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Mettner said, “Maybe Jana didn’t tell him specifics. I haven’t seen the tape of her and Mathias arguing, but I know Noah was only able to read small parts of the conversation. I read the transcript you guys made. Maybe Jana never named Vance or the Hadlees or talked about the farm at all. Maybe she said something like, what if I told you your birth family was wealthy, or something like that?”
“But in his statement, he said that she was meeting someone about her birth parents, not his,” Cyrus said.
Mettner said, “Maybe he misunderstood. Maybe he thought she was speaking generally, as in, you grew up a foster kid, too. Wouldn’t you want to know the truth? What if you found out your birth family was rich and that all that could be yours? Something like that?”
“I suppose,” said Cyrus. “But Mathias has to know the truth now, right? He was staying with Garrick. This damn box was left out for anyone to see. Garrick probably showed it to Mathias, told him everything. So if Mathias knows all this now, why didn’t he just come forward? Tell the world? Why bother with all this running and hiding?”
Josie reached across and tapped Cyrus’s blank phone screen. “A DNA test can prove that Mathias is the son of Garrick Wolfe and Susanna Hadlee, but it will not prove that Dermot killed Susanna. Not even the box of her things and partial remains proves that. All it proves is that she’s dead. Mathias thinks that Dermot Hadlee has been out to get him for his entire life. Whether that’s true or not, it seems like a black cloud has been following Mathias since high school. Allegation after allegation until he finally ended up in prison. Dermot was the head football coach when the boys were in high school. How hard would it have been for him to somehow influence these cheerleaders to say it was Mathias who had assaulted them?”
“Especially if it was Vance who had actually done it,” Anya choked out.
Cyrus said, “Okay, let’s work through this. This is the theory now: Susanna Hadlee had an affair with Garrick Wolfe. The result was Mathias Tobin, who was put into foster care. A few years later, Dermot kills her, buries her on the farm, and tells everyone she left her family. In high school, Vance starts getting into trouble, assaulting cheerleaders. Dermot decides to intervene and somehow convinces these cheerleaders to blame Mathias Tobin instead of his own son. That falls apart. Eight or nine years later, Jana Melburn is working at the Hadlees’ family doctor’s office and somehow puts it together that Mathias might be related to Vance. She convinces Vance to meet with her so she can talk about it.”
“Vance meets with her,” Josie put in. “They argue—probably about her theory that Mathias is his half-brother—and Vance kills her.”
“Mathias has no idea she was meeting Vance. No reason to suspect Vance at all,” Cyrus continued. “By unfortunate circumstance, he falls under suspicion for Jana’s murder. Fast-forward a few more years. He’s married to my daughter.”
He faltered, voice growing scratchy. Anya touched his shoulder. He cleared his throat and plowed ahead. “She is shot in the head while he’s out looking for work. When the police come around to Dermot to get Mathias’s alibi, Dermot sees an opportunity to get this kid put away for good, and so he refuses to give the alibi.”
“Which means Dermot had to know or at least suspect that Mathias was Susanna’s son,” said Mettner.
“Maybe that’s why he killed her,” said Anya. “Dermot found out.”
“Dermot forbids Vance from giving Mathias an alibi,” Josie added.
Cyrus said, “Then Dermot has a stroke. Vance finds something that leads him to believe Dermot killed Susanna and buried her on the north side of the farm. He goes digging. Finds these things.” Cyrus tapped against his phone screen. “Takes them to Garrick.”
“Who tells him the truth,” Mettner said. “He had to have told him the truth about him and Susanna and Mathias.”
“Not necessarily,” said Josie. “Garrick made deals with people before. Do this, and I’ll help you with that. Maybe he just told Vance to give the statement that would exonerate Mathias and in exchange, he’d help him find out what happened to Susanna.”
“He held onto the box for safekeeping,” said Anya, looking relieved.
Cyrus said, “But if Mathias didn’t shoot Piper, who did?”
“Your department should have reopened the case when Mathias was exonerated,” Josie said gently. “If we can find Mathias, maybe he could shed some light on it.”
“We’ve still got a lot of pieces that don’t fit together,” Mettner said, “Even if what we’ve worked out just now is all true, it doesn’t help us figure out who killed Sharon Eddy and Keri Cryer or, if it was Vance, prove that.”
Cyrus sighed and shook his head. “It also doesn’t tell us who stabbed Garrick. Well, you two take care of your own cases. Right now, I’m going to arrest Vance Hadlee.”
FORTY-THREE
Cyrus agreed to allow Anya to be present while he went to arrest Vance if she agreed to stay in Josie and Mettner’s vehicle, parked back behind the staging area which was down the road from the farm. It was dark by the time they assembled there, a line of Bly PD cruisers along the side of the road. Cyrus had brought along four of his officers. They made sure their vests were on and all of their equipment was ready, including their radios. Then they huddled around the hood of Cyrus’s car. He spread out an aerial map of the farm and used a flashlight to illuminate it. Pointing to the long driveway, he said, “We walk up here to the farmhouse. The front door of the farmhouse is Side A. Moving clockwise, the left side of the property is Side B, the rear is Side C, and the right is Side D. Denton PD will act as perimeter officers and we’ll post them on the corners. Detective Quinn, you’ll be stationed here on the B/C side, where you will have a view East and North. Detective Mettner, you’ll be positioned over here, C/D side, with a view West and South. You two will hold the perimeter while my team begins clearing buildings, starting with the house.”
An officer Cyrus had introduced as Margaret Finlay looked around the circle. “Everyone good? Any questions?”
Everyone was ready.
They walked up the road. Josie barely felt the cold February wind whipping around them. Her adrenaline was already pumping. She wasn’t sure why. It was an arrest warrant and she and Mettner weren’t even on the entry team. While the driveway was not visible in the dark, the farm itself was well lit, probably owing to the fact that the day’s work always started before dawn. The lights were ablaze inside the farmhouse as Josie and Mettner passed it to find their positions on the perimeter. She listened to radio chatter as Cyrus, Finlay and the others made entry into the farmhouse. From where Josie stood, toward the rear of the property, she couldn’t see the Bly PD entry team or the house. She searched the other side of the property for Mettner but he wasn’t visible from where she stood. Her position afforded her a view of the two cowsheds and the milking station.
She heard a noise, carried on the wind, but she couldn’t decipher it.
Her radio squawked. Mettner’s voice said, “We’ve got movement on Side B. West side. Might be a person moving near the garage closest to the house.”
“Hold perimeter,” Finlay answered.
“Copy that,” Mettner answered.
