Missing Pieces(69)
“No.” Sarah shook her head. “I’m sure I would have seen it. Someone must have put it there when we were down in the church basement.” Sarah eyed the parking lot. The street was obscured by a row of honey locust trees. Was someone watching from behind a lacy veil of leaves? It was dark and completely deserted except for their two cars. Behind the church lay the cemetery with its wrought-iron fence gate and acres of smooth ivory headstones rising from the earth. “It’s pitch-black out here. How would someone even see the watch on the ground?”
Margaret inched more closely to Sarah and looked around warily. “And why would anyone be walking through the parking lot at this time of night? Maybe we should call the sheriff.”
“And say what? Someone put an old watch on my car? There’s nothing criminal in that.” Sarah strained her eyes, trying to take in her surroundings to see if anyone was skulking nearby. “Compared with what he’s dealing with right now, this is nothing. Besides, won’t he wonder why the two of us are out here alone in a deserted parking lot?”
“We’d just tell him the truth, that we were delivering food for the funeral. But it still creeps me out,” Margaret said, drawing her jacket more closely around herself. “Where are you heading to now?”
“I guess I should go back to Dean’s.”
“Well, text me when you get back to the house, so I know you got there safely. And go straight to Dean’s,” Margaret ordered, pointing a red-tipped fingernail at her. “I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow.”
“See you,” Sarah said. “And thanks for all your help, Margaret.” Sarah quickly climbed into her car, locked the doors, tucked the watch into her purse and made sure that Margaret got into her car safely. Though Sarah had been avoiding going back to the house and didn’t look forward to the tension that was sure to greet her there, she was curious to learn more about the remains in the cistern. It seemed, Sarah thought fearfully, that every time she went back to that house another secret was uncovered, another crack in her marriage appeared.
17
SHE TURNED ON her phone after having silenced it for the wake and immediately it buzzed. It was Gabe, her editor.
“Sarah,” Gabe said shortly.
Sarah was startled by his sharp tone. “What’s wrong?”
“I tried to call you, sent you emails and texted you. I was getting worried.”
“I had my phone turned off. I’ve been at Julia’s wake,” Sarah explained as she watched Margaret pull away from the parking lot. “Were you able to find out where the emails are coming from?”
“No, not yet. I’ve got one of our tech guys checking on it. But I did a little digging.”
“What kind of digging?” Sarah asked.
“After you told me about Jack not telling you how his mom really died, I checked it out. I have a contact at the Cedar City Gazette, Burt Wenstrup, who did an in-depth exposé on the murder back in the day.”
“I read his articles. I found them online.”
“I called Burt yesterday. He runs the newsroom now but has never forgotten this case. He had lots of theories about what really happened to Lydia Tierney, but most of what he learned was small-town gossip and couldn’t be corroborated. So of course he only wrote the facts, but he’s never been fully satisfied with the outcome.”
“No one’s satisfied with the outcome,” Sarah said. “Is there a way you can send me his notes electronically?”
“Yeah, but let me give you the highlights. Burt talked to a lot of people. Only a few could come up with names of anyone who may have wanted to kill Lydia Tierney and the last person on the list was her husband.
“Burt interviewed just about everyone in Penny Gate. Jack’s uncle Hal is in here, so is a Deputy Sheriff Gilmore and his wife, Delia. The priest, the coroner, even the mayor.”
“Wow, that is really thorough,” Sarah said, impressed. The case file didn’t have that many interviews.
“Burt is a great reporter. He really knows how to get people to talk to him, trust him. He could also be the most ethical journalist I’ve met. He never included something in an article just because it was shocking or would sell papers. He could get to the heart of a story, but made sure that he included facts, not idle gossip.”
“So Burt doesn’t think that Jack’s dad did it?”
“Like I said, most folks were shocked that John Tierney was the main suspect. At first, some thought it was a crazed drifter, though no one reported any strangers in the area around that time. Then they discovered John had disappeared and the general consensus was that he had to be the one who did it.”
“Listen, Gabe,” she said, putting the call on speakerphone, shifting the car into gear and pulling out of the parking lot and into the road. “I know that Jack was a suspect at one point. I heard the taped interview Gilmore had with him. Nothing in this file could be worse than listening to that.”
Still, Gabe hesitated before speaking. “Several people that Burt interviewed mentioned Jack as a possible suspect. At fifteen he was getting into all kinds of trouble. He hung out with an older crowd, was running around town, drinking and raising hell. A few people, though, said that Jack could be pretty aggressive. Got into quite a few bang-up fights at school.” Before today she would have said that this didn’t sound like Jack at all. “There was one person who told Burt that Jack had once even struck Lydia.”