Missing Pieces(66)

Jack smiled. “No one’s called me that in years.”

Vivienne turned to Sarah. “Nice to meet you, Sarah. You take good care of this boy.”

Sarah nodded but couldn’t bring herself to answer out loud.

Margaret and Vivienne reiterated their condolences and moved onward with the promise of seeing them at the funeral the next day.

Twenty minutes later, just as Hal was shaking hands with the last guest, Sheriff Gilmore walked in with a deputy that Sarah didn’t recognize.

“Hal, boys, I can’t say how sorry I am about Julia. She was a fine woman.”

Hal nodded, his eyes welling with tears. “We appreciate that, Verne. Thank you.”

“Everything finally squared away at Dad’s?” Dean asked stiffly. “Did you get what you needed?”

“Well, that’s one of the reasons we’re here.”

“Can we go back to the house?” Hal asked. “Can’t you talk to us there?”

“That just isn’t going to be possible right now.” Gilmore’s face was unreadable, but Sarah sensed that something was terribly wrong. Why else would the sheriff show up at the funeral home on the eve of Julia’s funeral?

“Let’s take a seat,” Gilmore suggested.

“Just spit it out,” Dean said impatiently. “Can’t you see how tired my dad is?”

Celia put a hand on Dean’s arm. “Shhh,” she chided. “Let’s sit down. Your dad has been standing for over five hours.”

Gilmore sat and cleared his throat. “In the course of searching your house, Hal, we made an unexpected discovery.”

“What kind of discovery?” Dean asked shortly.

“First of all, you know that we found items in Amy’s house that were suspicious. Initial findings from the medical examiner confirm that the blood on the bale hook is the same blood type as Julia’s. That and some other evidence led us to arrest Amy. She was arraigned this morning.”

“What other kind of evidence?” Dean asked.

“We did a luminol test for blood on the steps,” Gilmore began.

“But we know that Julia fell down the stairs. Doesn’t it make sense that there’d be blood?” Celia rose from her seat and stood behind Hal, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“We found some on the steps, of course, but that’s not where we found the concentration of blood,” Gilmore went on. “It appears that Julia was attacked at the top of the stairs. The luminol test showed significant blood splatter and that someone tried to clean it up. The medical examiner also gave an official cause in Julia’s death.”

Sarah glanced around at the small group. Everyone looked expectantly at the sheriff. Only she seemed to know what was coming next.

“Julia was poisoned at the hospital in the hours around the time of her death,” Gilmore said. He watched their faces carefully and Sarah made a point to widen her eyes as if she was learning this information for the first time.

“Poisoned?” Hal asked in disbelief. “You think Amy poisoned Julia?”

“Of course he does,” Dean said angrily. “Who else could it have been?”

“I can’t believe this,” Jack snapped. He leaned forward in his chair toward Dean. “Amy loved your mom. There’s got to be another explanation.”

“Like what?” Dean asked. “A bale hook with my mom’s blood on it was found in Amy’s house. I don’t need any more proof that she did it.”

“That’s funny, Dean,” Jack said, his voice tight with anger, “because Amy thinks you did it and planted the bale hook in her house.”

Dean stood, looming largely over Jack.

“Sit down, Dean,” the sheriff said sharply, and Dean halfheartedly complied. “Hal, right now, it looks like Amy bludgeoned and poisoned Julia. We don’t know why yet, but we are going to do our best to find out.

“And I’m afraid I have more bad news.” Gilmore pressed his lips together grimly. “We didn’t just find drops of blood on the stairs. We found remains. In an old cistern. We found a body.”

Gilmore was met with stunned silence.

“A body?” Celia was the first to speak. “Whose body?” she asked incredulously.

“That we don’t know. It’s too soon to tell. It could have been there for quite a while or placed there recently.”

“What does that mean?” Dean pressed. “A week, a month, a year? That old cistern hasn’t been used for years and years,” Dean continued. “Since before I was born. I remember moving the cover when I was a kid and my mom giving me hell for it.”

“It’s an old farm,” Hal added. “Julia and I moved there nearly fifty years ago and it was a century farm then. Bought it in an auction.”

Gilmore nodded. “The old Larsen farm.”

“Any Larsens around anymore?” Jack asked.

“Not for years,” Celia said. “Remember that nutty old lady who lived on Grover Street. She was a Larsen.”

“Vera Larsen,” Hal recalled. “That’s who lived there before we did. Died back in ’69 or ’70. Had to been a hundred years old.”

“When you say remains, do you mean a body, bones, what?” Dean asked.