Dangerous Conditions

by Jenna Kernan

  “Can I tell people?” asked Lori.

  “Yes,” said Logan, wiping his wet cheeks with the back of one hand.

  Lori wriggled, and Logan set her down. Lori took his hand. “Come on. Let’s tell your dad.”

  Logan blinked but did not move as Lori tugged. She paused and stared up at him.

  “He’s a grandfather,” said Logan. “He’s your grandfather.”

  “That’s right,” said Lori, making the connection.

  “I have a grandfather.”

  “I hope he’s sitting down,” said Logan. The pair walked past her as if she were invisible. She half hoped that she was. When she glanced toward the kitchen, it was to find her mother standing in the doorway holding a fresh green salad in the palm of one hand and forks in the other.

  “What did you just do?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Her mother was mad at Paige for not consulting her before deciding to tell Logan once more about fathering her child. Logan’s father was supportive, but Beverly was doing a fine imitation of an Amish shunning. At least Steven and Valerie lent their support, after Paige’s mother had finished with that “I’m disappointed” lecture. Paige finally gave up and went to bed in the Lynches’ home, since her bedroom was a charred ruin, and hoped that tomorrow someone in this house, besides Logan’s father, would speak to her.

  Sometimes she really hoped her mother would stop speaking to her.

  The next morning the kids poured down the stairs the moment they heard the words snow day. She had a rare opportunity to use the bathroom alone and tried again to wash off the stubborn stink of the fire. When she reached the kitchen for breakfast, her greeting was met with silence. Paige’s mother wasn’t speaking to her. Logan wasn’t speaking to her. Mr. Lynch was speaking to her but he kept giving her a sympathetic look followed by a slow shake of his head. The kids didn’t seem to be shunning her, so much as being preoccupied with pancakes and planning their free day.

  Overnight the world had turned white. Six inches of fresh snow had already fallen with another four predicted. The schools and local businesses were closed, including Rathburn-Bramley. Lori, Steven and Valerie were already making plans to go sledding on the hill beside the cemetery. Long ago she and Logan and Connor had done the very same thing.

  Steven tried unsuccessfully to get Logan to come along but he told the children that constables didn’t get snow days. She offered to join them and her suggestion was met with underwhelming acceptance.

  Her mother gave her the cold shoulder when she offered to take over making the pancakes, saying she could handle it. Paige retreated to the dining room with her paper plate, napkin and silverware.

  Her daughter left her plate and charged up the stairs, returning a few minutes later carrying two of Valerie’s sweatshirts and one of Steven’s. Her own coat was over at their house, which was still closed for the fire inspector, so Paige helped her zip one of Valerie’s that was so tight, she could barely lift her arms.

  This morning Lori had been the only one among them who did not seem angry by her lie of omission. But one look at her daughter’s face told her that the morning’s smiles and giggles were only for her grandparents and father. Her daughter rummaged in a communal basket for mittens and a hat. Steven and Valerie, already in their winter attire, were in the back shed, retrieving their sleds and one flying saucer.

  This left Paige momentarily alone with Lori.

  “You should have told me,” said her daughter.

  Lori stood before her, pale and somber, with her borrowed ski hat askew.

  “Sweetheart.”

  “You told me he left us. That he wasn’t coming back. But he’s been here all along.” Lori’s voice trembled. Logan looked out at her from those familiar light brown eyes, accusing her of stealing from them both.

  “Lori, honey. He did leave us. He reenlisted.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because when you were little, I told Logan you were his daughter but he couldn’t remember things very well back then. He kept forgetting me and you. Because of that, his doctors and his family didn’t think he could be a good dad.”

  “He’s not dumb, Mom. He’s smart and funny and nice.”

  “Yes,” said Paige. “He’s all those things, but he doesn’t remember us.”

  Lori thrust her hands, now in pink mittens, to her hips. “Then we tell him the stuff that he forgot.”

  * * *

  LOGAN HAD NEARLY put his SUV in the ditch before he’d even left the driveway. So he’d parked his vehicle and walked the half mile to Connor’s place because his brother had a snowmobile.

  West Main Street was empty. It seemed folks were heeding the warnings to stay off the roads.

  Because of the size of the county, Hornbeck did not see any of the state’s snowplows until after the main highways were cleared. Generally, that was hours after they set out.

  He walked past the Sullivan place and checked that the home seemed undisturbed. It stood silent and empty amid the unbroken blanket of snow. Next, he trudged past the funeral home. That also looked closed up tight. But he knew that there was at least one person there. Ursula Sullivan’s body lay in the basement cooling lockers; the funeral was planned for next Saturday.

  Logan knocked and paused to stomp the snow off his boots before letting himself in through Connor’s back door. He found his brother on the phone in his kitchen, talking about schedules, deliveries and payments while wearing his woolen overcoat. Logan assumed the topic of conversation was the real estate business, which was funny. Who would want to see a house in this weather?

  The real estate business slowed to a stop in the months between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Connor said people just stayed put for the holidays.

  Logan left his coat on because it was so cold inside that he could see his breath.

  Connor dropped the phone into his coat pocket. Then he lifted his brows and waited for Logan to speak.

  It was so hard not to jump right to the accusation that Connor had drugged Paige. Logan strained against the need to find out if it were true. But he knew Connor and that he didn’t always tell the truth.

  His brother frowned as the silence stretched.

  Logan did not want to believe that Connor could have done this. The need to warn him that he was under suspicion warred with the itch to punch him. Should he disregard the sheriff’s request and try for an honest conversation?

  “The heat off?” asked Logan.

  Connor hesitated. “Yup. I’m waiting for the service guy. What’s up?”

  “Wasn’t it off last time I was here?”

  Connor shifted from side to side. “It’s an old house.”

  That answered his question. If his brother would not even be honest about the heat, he wasn’t going to fess up to drugging Paige.

  He looked at Connor, seeing past his idol, and to the man who shifted from side to side, his mouth tight and scowling.

  He was planning to tell Connor about Lori, that he was an uncle, but then Logan remembered that Connor already knew. Had known from the start. It was another wall between them. Connor could have told him anytime instead of helping convince Lori that it was too soon to try again.

  “You hear about the fire?”

  “Yeah. I did. Heard you pulled Paige and her kid out before the firetrucks got there. That makes you a hero all over again. Do they know how it started?”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed. Did Connor know? Logan met his brother’s watery eyes. Finally, Connor glanced away.

  “Never mind,” said Connor. “I’ll ask the guys at the fire department. Geesh. You want coffee?”

  Logan shook his head. “I need to borrow your snowmobile.”

  “My snowmobile?” His gaze swept over Logan, resting on the snow that caked his pant legs from the knee down. “Did you walk here in this sto
rm?”

  “Too dangerous to drive.”

  Connor shook his head in disapproval. Then he got the keys to the snowmobile and tossed them. Logan caught them in the air.

  “You’re getting better,” said Connor, giving him a half smile.

  In addition to a beautiful home and luxury SUV, Connor owned a motorcycle and boat that he was forever trying to get Paige and Lori to join him on. He also had the snowmobile that Logan often borrowed to race around on the logging trails and pathways threading through the surrounding woods. Lately, he used it to look in on folks in town who were housebound or needed checking on. Once, when the river had frozen, they had even taken it all the way to the town of Ouleout for breakfast. Logan envied his big brother sometimes. A big success in local politics and in real estate. Seemed everything he touched turned to gold.

  Logan never questioned Connor’s success, until this minute. Was he a business whiz or did the cash come from elsewhere?

  “Something else?” asked Connor.

  Logan told him that he knew about his daughter, Lori, and that he hoped that he and Paige might work things out between them. When he finished, Connor was sitting at his kitchen table with one elbow on the surface and his hand clutching his forehead. He looked sick. Logan wondered if it was not his stomach, but his brother’s conscience that was bothering him.

  “You all right?” asked Logan.

  “It’s a lot. You and Paige and a kid.”

  “Paige tells me that you knew from the start,” said Logan.

  That news brought his other hand up to form a tent over his eyes. Logan waited for Connor to look up. It took a while. His brother seemed upset, and Logan couldn’t tell if Connor was mad at Paige for ignoring the wishes of his family telling him about Lori or sad because Connor’s chances with Paige had completely tanked. He still thought his brother had feelings for Paige.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Connor.

  “About what?”

  “Well, are you getting a lawyer? Visitation rights and that sort of thing?”

  Logan hadn’t even thought of that.

  “We’re all living in the same house.”

  “Are you listed as the parent on Lori’s birth certificate?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You need a lawyer. Call Joe Dickson.”

  Logan nodded, but didn’t say more. He still didn’t know if he could trust his brother.

  Connor offered coffee again but Logan had already stayed too long and headed back out to his office on the snowmobile.

  When he got in, it was to his office phone ringing incessantly.

  “Hello, Constable Lynch speaking.”

  “Finally. It’s Detective Albritton of the state police. I want to follow up with you on a few things. First, the charges against Dr. Morris on possession of a controlled substance. We found no evidence that Dr. Morris ever touched the bag containing the oxycodone or any of the bottles containing the drugs.”

  “So how did she get them into the bag?”

  “Gloves. Whoever brought them in wore gloves. What we need to figure out is who that someone might be.”

  “What about the check?”

  “The deposit in Dr. Morris’s account was electronic. Made from an account in the Grand Caymans. Untraceable, as far as we can determine.”

  “So you can’t tell who sent it or why.”

  “But they had her checking account number and bank routing number. Someone had to give that to them.”

  Logan’s speech was slow as he answered because when he hurried, he stammered. “Her employer would have that information or someone working there. Maybe it was the same person who planted those drugs in her home.”

  “It’s a theory. I understand from Sheriff Trace that Paige believes your older brother, Connor Lynch, might have given her the drugs found in her system.”

  “That is what she told me and what I told him.”

  “And that he had time and opportunity to plant that bag of drugs when he brought her home.”

  “But I don’t know how he would have obtained them.”

  “Well, I’m sorry and I hope she is wrong.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Also I heard that there was a house fire yesterday.”

  “Yes. The second floor of the Morrises’ residence is gone, along with the roof.”

  “Along with any evidence, like a missing check book,” said Albritton. “Ask Dr. Morris to phone me. She’s not answering her mobile.”

  “Lost in the fire,” said Logan.

  “Oh, I see. Where is she staying?”

  “With me. At my father’s place.”

  “All right. Can I have your mobile, then, Constable?”

  Logan gave it to him.

  “Sheriff Trace will be down to speak to Paige sometime today. He’s on his way there to see you but the snow is causing havoc on the highways. We’ve got multiple accidents and stranded drivers so I’m not certain when he’ll be there.”

  “I’ll be on the lookout for him.”

  * * *

  PAIGE HAD ANOTHER serious conversation with both her mother and with Mr. Lynch while the kids were sledding in the yard. She’d been relieved when she could finally slip into a borrowed coat and head out to the hill beside the cemetery. She’d even taken a few runs with the kids before they waded back through the heavy snow toward home for lunch. The plows had been through, but they just couldn’t keep up with the accumulations. There were two inches of fresh powder on the road since the plow’s run. In the unplowed spots, their steps crunched through the layer of ice between yesterday’s snow, the freezing rain and the newest coating.

  On West Main, they turned toward the Lynches’ home. She could not keep from glancing at the ruined house next door. The upper floors were blackened and icicles continued to grow from the water left by the fire department.

  “You kids go inside,” she said.

  They piled past her, stomping off some of the snow that clung to their boots before they reached the door and then slipped inside.

  It wasn’t until she reached the Lynches’ porch that she spotted the twin tire tracks and then the red truck parked before her mother’s garage. She knew the vehicle. The fire inspector was back.

  “Ms. Morris?” called Inspector Frick as he emerged from his truck. “Just coming to see you.”

  And the day just got better and better, she thought. She raised a hand in greeting, her wet gloves and sodden cuffs contacting her exposed wrist, making her shiver. She waited for him to cross through the yard to where she stood on the porch.

  He hesitated and then climbed the stairs.

  “A few more questions,” he said, taking out his recorder and holding it and his open pad before him. He removed his glove to flick on the recorder. The red light glowed bright as a stoplight between them. With a flick of his thumb, he readied his pen.

  “You said you had three smoke detectors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Locations?”

  “In the kitchen, the top of the bedroom stairs and in the hallway outside our bedrooms.”

  “Only they are all in the kitchen.”

  She cocked her head. She must have heard that wrong.

  “What’s that now?”

  “All three were in the kitchen, on the chopping block, disabled.” He pointed his pen in the direction of the fire-scorched building.

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I have photos,” he said. “Would you know why all three smoke detectors were in the kitchen with the batteries removed?” Frick asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Frick jotted a note on the pad.

  Paige’s heart was now hammering like a woodpecker after a dead tree. There were spots before her eyes. She’d lost her job, her home and been accused of
drug possession and now this man was about to pin this fire on her. What should she do?

  “You find out who did this,” she said to herself.

  “What’s that, Ms. Morris?”

  “It is Dr. Morris. And I am telling you to find out who did this. If this fire was set, if someone tampered with our smoke detectors, then it’s more than arson.”

  “Sometimes when people are distraught...”

  “I’m not distraught.”

  He continued as if she had not spoken. “Accused of drug abuse, fired from their job.”

  “I am suspended pending a hearing.”

  “They feel hopeless.”

  “Are you suggesting that I disabled my own smoke detectors and then set my mother’s house on fire with my entire family inside?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “My daughter?”

  “Possible, again.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To end your life and the pain.”

  “Where is your evidence that I did this? Do you have a suicide note?”

  “Many suicide victims do not leave notes.”

  “Are my fingerprints on the detectors?” Even as she said this, she knew the answer. Of course they were. She changed the batteries every spring on daylight savings.

  “Yes, and only yours.”

  “Ask me if I set that fire,” she said, ready to fight now.

  Frick sucked in a breath through flaring nostrils and then faced Paige. “Did you set the fire that burned your mother’s home and nearly killed both you and your daughter?”

  “No,” she said.

  “I can come back with the police.”

  “I expect you will. But the next time you set up an interrogation, I’ll have my attorney present.”

  The inspector stepped off the porch. Paige felt the tension between her shoulders begin to ease. There he paused to glance back at her. The digital recorder’s light still glowed red.

  “Do you know anyone who might want to cause your family harm?” asked Frick.