Hard Truth by Mariah Stewart Page A

written a letter of condolence when Regan’s father had been murdered last September. Regan had responded with a note and had sent her business card with her phone numbers . . . Where had Lorna put that?
    Lorna went through the business cards in her wallet, then through the electronic phone book on her computer. She finally found Regan’s card stuck in the back of her Day-Timer. She debated with herself whether to call.
    Maybe first talk to the public defender,
she thought.
See what he’s thinking. Maybe there are motions he can file, something he can do to get Billie out on bail, if nothing else.
At nine a.m. she called information for the county courthouse, and when she got through to the switchboard at the number given, she asked to be connected to the PD’s office. After a series of transfers, Joel Morgan answered his extension.
    “This is Lorna Stiles,” she told him. “I’m a . . . a friend of Billie Eagan’s. I was there at the police station yesterday, when you went to speak with her.”
    “What can I do for you, Ms. Stiles?” His voice was curt and crisp.
    “Well, I was wondering what’s going to happen next, for one thing. Is Mrs. Eagan going to be transferred to the county prison, is she—”
    “She’s already there. They moved her last night.”
    “Oh.” Lorna was taken aback by the news, though she didn’t know why she would be. She knew there weren’t facilities at the Callen police station to hold a prisoner overnight.
    “Was there something else?”
    “Is she going to stay in prison? I mean, don’t you usually arrange for bail, or file something to protest the charges?”
    “I can’t get her bail, because she has no guarantor for the funds. As far as ‘protesting the charges,’ I’m not sure what that means, frankly.”
    “I mean she’s innocent. What are you doing to prove that?”
    There was silence, then a chuckle.
    “Everyone is innocent, until proven guilty.” The sarcasm was blatant.
    She decided to ignore it.
    “My point exactly. What are you doing to prove her innocence?”
    “I spoke with Mrs. Eagan at length last night. She has no alibi for the night her son disappeared, the night the police assume he was killed. She has admitted to me and to the police that she and her son argued that night, that the argument turned violent. She stopped short of an out-and-out confession, but that might come, who knows?”
    “Are you serious? She didn’t kill Jason.”
    “And you know this how?”
    “She told me.”
    “She told me as well. But I don’t know that there isn’t more she’s not saying, frankly.”
    “You’re her lawyer. Aren’t you supposed to believe in her?”
    There was silence on the line for a long moment, then he said, “I’ll be getting copies of the original police documents—the reports that were filed following the disappearance of her daughter, and those that were made after the son disappeared as well. I’ll look over the statements that were taken at the time, and then I’ll decide where to go from there. Now, unless you have some information that might be relevant to her defense . . .”
    “How much is her bail?”
    “What?”
    “Her bail. What was it set at?”
    “One hundred thousand dollars.”
    “Isn’t that a lot of money?”
    “She’s a suspect in a murder case.”
    “How much money has to be put up?”
    “Seven to ten percent. It’s basically a guarantee that the bail will be paid if she skips.”
    “So if I can guarantee that she won’t skip, they’ll let her out?”
    “I can talk to the bail bondsman.” He paused. “You’re willing to bet that she won’t run?”
    “Yes. Can you arrange that?”
    “Give me a number where I can reach you.”
    Lorna gave him the numbers for her cell phone and the house.
    “I’ll wait to hear from you,” she said, then hung up.
    She walked outside, wondering where she’d get the money from, if in fact Billie Eagan decided to leave town.
    She wondered, too, how hard the public