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“With what?” asked Josie.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t say, or I didn’t remember. He just said he hit her again and again. She went unconscious. He thought she was fine at first ’cause there was no blood or bruising or anything. Then he tried to wake her up, but she was dead. So he took her and left her by the lake. There was only one girl who turned up dead next to the lake right after that, so I know it was Jana Melburn. Anyway, Vance was super paranoid for weeks and weeks after that. Like totally freaking out. Kept going on about what if he left DNA on her somehow? What if they figured it out? Then the cops ruled her death an accident and it all went away.”
Mettner said, “Did Vance ever talk to you about Mathias Tobin?”
Carolina shook her head. “No. Well, that’s not true. One time, yeah. Last time I saw him. He was wrecked ’cause he had just given some statement. He said it was to help get a guy out of prison. The guy who shot his wife in the head. The cop’s daughter.”
“Piper Tobin, Sergeant Grey’s daughter,” said Mettner.
“Yeah. He said he gave a statement to some attorneys that that guy was with him when she was killed so that he could get out of prison.”
“Why was he ‘wrecked’?” asked Josie.
“He said he was going against his dad. I told him not to worry. His dad had had a stroke a month or so before that. He wasn’t exactly in shape to give Vance hell.”
Josie asked, “Was Vance worried that his dad might somehow punish him for giving that statement?”
“I don’t know. He always had big hang-ups about his dad. After the stroke, Vance was even more of a mess than usual. Kept saying he thought he knew who his dad was, but after the stroke he found out things that changed his mind.”
“Things like what?” asked Mettner.
“I don’t know. Don’t think he told me.”
A barrage of feelings flooded Josie’s consciousness with each new revelation. Sadness that bright, sweet young biology student Jana Melburn who, at nineteen, was working at a doctor’s office to put herself through college, had had her life snuffed out. Vance had thrown her away like she meant nothing. But she’d meant a great deal to Mathias Tobin and Hallie Kent, who had loved her and raised her.
Anger that Vance Hadlee had killed her as if it were his right to do so if his anger flared hot enough. He swaggered around Bly like he owned the place, like he was above the law, like he had every right to hurt women: Anya, Lark, Jana, even Carolina, in spite of her admission that the relationship between them was consensual. Then there was confusion.
What information had Jana been seeking from Vance Hadlee? It couldn’t be about her birth parents. Hallie had tracked down her biological family. There was no connection between them and Vance. Josie searched her memory banks for anything that could possibly have brought Jana and Vance together. It only took a few seconds. The doctor’s office where she worked. Lark Hadlee had told Josie and Gretchen that the Hadlees were patients there. Josie had no doubt that Vance had noticed Jana right off. But why had Jana wanted to meet with him?
What things had Vance found out after Dermot’s stroke that had made him so agitated? One of the first things—maybe the only thing—that Vance had done after Dermot’s stroke was to free Mathias. But why? What did Dermot have against Mathias? If Mathias hadn’t shot Piper Tobin, then who had?
“Carolina,” Josie said. “Did Vance ever say anything to you about the murder of the cop’s daughter? Did he know who killed her?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t say much except that her husband wasn’t the one who did it.”
Mettner said, “Do you think Vance did it?”
“How should I know?”
“Because it seems like Vance told you everything,” Josie pointed out. “Did he ever talk about who killed the cop’s daughter?”
“No. He didn’t much care about her, just that this other guy wasn’t in prison.”
They had a lot of pieces to the complex puzzle that had formed in the town of Bly over the years and later spilled over into Denton, and yet the picture was incomplete. What were they still missing?
Mettner said, “Carolina, Vance Hadlee tried to kill you. He admitted to you that he had killed a young woman and dumped her body like it was trash. Why would you keep a secret like that?”
What he didn’t say was that it wasn’t only morally wrong but legally, it made her an accessory to murder. Josie didn’t mention this either. Any charges that might be brought against her would be squarely in the hands of the district attorney of Everett County. All Josie and Mettner could do was deliver her to Cyrus so he could take her statement and then perhaps accompany him when he went to arrest Vance. Hopefully, with the national press scrutiny that Trinity could bring to bear, neither Vance nor his father would be able to get him out of jail, even temporarily.
Carolina eyed the washer, which still had sixteen minutes to go. Slumping against the wall behind her, she said, “You’re making a pretty bold assumption that I’m a good person. Since you talked to my mother, you ought to know better.” When neither of them responded to that statement, she continued. “The truth? I loved him. I’ve always loved him. Still do, maybe. Or maybe not, now that I’ve finally told his secret.”
She must have felt Josie stiffen next to her because she looked over and met Josie’s eye. “I know what you’re thinking. How could I love someone like him? Cheated on his wife, did drugs, killed a girl. It’s because he never judged me. Not one time. He knew exactly who and what I was, and he was fine with it. No judgment. I never even got that kind of treatment from my own family.”
FORTY-ONE
Josie stood next to Mettner in the corner of the hospital cafeteria, a paper cup of coffee in hand, and listened as Cyrus gave Anya the news about Vance. As agreed, Carolina Eddy had given her written statement to Cyrus at the Bly Police Department, after requesting several accommodations. Some were easy: coffee, a meal, cigarettes. Others were more complicated, and required Cyrus to set up some fast and furious meetings with his superiors as well as the county DA. Carolina was convinced that once she signed her statement, her life would be in danger.
Josie, still nursing the wound on her forehead, couldn’t argue.
