Chapter 48
CHAPTER 48
B ETTY STILL LIVED IN THE SAME HOUSE Amanda had grown up in. The same house that Hanna had always loved and saw as her safe house.
Hanna had texted Mandy before she and Jared left The Beanery, asking if Betty was still with her. Hanna knew Brody was home.
“She moved home on Friday. What’s up?”
“Nothing big. I just wanted to talk to her. Think that’s okay?”
“Yep. She loves company.”
“We good to go?” Jared asked.
“Betty’s moved back home. She must be mobile enough after her hip surgery.”
Since Chuck passed, Hanna knew that it had been difficult to keep up the place. Mandy wanted her grandma to downsize, to move to a smaller place, but Betty refused.
Hanna parked in front and strode up the walk. Betty must have been watching because she opened the door when Hanna reached the first step. She had come with the help of a cane and not a walker.
“Hanna, it is always so good to see you.” Betty wrapped her in a tight hug. Hanna loved Betty’s hugs.
“It’s always good to see you, Aunt Betty.” Hanna hugged back, struggling mightily to contain the emotions swirling inside.
Betty let go and turned to Jared. “You are a pleasant surprise. Mandy called me, but she didn’t say anything about Jared coming too.”
He got a hug as well.
When she let go, she took Hanna’s hand and led her and Jared into the house, back to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry about Joe. I hope it wasn’t too hard for you, having him home and then three days later...”
“It was expected, Betty, you know that.”
“ Expected doesn’t mean easy .”
Hanna thought. She and Jared sat at the table while Betty brewed the coffee. Though they’d just had coffee at The Beanery, Hanna didn’t want to turn down Betty’s hospitality. Since Jared didn’t say anything either, she felt they were on the same page. Betty chatted on about Amanda and her wish for great-grandchildren.
Since Hanna wasn’t certain Mandy was ready for kids, she simply nodded and smiled.
When the coffee finished, Betty poured the drink and set cups in front of Hanna and Jared before sitting down herself. “So, what brings you by today?”
Hanna sipped her coffee and cast a glance at Jared before she answered. “Something I discovered, and I thought you should know. Joe didn’t kill Blake and Sophia.”
“What?” Betty’s brow furrowed.
“It was Chase.” Hanna barely kept her voice steady. “Joe was forced to confess.”
Betty reached across the table and gripped Hanna’s hand. “Oh, honey. He told you this?” Disbelief filled her tone, and Hanna didn’t blame her.
“The evidence doesn’t fit.” Hanna swallowed and tried not to sound as if she doubted her own story. “I saw that myself. After we found the oil drums, I reviewed the original case. If only I’d looked through the case sooner, I would have seen the inconsistencies, the holes. Maybe I could have...” Surprised, tears sprang to her eyes, and all the wasted years registered again.
“Stop, Hanna, don’t do this to yourself. If this is correct, there is nothing in the past we can change now.”
“I know.” She wiped her eyes. “But so much was lost. My mom was so angry my whole life, and it was drummed into me what a horrible man Joe was. He’s not just Joe to me anymore; he’s my dad. And I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to clear his name.”
Betty handed Hanna a box of Kleenex, and Hanna blew her nose.
“Why do you say that you won’t be able to clear his name? If this is the truth, it should be out there.”
“I don’t have any evidence. I can see that Joe would not have had time to kill two people and put them in the lake, but the crime scene is gone, all the main players are dead, and there is no physical evidence.” Hanna wiped her eyes again and composed herself. It helped that Jared put a comforting hand on her shoulder—his support fortified her.
“I hate to be devil’s advocate,” Betty said, “but what if Chase and Joe were working together?”
“The evidence doesn’t fit that either. Chase was injured by my father. Someone got rid of the bodies after Joe was arrested and Chase was in the hospital. Everett wants to place the blame on his father, Big Al. But what if it was Everett and Scott?”
Betty nodded slowly. “I can’t see Everett helping with something like that. I can, however, see Big Al orchestrating the whole thing.”
“Big Al?” Jared asked.
Betty nodded. “He was a difficult man. Your father had a run-in with him many years ago.”
“My father?” Jared looked perplexed.
“Big Al wanted your father’s farm. He tried to take advantage while your mother was sick. That’s why Ben lost his landscaping business.”
“I always thought that was because of my mother’s sickness.”
“Partly, yes. Big Al tried to bankrupt your dad. A few of us couldn’t believe it. He already had lost so much. Edda Fairchild organized a group of people to help your dad. We couldn’t save the business, but we made sure your father kept his farm.”
“I never knew this.”
Jared looked as stunned as Hanna felt.
“Neither did I,” Hanna said. “I thought Big Al died after the murders; Everett claimed he passed because of the stress.”
“No, he died just before the vote for the police department. He’d been sick since the murders. At least, that’s what we heard. He helped Everett form the PD here, mostly because he wanted control. I do believe the vote passed because he was dead. We trusted Everett, not Big Al.”
“Getting a history lesson here,” Jared said.
“You two were kids. Things were bad here before the PD was formed. Big Al’s money bought people and arranged outcomes. Chase was wild; we all knew Al kept him out of jail. Yes, I can see Al framing Joe. But not Everett. When Al died and Everett took over, everything improved. He was never as controlling as his father.”
“Still, Everett never set the record straight. Clearing my father will put the spotlight on him and Chase. Without evidence, it’s my word versus theirs, and I was just a baby when all this happened.”
Betty sat back in her chair and shook her head. “I confess, I always wondered about Joe’s confession. Chuck questioned Sheriff Peterson at the time.”
“What did Peterson say?”
“To trust him. He would never arrest an innocent man. Everyone knew Joe cooked meth. It was easy to convince people that Joe killed Blake and Sophia, and we should be happy that the killer was caught so quickly. We trusted him. Of course, Peterson was certainly beholden to Al.” She sipped her coffee, and to Hanna it looked as though she had more to say.
“Years later, Marcus published his book. He never claimed to have interviewed Joe, yet he had a lot of details. I always wondered where he got all the information. He seemed to know so much about Joe and how he operated.”
“Did you ever ask him?” Jared asked.
“Chuck did. Marcus gave a flippant answer about a reporter not revealing his sources. We never pressed him on it. Rather, we prayed. We have always prayed for Joe and for Chase and his family as well.”
“Some of it, I think, he got from my mom. I never read the book.”
“You should. I know it’s all old news, but Marcus tells quite a tale. He claimed that Joe planned the murders, that was why he was able to hide the bodies.”
“The confession makes no statements that could be construed as premeditation.”
Betty drank her coffee. “Thinking back to those days, there was such a big problem with meth.” She tsked. “It got a hold of Edda’s son, Bobby; it got my Sophia. Back in the 1990s meth was everywhere, and it was so addictive. Like fentanyl is today. We tried to help Sophia, for Amanda’s sake, get off the drugs, but she was hooked.”
“Probably didn’t help that my dad was her friend.”
“Before the murders, I thought Joe was cleaning up his act. There was an incident. Sophia was badly burned when a trailer with a drug lab inside exploded.”
“Did my dad have something to do with that?” Hanna asked.
Betty shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. I always blamed Blake. I never cared for him. He was a bad influence all the way around. But he was Amanda’s father, so we tried to accept him.”
“That DEA man, Gilly, he came by and asked about it. He talked to us. He hated meth as much as we did. His brother was hooked. He thought Joe was involved in the trailer explosion, but he couldn’t prove it. And after the incident, Joe tried to change, we saw that.” She nodded toward Jared. “He worked for your dad for a while.”
“Really?” Jared perked up. “Doing what?”
“Landscaping. I paid attention to what your dad was doing, Hanna, because I thought if he got off the meth, maybe Sophia and Blake would too.” Betty shook her head sadly. “It wasn’t to be. Blake would never give it up, and Sophia would never give up Blake. Even with the burns, she held on to that guy.”
“Where was Marcus when all of this was happening? Was he friends with Blake and Sophia? Part of the druggie crowd?” Jared asked.
Betty frowned. “That’s testing the memory. I vaguely remember him hanging around, always on the periphery. He was Blake’s friend more than anything. I remember Sophia didn’t like him. I was friends with his mother. I don’t believe he was a drug user. If he was, he kept it well hidden from her.” Betty paused as if trying to remember. “She thought the world of her son, spoiled him, really.”
Looking at Hanna, she said, “You were seven or eight years old when Marcus self-published his book. That was around the same time his mother passed away. He inherited her house, but I don’t remember what year that was. He was an outsider, I think, desperately wanting to belong somewhere but not really belonging anywhere. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. The house he lives in, he inherited from his mother?” Hanna knew the beautiful Victorian house at the edge of town. Town lore said that the home was one of the first homes built in Dry Oaks in the 1850s.
“Um-hmm.” Betty tapped on her chin with an index finger. “His ancestors built that house. It’s been in his family since day one. For a time, it got a little run-down, but his parents restored it. He’s kind of let it go a bit, which is sad to see. It’s really a beautiful place.”
“I knew it was a historic home but not that it was his family’s.”
“It might have been in probate when your mother dated him.”
“All I remember about Marcus was the books. He always had a lot of books.”
“You should talk to him about that time. He probably will remember more than I do.”
Betty was right. Hanna hadn’t thought about talking to Marcus before because what happened when she was a kid made her prefer avoidance. Her mother had bad-mouthed Marcus almost as much as she bad-mouthed Joe. His book did more to blacken her father’s reputation than the actual investigation.
Betty continued. “He tries so hard, but I don’t think he’s going to achieve his goal. Will you two be going to Edda’s celebration-of-life service?
“What? Oh, I’d almost forgotten. That’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be there,” Jared said.
“It was good to talk to Betty,” Hanna said as she and Jared walked back to her car.
“I’m glad that she impressed upon you how useless it is to beat yourself up over the past that you can’t change.”
“She did. I’d still like to try and clear my dad’s name.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
Hanna started the car. “First, I’m going to the library to read Marcus’s book. You want me to drop you back at your truck?”
He shook his head. “We used to spend a lot of time at the library. I’d love to join you.”
Hanna smiled, glad he was coming along, and drove to Dry Oaks Library. The talk with Betty helped her thought process. She agreed with Jared and knew it was futile to lament the past. It just dug into her like a spur how much both she and her father had lost because of a lie. The lie would never end because there were so many copies of Marcus’s book out there. As much as she hated the thought of reading it, Hanna knew that she had to.
Together, she and Jared found two copies. Sitting across from one another, she began to read exactly what had been written about Joe.