“What if it was him? What if he did this to her?”
“You don’t have to decide right now, Emma. We don’t know anything for sure. Why don’t you think about it, and then let me know?”
“Okay. I’m gonna go now. I need to get back to work.”
“Take care, Emma.”
44
Suspicious Minds
“I brought us dinner,” Mo said, holding out a foil-wrapped cylinder.
Hattie regarded the package with suspicion. “What is it?”
“Hot dogs. Courtesy of Chu’s convenience store. Hope you like mustard.”
“Love it.” She unwrapped the still-warm foil and bit into the hot dog with such obvious enthusiasm it made Mo laugh.
“What? Do I have mustard on my face?” She swiped at her chin with a napkin.
“No. I guess I really didn’t expect you to eat a convenience store roller dog. Not too many women I know in L.A. would stoop so low.”
“I’m not from L.A.,” Hattie said. “In case you haven’t noticed.” She took another bite and chewed. “And I missed lunch, so yeah, I’m starved.”
Mo demolished his own hot dog in three neat bites.
“What’s going on out there now?” Hattie asked, pointing in the direction of the grave site, where yellow tape encircled the pit. Crime scene technicians were still busy photographing and taking measurements under the glare of floodlights.
“They’re about to remove the body.”
Suddenly queasy, she pushed away the foil wrapper with the half-eaten hot dog.
“I can’t stop thinking about her daughter, Emma. How she’ll feel when she hears her mother’s been found. After all these years.”
“Maybe it will be a relief,” Mo said.
“Unless she finds out her mother’s disappearance had something to do with her father, or that her mother really was sleeping with a high school kid, and then that opens up another whole can of worms. Invariably, her family is going to get dragged through the mud.” She made a sour face. “I know how that feels.”
“That witch Mavis Creedmore said some pretty nasty stuff about your dad,” Mo said. “Do you want to talk about it, or is it still too raw?”
Hattie fiddled with something on the tiny tabletop. “I still can’t believe it’s been almost twenty years.”
She took a deep breath. “My dad was vice president of Integrity Bank. Ironic, right? Especially when you consider that he was also treasurer of the Community Chest, which is kind of like the United Way. Basically, Dad got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He embezzled almost $1.2 million over the course of six years, until a new chairman—an outsider, no less—took over running the Community Chest. The new guy took one look at the accounting books and ordered an audit.”
“And then what?”
“The board wanted my dad to quietly reimburse the money, because it must have been a ‘misunderstanding’ because my dad’s family has been in Savannah forever, like, really, founding member of this and president of that. But the new guy didn’t give a shit about my dad’s pedigree and refused to sweep it all under the rug.”
“And?”
“He was offered a plea deal. But he wouldn’t accept because he was that sure he’d get away with it. He went to trial and all his dirty laundry got hung out to dry in public. It wasn’t like he really needed the money. He and my mom always drove new cars. We lived in a nice house and I always went to private school. He stole money from orphans and widows and kids with cancer to pay for his mistress’s new car, and ‘business trips’ to Bermuda and Napa and Palm Beach.”
Mo offered a half smile. “How old were you when this happened?”
“Not quite fifteen. It doesn’t compare to having your mom disappear when you’re only four, but it rocked my world. During sentencing his lawyer got some quack to testify that my dad had schizophrenia, which is why he had this whole double life.”
“Did you understand any of this while it was going on? I mean, it must have been a lot for a kid that age, even a smart kid like you.”
“My mom told me nothing,” Hattie said, her tone bitter. “Just that Dad was ‘in trouble’ and they were getting a divorce. Most of what I found out I overheard in the bathroom at school.”
“Kids that age are brutal,” Mo observed.
“Yeah. Private-school girls are absolutely lethal. Except for Cass. Anytime she thought I was being picked on she’d go into what she called ‘demon mode.’ Lanier Ragan helped too. She was genuinely compassionate. I can understand how maybe she took that too far.”