt-back injury? Shoulder? Don’t remember. Anyway, he couldn’t play anymore and he dropped out, married Sarah. Guess the rest is history, right?”

“But you think he wasn’t there that night at your house?” T.J. tried to steer the conversation back on course.

“I think I would remember if he had been, but I just don’t. Sorry.”

“The police report says that after you dropped Jason off at home, you saw him go into the house, heard his mother yelling at him.”

“I guess, if that’s what it says.” Dustin picked up his glass and drank.

“Well, did you see him go into the house?” T.J. pressed.

“I must have. Otherwise, why would I say…?” Dustin took another drink, then set the glass on the desk. “All right, I saw him go up to the house. I saw him go around to the porch as I was pulling away. That’s all I really saw.”

“The statement you gave to the police says otherwise,” T.J. reminded him.

“I don’t remember exactly what I told the police.” His face began to flush.

“Want me to remind you?”

Dustin shook his head. “No. I guess I must have exaggerated a little bit, maybe said I saw more than I did.”