“Quite beautiful. Not dark like Jack, but then, I’m blonde. Troy is lighter than his father.”
“Do you have any photos of him?”
“One or two.” She was being sarcastic. She went to her handbag and pulled out a small leather case that held several photos and handed it to him. “I’m going to...” She waved her hand to mean the bathroom.
He looked at the photos, all of them of a young man who looked like a softer, less angry Roy.
Randal picked up his phone.I don’t mean to distress you,he texted to Heather, Jack’s mother,but do you have any photos of Evan?
In minutes, a picture came through. Jack had his arm around a young man with light hair and eyes and they were laughing. Evan and Troy looked very much alike.
When Randal heard Barbara approaching, he quickly put away his phone. It wasn’t his place to tell her that her son was there and that he’d probably saved Jack’s life. Randal wanted to get back to the main subject. “What proof did Derek have that your husband had killed someone? What did he have to back up his threats?”
“I don’t know. It was a long time ago, and I was angry at Harry for not telling me the whole story, and there was Roy and...it was all too much for me to remember the details.”
Randal gave her a hard look. He didn’t believe her. After all, she’d been on Broadway in Shakespeare’s plays, with all those lines to memorize. He raised an eyebrow. “Afraid you’ll incriminate him?”
She squinted her eyes at him. “All right. Derek Oliver said, ‘Tell your husband that I have the script and the film.’”
Randal’s shock showed. “You think Harry wrote about the murder?”
“You mean the accidental death?” she said haughtily.
He wasn’t intimidated by her look. “I mean a story about who Harry killed, and how he got away with it.” Randal put up his hand. “You don’t need to answer that. My sister says the writer’s creed is, ‘Never let an emotion or an experience escape your pen.’ Maybe Harry believed that too. What were—?”
She cut him off. “Don’t ask me which and what or when. I’ve made it my business to not know any of that. I told you! When I left this house, I was pretty sure I was pregnant and I had to face my husband with evidence of my infidelity. Everyone was going to know it wasn’t his child. Discretion was important to Harry. When he welcomed me home, I wasn’t about to ask him what happened when he was a kid. We never spoke of it. Not ever!”
Randal wanted to change the subject—something Sara said he was good at. “So who doyouthink killed Derek?”
Barbara looked startled, but pleased at being asked. “Of course I’ve thought about that, and Lea and I’ve had a good chin-wag about it.”
It was Randal’s turn to be startled. Lea hadn’t mentioned that!
“There’s Reid,” Barbara said. “I hardly saw him. He worked outside. Carried in the coal buckets, in a way of speaking. I can’t imagine he had much of a reason to murder Derek. Besides, he just doesn’t seem like the type.”
The man who owned the place, Randal thought. “Rachel? What was she like?”
“She was eighteen and a spoiled brat. The worst of her kind. She was sulking and angry. She let everyone know that she didn’t want to be there. I could see her killing if someone annoyed her enough.”
Randal raised his eyebrows at that condemnation. “And Lea?” He was a bit afraid of what he’d hear.
“Downtrodden. It was like she’d lost hope for life. But then you and Kate made her light up. As for murder, anyone who had such low self-esteem that she’d marry a jerk like Derek Oliver isn’t one to plot a murder. On the other hand, she must have been repressing a lot of rage. It could have come out.”
Randal was quiet for a moment. “I guess we better get back.”
Barbara didn’t move. “You missed someone.”
“Billy? Mrs. Meyers?” He wasn’t serious.
“The girl, Greer. She was so awkward and odd. She was sixteen but she seemed much younger. Billy told us she’d been homeschooled, and that she’d been nearly kept a prisoner by her grandmother. Working for us was her first real job. Reid looked after her. She adored her big brother. Hmmm. Maybe Reid got sick of the way his sister was being treated. He was good with a hammer.”
“Kate said the girl thought she wasn’t pretty.”
“She was not.” Barbara shook her head. “He was a real bastard to that poor girl. Her teeth, her face, her weight. He never let up on her.”
“Did no one defend her?”
“We all did. Well, maybe not Rachel, but Lea and I did. The truth was that none of us wanted to anger him.” She paused. “I did a terrible thing. I was to play a character who was strange and made everyone feel uncomfortable. I mimicked poor Greer. I even used that fight—” She looked at him in surprise.
