Missing Pieces(54)
Suddenly nauseous, Sarah dropped the photos onto the seat next to her, and pushed open the car door, nearly tumbling to the ground as she hurried out. She stumbled to the side of the road and bent over, hands on her knees, willing herself not to vomit, but certain she would feel better if she did. She could taste remnants of the hamburger she had eaten earlier in the back her throat. Something scurried near her through the tall grass, causing her heart to skip a beat. On shaky legs, Sarah stood and made her way back to the car. She held on to the door frame, taking deep breaths until the queasiness passed.
Sarah looked at the passenger’s-side seat. The photos were strewn across the seat and onto the floor in a jumble. She left them where they lay.
She considered packing up the box, driving directly back to the sheriff’s department and handing it over to Margaret. No, Sarah told herself. She got back into the car and reached into the box to pull out another folder. This one chronicled the findings of the medical examiner who conducted Lydia’s autopsy. Cause of death: blunt force trauma.
Though she wanted to turn away, she was compelled to keep looking at the autopsy photos. Lydia was stretched out upon a metal table, a white sheet pulled up over her chest. Someone had rinsed the blood from her hair and it was slicked back away from her face, now peaceful, the earlier terror smoothed away. Her eyes were closed and except for the ugly gash along her hairline she could have been sleeping.
A close-up of the injury to Lydia’s head revealed a curved laceration. Whatever Lydia had been struck with had a rounded, sharp edge.
Since the murder had taken place in 1985, Sarah knew it was a little early for the wide use of DNA testing, but several sets of fingerprints had been found at the scene. Jack’s, Amy’s, Lydia’s and John’s fingerprints, identified from his military record. No murder weapon was ever found, but both Amy and Jack in their interviews with the sheriff’s department said the cellar had been home to many old farm tools over the years. Something from the cellar could easily have been used as a weapon.
A note from the medical examiner stated that the injury was consistent with a blow from a heavy object with a curved, sharp edge.
The subsequent files offered little new information, just a rehashing of the scant facts and a jumble of suppositions from the people of Penny Gate who, as the public support of John Tierney faded, shared glimpses of the darker side of their friend and neighbor. Quiet, kept to himself. Had a bit of a temper. Waved his shotgun around at deer hunters who came on his property without permission.
The lone ally for John was his sister, Julia. My brother loved Lydia. He would never hurt her, never do this to his family.
Sarah picked up the pile of photos from the seat next to her and began to organize them by the small number written on the back of each. Her eye snagged on a familiar image. She took a closer look. A pair of hands. Even without the notation that identified the subject as Jack, she thought she’d know them anywhere. Jack’s hands. His knuckles were bruised, fresh lacerations looked raw and painful. The next photo showed the palms of Jack’s hands; three half-moon indentations marred each palm. What would cause such marks? A murder weapon? Sarah shoved the thought from her mind.
They knew who committed this murder: John Tierney. The only reason he wasn’t arrested, tried and convicted was because they couldn’t find him. A small voice buzzed in her ear like a pesky insect: Then why had Jack lied to her about everything if he didn’t have something to hide?
The final photos showed Jack without a shirt. He was slim and bony chested, large footed and large handed, a boy who hadn’t yet grown into himself. No other marks blemished his body, no wounds of any kind. Surely, if he had been Lydia’s attacker, she would have fought back, scratched and clawed trying to protect herself. Unless, of course, the attacker was your son, and the blows were unexpected.
Sarah knew that she would never get the graphic images of Lydia from her mind and wondered how Jack could possibly have recovered from finding his mother in that awful state. No wonder he rarely came back to Penny Gate, didn’t want Sarah here or his daughters. It made a little more sense now.
Sarah peered into the box. She had breezed through every single piece of paper. There were photocopies of the school attendance records and even the handwritten rosters that the teachers used to mark whether a student was present or absent for a particular class period. Highlighted in yellow on three of the rosters was Jack’s name with a capital A written beside it. As Jack had stated in his interview he had skipped three of his afternoon classes.
There were copies of phone bills in the months leading up to the murder. The same number was highlighted three times. At the bottom of the page someone had scrawled Raymond Douglas—known drug dealer.
Had Jack been using drugs as a teenager? Had his parents found out? Had he skipped school that day in late May and been confronted by his mother. Had he lashed out violently? No, it wasn’t enough. Plenty of kids used drugs and didn’t murder their mothers. But plenty of kids did, a small voice whispered in her ear. She had just heard a news story about a teen from Great Falls who killed both his parents in their beds after they had threatened to send him to a rehab center.
Sarah shook her head in frustration. Why couldn’t she just let it go? Jack had lied to her, yes, but it didn’t make him a murderer. Besides, the sheriff was confident he knew who the killer was: Jack’s father. John Tierney had murdered his wife and taken off. Tragedies like that happened every day. But how did he get away? that small, insistent voice asked. According to the sheriff’s notes, John’s truck was found hidden in the cornfield that separated the Quinlan farm from the Tierney farm. What had Celia said when she was driving Sarah to her home? She could walk straight through the cornfield from her house and it would take you fifteen minutes to get to Hal’s. How would John have left town without his truck? Did he have an accomplice? None were mentioned in any of the files.