“They’ll remember me,” Cindy chimed in. “Tara introduced me as her friend. It will make sense that I go back to visit them again.”
“Make sense to who?” Ned remarked, “Bala or Dawl? I doubt it will make sense to either of them.”
“I’ll say I came to tell them that the child is fine where he is. It was only Tara who wanted him, the family is fine with how things are. Now that she’s gone there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll see how they react to that.”
“Not a bad idea,” Ned agreed, “but they’re not stupid. They’re going to be on the alert. Go if you want, but be careful. Dawl Lemmings is no one to play around with.”
*
Cindy and Mattheus left the courthouse, rented a car and drove directly through to St. Marteen to see Bala, Dawl and the child. As they drove, Cindy put in a quick call to Bala to let her know she was going to be in the neighborhood and wanted a few minutes with her. Bala hemmed and hawed initially, but Cindy assured her, she wouldn’t stay long. She had something important to tell her.
“What?” Bala asked nervously. “Tell me now.”
“I have to tell you in person,” Cindy whispered, “girl to girl. It will only take a few minutes.”
*
When Cindy and Mattheus drove up to the house, everything looked normal. They parked their car a short distance away, and walked to the front door. As soon as they got closer, the door flung open and Dawl stood there, glaring.
“You again?” he said as Cindy and Mattheus approached the doorway.
“Hi, Dawl,” Cindy said lightheartedly, as if nothing were amiss.
Dawl immediately blocked the doorway. “What do you want, and who is this guy?” he stared at Mattheus.
“This is my friend Mattheus,” Cindy said, gently. “We just wanted to talk to you and Bala for a few minutes.”
“You got all kinds of friends, don’t you?” Dawl grinned, baring his teeth. “First you came with the gal who wanted my boy, and now with this guy.”
“Tara’s gone,” Cindy said calmly then. “She’s been found dead.”
“No news to me,” Dawl suddenly shook his head in bewilderment. “The whole island knows about it by now.” For a second Dawl’s gruff exterior melted and Cindy saw that he seemed truly upset and disturbed by news.
“I see how upset you are,” said Cindy sadly. “I’m upset too, Tara was my friend.”
“Come the hell in,” Dawl yanked the door open, “but only for a few minutes.”
Cindy and Mattheus walked through the doorway, into the well kept living room, where Bala was sitting on the edge of a chair, her hands folded in her lap, completely overwrought.
“Hi, Bala,” Cindy went over and hugged her.
“It’s terrible news, terrible,” Bala muttered.
Dawl sat down besides his sister. “There’s a lot of people on this island who got it in for that family” he grunted. “The rich and famous. And boy did they flaunt it.”
Cindy took a swift breath. Did Dawl know more about this case than she imagined?
“Who had it in for them?” she asked him directly.
Dawl turned to Cindy slowly. “Honey, if I knew it for sure, don’t you think I’d be the first to tell you? Who knows how it’s going to affect my boy? I’d like to clear it up as much as you would.”
Cindy suddenly believed him.
“And if you asked me,” Dawl boomed on, “one thing is positive, Lynch is involved in the mess.”
“What makes you say that Lynch is involved in this?” she asked.
“Who else are the cops going to jump all over?” Dawl answered fast. He wasn’t stupid, that was for sure and he knew his way around the system. “The police got to zero in on the person Tara was closest to, the one who last saw her alive,” Dawl continued. “There’s plenty of motive there, too. Lynch didn’t want his child back again. In all these years he never once asked to see the boy - just sent money. That’s what being a father meant to him. It was the wife to be who wanted the boy. She must have found out and it bothered her. It was the little lady, Tara, who stirred up trouble. What she didn’t know was that you don’t make trouble in that family.”
“You’ve thought about it a lot,” said Cindy.
“Of course I have. Why not? The dame came here to visit me, didn’t she? This whole lousy case was put in my face.”
“What did you want to ask me? What?” Bala piped up then, looking at Cindy and wringing her hands.
“I wanted to ask you if Tara contacted you again after we left?” Cindy said suddenly.
“No, of course she didn’t,” Bala replied.
“That’s not what you wanted to ask her, is it?” Dawl broke in. “You could have asked her that over the phone. You wanted to ask my sister if she knew where I was when the lovely lady was murdered, right?”
Dawl took Cindy’s breath away. Not only was he wildly forthright, his powerful energy swept through the room, leaving no room for nonsense. This wasn’t a guy to play games with. Cindy couldn’t lie to him and didn’t want to.