Page 11 of Every Deadly Suspicion

They’d reached the outside patio area where the service would be held. A sea of folding chairs surrounded a gold-colored coffin on a platform. The white cloth skirt under the coffin flapped wildly in the wind. Valerie Fox, flanked by Everett and Chase, sat in the front row. Grover had already requested that Hanna wait to talk to Ms. Fox until after the service. He promised to bring the woman in himself.

“She fell apart when I gave her the news,” Grover had told Hanna.

From several rows back, Hanna watched her now, sobbing on Everett’s shoulder.

The front row also contained several Buckley cousins and uncles. Many of whom had called her, wanting to know if she had a lead on the killer.

“Not yet,” she’d told them. “But I will find out who did this, I promise.”

Here, in the somber setting of the funeral, Hanna meant that promise. She would get justice for Scott and relentlessly follow leads, wherever they took her.

When the service ended, Hanna got a ride home from Mandy. Nathan had left immediately after the service to head to work. Mandy asked her to lunch, but Hanna declined, needing some alone time to decompress.

Too many unpleasant memories rambled around in her head. Death usually made people think, reflect. Her mom was dead center in her thoughts. Paula Keyes had been a bitter, difficult woman, consumed with anger at Joe for what he’d done.

“He ruined my life. I hate him for that,”Hanna had heard more times than she could count.

The Beecher’s Mine murders took place the day Hanna was born. She was four months old when her father was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. He had confessed to avoid the death penalty. Apparently, her mother had taken her to see the man once, but Hanna had no memory of that.

She’d grown up under the shadow of the brutal affair. Bullied and teased as the spawn of Satan when she was a kid, Hanna saw joining law enforcement as the only way to erase the stain of being related to a brutal killer.

Mandy’s, Edda’s, and Jared’s friendships had rescued Hanna from bullies when she was a child and from bitterness as she grew up. She remembered the day she had realized that Mandy was an orphan because of what Joe Keyes had done. Paula had just broken up with Marcus Marshall. They’d dated all through the year Hanna was in first grade. The breakup was messy and loud, and Paula sent Hanna to spend the weekend with Amanda. It wasn’t a problem for Hanna; she loved spending the night at Mandy’s house. It was always calm and quiet there. Not chaotic like her own. Memories enfolded Hanna like a warm quilt.

Saturday morning, she and Mandy got up early. The house was quiet. Betty and Chuck were still in bed.

“I like being here,” Hanna said.

“I like you being here too. You’re my little sister.”

Hanna laughed. “You’re a nice sister.”

They were in the den on the floor, playing a game of Monopoly.

“Can I ask you a question, Mandy?”

“I’m not going to let you win.”

“Ha, I beat you last time. No, I wondered, do you know why my mom was so mad at Marcus? She threw his clothes out on the ground.”

“It’s the book,” Mandy said. “Marcus wrote a bad book about bad things.”

“Bad things?” Hanna pondered that for a moment. Then something clicked. “About Joe Keyes?”

Mandy nodded. “I heard Grandma Betty say the book opened old wounds. Your mom has lots of wounds that won’t heal.”

Hanna considered that. “Wounds? I’ve never seen any.”

“They are the inside kind of wounds. You remember when those boys teased you?”

Hanna nodded.

“They hurt you inside. They wounded you, but it’s not like a scratch or a bruise. Grandma Betty says that’s why your mom’s mad all the time.”

Hanna understood that. When the boys had teased her, it not only hurt, it made her very angry. A light bulb went on, and she knew why her mother was angry. “Joe gave her inside wounds.”

“Yeah. You don’t know what he did, do you?”

Hanna frowned. All her life she’d been told Joe was evil, that he murdered people, but she didn’t know who he killed or why. “He’s a bad, bad man. He killed people and he’ll never get out of jail.”

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