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Trinity closed the photo album and handed it back to Hallie, who hugged it to her chest as she returned to her chair. Flynn’s bell, sounding more loudly now, announced her arrival. She dashed from the kitchen doorway to beneath Hallie’s chair, peeking out at Josie and Trinity from between her legs.
“Hallie,” Trinity said carefully. “When we were corresponding by email and when we spoke on the phone, you talked about Mathias, but you never told me that he went to prison for shooting his wife in the head.”
Hallie’s eyes went wide. Her fingertips dug into the cracked vinyl cover of the photo album. “He didn’t do it. He did not do that. He was exonerated.” With each statement, her voice rose an octave.
In a mild tone, Josie said, “What do you know about his wife’s shooting?”
“We weren’t able to find much information,” Trinity added. “The press coverage of things in this area is practically non-existent.”
Hallie’s fingers relaxed. She stood and put the album onto the fireplace mantel under the television before resuming her seat. “I know. Bradysport gets all the headlines. No one cares what happens out here in the county.”
“Start at the beginning,” Trinity urged. “How did Mathias and his wife meet?”
“They were both working at the tractor supply place. He had been there a long time, and I guess she quit college or whatever so she started working there, too. They worked together for a long time before they started dating. They kept it a secret as long as they could.”
“Why keep it a secret?” asked Trinity.
Josie remembered what Anya had said about her affair with Cyrus. His daughter had just dropped out of college at that time. Anya hadn’t specified what year she’d been in but the oldest she could possibly be, assuming she started college at eighteen, was twenty-two, which meant that Mathias was significantly older than her. “They had an age gap, didn’t they? He was a lot older than her.”
Trinity shot her a look but didn’t ask how she knew this.
Hallie shifted in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “The gap was ten years, yeah. But I don’t think that’s why they kept it secret.”
“Really?” Trinity said. “Ten years is a big gap.”
“Maybe,” Hallie said. “But they were adults when they met. I guess some people might find it weird, but really, that wasn’t the reason they kept it secret. The real reason was that Piper’s dad is a cop.” Pausing, a blush crept up her face. She looked at Josie. “No offense.”
Josie smiled. “None taken.”
Hallie was right. Lots of people in relationships had age gaps. It wasn’t uncommon. By Josie’s estimation, there had been at least ten years between Anya and Cyrus when they’d had their affair, although Anya was already in her thirties by then. Still, Josie was certain the reason Mathias and Piper had kept their relationship under wraps had less to do with Cyrus being a cop and more to do with the accusations and rumors that followed Mathias everywhere. “Were they dating when Jana died?”
“No. They met after that. I think a year after she died, maybe? I know that they eloped two years after she died because it was right around the anniversary of her death. I was really upset with him at the time.”
“Because he eloped?” Trinity asked.
From between Hallie’s feet, Flynn pawed at the laces of her sneakers. Hallie reached down to shoo her away, but Flynn was undeterred. “No. I never cared about how he got married. That was his business. I just didn’t understand how he could do it so close to the date of Jana’s death. It felt wrong. On the first anniversary of her death, he and I had made a point to spend the day together. We had lunch at Jana’s favorite restaurant and then we visited her grave and brought flowers. It helped us get through the day because we did it together, just like we spent almost ten years of our lives raising her like our own child. I just assumed that’s how we would spend the anniversary of her death every year. I was blindsided when I found out he’d chosen to elope that day instead. He told me it didn’t mean anything, that he hadn’t chosen that date on purpose—they’d just decided to go for it. I could never understand how the date of her death meant so little to him, but what do I know?”
“Did Piper’s dad find out that they’d eloped?” asked Josie.
Flynn kept clawing at the laces of Hallie’s left sneaker until they were completely loose. Again, Hallie tried to stop her but was ignored. “Oh, yeah. Once they were married, they didn’t bother to keep it a secret anymore. Piper’s dad went ballistic. Then, to make matters worse, all her friends stopped talking to her.”
“Why?” asked Trinity.
“Those stupid rumors. He was a rapist. A killer. He’d been getting away with it for years. That’s what people said. Everyone in town thought the worst of him. None of it was true but that didn’t matter. He even got let go from the tractor supply place shortly after they married because all those rumors kicked back up again. His boss thought he was too distracting. He had a hard time finding work after that. He’d get hired at a place, work there a few weeks, and when someone figured out his connection to Jana, he’d get fired again and be back out trying to find something. In fact, he was out looking for work one day and when he came home, Piper was on the kitchen floor, bleeding everywhere. He called 911 and the cops arrested him.”
“What about the gun?” Josie asked. “Was it recovered?”
Flynn went to work on Hallie’s other sneaker. Hallie didn’t even try to stop her this time. “It was there. It was hers. She always had a gun. Her dad had taught her to shoot and bought her a pistol for self-defense. The police said it was a domestic dispute and that Mathias had shot her. Of course his prints were on it because it was their gun. It’s not like he’d never touched it. Not that they looked very hard, or at all, but the police never found any other suspects.”
Trinity said, “He didn’t have an alibi?”
Hallie twisted her fingers together again. A flush crept up her face. Flynn continued to bat at her loose shoelaces. “Yes. He did. He was at the Hadlee Family Farm that afternoon, looking for work. He thought with Dermot having been his football coach and all, maybe he’d give him a job on the farm. Dermot said he’d think it over and yet when the police went to him to verify Mathias’s alibi, Dermot told them that he hadn’t seen him in years.”
Trinity raised a brow. “This guy Dermot—his old coach—he lied?”
“Yes. I don’t know why. We’ve never known why.”
Having met Dermot, Josie was sure he had had his reasons. “Maybe Dermot lied for the same reason that the boss at the tractor supply fired Mathias. He didn’t want the farm’s reputation to be tarnished,” Josie said.
