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Laura was interested in two things yet to be learned from the post: toxicology and DNA. She wanted to talk to Lily’s parents, too, but it was too soon. Let Alan Stone get in their faces first. He was such a blah person, absolutely no passion for death investigation; when he was investigating the baby skeleton, he’d allowed so much evidence pointing directly to those involved to pass through his fingers.
During that investigation, Alan had protected Lisa for Dan’s sake, of this Laura was certain; Lisa had given birth to Dan’s oldest child, and he would forever be in her debt. Ten years earlier, Lisa had been at the birth of the baby whose skeleton had been found in the cottage attic. She might even have been responsible for the baby’s death, but nothing had ever come out about her guilt, and no charges had been brought against her. DNA collected from the skeleton had proved Lisa’s brother Brent had fathered the baby. Maybe she had been trying to protect her brother.
***
George and Edith Porter lived in a small bungalow in a working-class neighborhood about five miles from their daughter’s apartment in Babylon. Setting up an appointment with them was more difficult than Alan had thought it would be. They refused to talk to him or come to the station. So far, he was batting zero at getting anyone to come to headquarters. He enlisted Henry’s help.
“You gotta help me out, Henry. These people won’t talk to me. They know Dan Chua and I were friends. I told you this would be a problem, which is why I tried to recuse myself from the case.”
“I’ll talk to them,” Henry said. “I’m dreading it, but I’ll do it. They were miserable before they lost their only kid, but they’re worse now.”
Henry called George Porter to ask him to come to the station.
“You want to talk to us, you come here,” George erupted. “No one wanted to talk to us when she was missing. She might still be alive if you’d listened to us.”
“I’m so sorry, Pastor Porter,” Henry said, inappropriate laughter trying to gurgle up in his throat. “It’s policy…”
“I know all about your policy. Our daughter never missed a day’s work. She was never late. You ask that good-for-nothing boss of hers, Adam Marchand. Since he took over the café, she’s had nothing but trouble.”
Later, sitting across from the Porters in their neat, small living room, Henry was interested in how they were going to try to blame Adam Marchand for his employee’s problems. It had been evident before Lily’s body had been found that they blamed Adam for a lot.
“You said earlier that Lily had nothing but trouble since Adam Marchand took over the café. Do you want to explain what you meant for the record?”
Recording their conversation was the trade-off for the Porters not coming into the station for their chat.
“They hired that palm reader, first of all,” George Porter began. “Anything like that, any reference to the occult is anathema to a Christian. Marchand knew that, yet he gave that space free, right on the other side of where my daughter spent most of her day. The next thing was facilitating the relationship with the lawyer.”
“Do you have a name?” Henry asked, knowing who he was referring to.
“Dan Chua, the friend of your partner, Alan Stone. He’s a devil worshipper, as well.”
Henry knew that wasn’t true, but he didn’t care what Porter thought of anyone. Not yet. Let the man’s racism shine through. He’d lay down the facts as they were presented to him and let the prosecutor make the decision about guilt.
“Why was Lily’s relationship with the lawyer a problem for you?”
“I know what you’re gettin’ at. It wasn’t aproblemfor me. It was a problem for Lily. He’d already spoiled her when she was a young girl, just out of college, and now he came back into her life just when she was getting back on her feet.”
“How was the relationship a problem for Lily? Didn’t she care about him?”
George Porter’s eyes bugged out as he screamed at the top of his lungs. “He had sex with her! She was innocent, I tell you. She wasn’t able to separate her mind from her body. It’s his fault, all of it. It led her down this path that ended up in death.”
He bowed his head and started to weep, Edith Porter’s hand on his shoulder.
“She was our only child,” she said, patting her husband’s back and shaking her head. “We’ll never have a grandchild now, not that we’d want one from Dan Chua or any of his cohorts. Horrible man. I bet if you dig deeply enough, you’ll find he was to blame for her death. We saw the body, mind you. A neat bullet hole right between her eyes. Only someone who hated her, who judged her, would do that with so much vitriol.”
“Why would she be judged?” Henry asked.
“Because of her beliefs. She told us all about it. She found out Chua’s ex-wife, Lisa, was married to her half brother. Lily called it what it is, a sin, and Chua broke up with her. She became a pariah around town. It was against the law, what they’d done. But everyone just accepted it.”
“Who do you believe wanted Lily dead?”
“I think it was Chua,” Mr. Porter said, finally raising his head. “He was mad at Lily and was trying to stop her from telling the police what she knew about the ex-wife and her brother.”
Henry shut the recorder off and folded up his notebook, sticking it back in his pocket. “Thank you for talking with us,” he said, standing. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He didn’t offer his hand but nodded at the Porters. The officer who had accompanied Henry turned to leave first, and Henry quickly followed him to the door.
“Are you going to keep us informed of progress in her case?” Edith Porter asked.
