Firesetter in Blackwood Township, a Winnebago County Mystery

by Christine Husom

  I gave Queenie free rein, and she was hot on something’s trail. I had to jog to keep up with her as she moved faster and faster and led me straight to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s barn. She stopped, turned to me, and barked. “You’ve got a good nose, girl.” But whose scent had she picked up? Animal or human?

  There were sheets of wood nailed across the broken windows, and crime scene tape spanned the width of the barn doors. John Carl had added a steel padlock that secured the door pulls together. A burglar would need a heavy-duty bolt cutter to break through it. I wandered for the last moments before the sun disappeared below the horizon, looking around and hoping to find some piece of evidence we had missed earlier in the day. But there was nothing there. Our crime scene team had done their job well.

  After making sure my grandparents’ house and shed were locked, Queenie and I took what had suddenly become the long road home. At a slow walking pace. In fact, by the time we got home it was more of a dragging pace. But I had to make a final pass by the other three barn fire sites. I punched in the numbers on my garage door keypad.

  Queenie was as excited for the final adventure of the day as she had been for the first. I opened the driver’s side door, moved the seat forward, and she jumped into the back. I pushed the seat back then climbed in and picked up the copy of Ross Warren’s DL photo lying on the passenger seat. “What is your story?” I said to it for the hundredth time.

  I backed out and pulled the light button toward me. The disappearing headlight covers opened, and two circles of light appeared on the garage door as it closed. Twilight was fading but a bright moon kept the black of night at bay. I drove to the Simmonds’ place first. There were lights on in the house. I drove by slowly looking at the barn’s base, wondering if they would rebuild. Were the fires lit because of what happened in their family all those years ago? If Angela learned what it was, would she want to stay in Blackwood Township in her grandparents’ home?

  I turned around in the next driveway and crept along watching for anyone who might be sneaking around on the road or around the farms. When I reached County 35, I drove west to Collins Avenue and turned south. As I approached the Hardings’ farm, I noticed a dim light shining from the attic window. There were no other lights on in the house from what I could see. I thought back to a few nights before when I’d imagined someone moving in the attic. Strange.

  I pulled over, turned off my headlights, and waited. Sybil? I’d seen her earlier in the day, and it was possible she was still at her grandparents’ house. But what would she be doing in the attic? Unless they had a great ventilation system it would feel like the inside of a hot oven up there. I waited, wondering if someone might pass by the window. But when Queenie whined, I took it as my signal to leave. Tempted though I was to phone Sybil, it could wait until morning.

  Woody Nevins’ barn was another mile down the road. His house was completely dark inside, and I figured he was on another truck run. I stopped and picked up Ross Warren’s photo. Woody’s yard light and the moon’s beams added an eerie hue to his image.

  “Seriously, how were you able to squat in Woody’s barn? And use his Jeep without him noticing? How many times had you been here the last three years?” Queenie whined again. I reached back and scratched her head. “I’m not scolding you.”

  I turned around in Woody’s driveway and went home. As I climbed the stairs on the way to my bedroom, all I could think about was my comfortable bed beckoning me. I had never been happier getting under the covers. I stretched to loosen my muscles then smiled, thinking that with the next day off work I would sleep as late as I wanted to.

  At least that was my hope.

  34

  When the security alarm from my mother’s barn rang on my cell phone, I jumped out of bed wishing I’d laid out some clothes, just in case. As I pulled on a pair of black jogging pants and a black hoodie, I uttered, “Thank the good Lord we got it in when we did.”

  I grabbed a pancake holster from the bed stand, clipped in on my waistband, secured my Glock into it, clipped my phone case on the other side of my pants then ran down the steps. Queenie was so close on my heels I nearly tripped. “You need to stay here, girl.” I picked my radio out of its charger on my way through the kitchen, slipped it in its case, attached it to the back of my pants, and was in the GTO and flying to Mother’s in less than three minutes.

  I turned the interior lights switch off so they wouldn’t come on when I opened the door, then killed the headlights before I pulled onto the side of the road, south of her driveway. I slid out, drew my weapon, eased the car door shut as quietly as possible, and visually searched for signs of the intruder. Seeing no one, I cautiously jogged down the row of lilac bushes toward the barn.

  I’d warned John Carl not to play hero in case of an event, but he was standing outside by the back of the house anyway. And to make matters worse, so was my mother. At least they were in the shadows. I got their attention then lifted my left hand with my thumb sticking up and indicated they needed to get back in the house.

  Sirens in the distance gave me hope a deputy was coming our way, and I prayed he’d silence them before he got much closer. The intruder didn’t deserve a warning. I crept to the barn then backed up against it and made my way down the length of the front, around the side corner, down to the back, and stopped. Then I covertly peered around the corner. The door wasn’t standing open and the lock appeared intact. But the alarm had not activated without reason. Someone must have attempted access.

  No one was running away—or moving at all—as far as I could see by the light of the moon. Then my eyes landed on a little object on the ground in front of the door. It was gray with a white belly and had a white cotton ball tail. I’d been pulled out of REM sleep for another rabbit delivery. That revelation filled me with both anger and angst. The emotions set my hands to shaking, so I secured the Glock in its holster before I dropped it. A vehicle’s tires crunching on the driveway shifted my focus, and I crept back to see who it was. Sergeant Brad Hughes, in our shared squad car, sans the emergency lights and sirens. Thank you, Brad.

  I moved over to the lilac bushes and waved him over once he was out of the vehicle. He leaned in close to me and whispered, “Did you check the area in back?”

  “I did, and didn’t spot a living soul.”

  “Gone before you got here?”

  “I guess. But they left a gift.” I gave him the rundown on the rabbit deliveries, past and present.

  “All the craziness out here the last week has got us all scratching our heads,” he said.

  “I know, and now that my grandparents’ and my mother’s properties were tagged, I’m ready for battle. The last thing I feel like doing is to ‘keep calm and carry on,’” I said.

  “I’m with you on that one. Do we need the crime scene team out here?”

  “No, that’s not necessary,” I pulled out my phone and checked the time, “at nearly four in the morning. You can interview my mother and brother, and then I’ll help you process the scene. It shouldn’t take long.”

  Hughes got a bright spotlight from his trunk and handed it to me. “So you haven’t talked to your family yet?”

  “No.”

  “All right, I’ll go see if they heard or saw anything.”

  My phone gave a single buzz indicating a text message. It was from John Carl. “Can we come out now?”

  I phoned him back instead. “Not yet. Sergeant Hughes is on his way in to visit with the two of you, so you can let him in.”

  I used the spotlight to illuminate the ground and around the door of the barn as I checked for evidence. Hughes joined me a few minutes later. “They got nothin’.”

  “I figured as much or I would have heard about it first thing.”

  We searched the area to the best of our abilities. “It needs to rain for about three days. The farmers are crying, and so are we,” Hughes said.

  “We’ve been moaning about that since the first fire last week. We can’t get a readabl
e footprint. Or vehicle tracks,” I said.

  “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so let’s hope the weather gurus are right this time.”

  Hughes left with the photos and the rabbit at 5:12 a.m. There was no other evidence to collect. My mother and brother were anxiously waiting for me in the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of coffee, dear?” Mother looked beyond weary.

  “No thanks. I’m crawling back in bed as soon as I get home. Brad said you saw nothing and heard nothing.”

  They both shook their heads. “Just the warning alert on our phones,” John Carl said.

  “Okay. This is my warning, and I mean it. Do not go running out to get a look at the bad guys, or try to catch them if this ever happens again. We have no idea if they’re armed or what. The way they’re racking up a growing list of felony charges, they may be dangerous if cornered. You get the alerts to be alerted not to respond.”

  John Carl’s face colored. One of his pet peeves was getting lectured by his younger sister. I didn’t blame him, but it was critical that it was driven into his thick skull. He finally nodded. Reluctantly.

  “Corinne, you don’t have to be so harsh with your brother,” Mother said.

  “Sorry, but apparently I do. I don’t want anything to happen to either one of you.”

  After attending to Queenie, I fell into bed exhausted beyond words, and even with all the turmoil in my life I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. About the same place I’d left off a couple of hours before.

  Queenie nudged my arm with her nose and startled me awake. I realized my phone was ringing and snatched it from my bed stand. “H’lo?”

  “Sorry I woke you, sleepyhead. I thought you’d be up by now.” It was Smoke.

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten fifteen,” he said.

  I rubbed my eyes and sat up. “Really? What’s up?”

  “First off, I read Brad Hughes’s report about the alarm at your mother’s house at three forty-three this morning. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “We had it covered, and you needed an uninterrupted night’s sleep,” I said.

  “Which I got, so thank you. But another rabbit? What is going on?”

  “It is getting freakier and freakier. I wonder if they knew we had an alarm, and rattled the door to set it off. Or if he—she—was surprised by it and laid the bunny down then got the heck out of Dodge.”

  “Suffice it to say that it’s good to know the system worked. How is Kristen doing?” he said.

  “I’m not sure, but John Carl was with her, and she should be at the shop by now.”

  “That should help keep her mind off things. The admin staff finished running the reports, looking for a case that Mason, Weber, you, and I worked together that might’ve prompted this mess. First they ran ones that had any reference to animals. And when that came up dry they checked all of our mutual cases. Ones we’d written reports for. We may have been at other scenes together that didn’t require reports from all of us.”

  “How many are there?” I said.

  “Two hundred and three.”

  “I would’ve guessed that.”

  “No, not the kind of thing you keep track of.”

  “But none related to fires or rabbits?”

  “No. So I scanned through the reports and one in particular jumped out at me. It was at the Hardings’, years back. Coincidentally, the first barn fire was at their place. We referenced that nine-one-one call when we were out there.”

  “Sure, from the young girl,” I said.

  “That’s the one.”

  “You think there could be a connection between that and what’s happening now?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing I can put my finger on. Truth be told, I had a strange feeling about that report at the time and whenever I’ve thought of it since. Is there anything you remember from back then that could have triggered all this?”

  “Oh man, let me think. All of us got to the Hardings within minutes of each other. We knocked on the door and got no answer so we entered the house, announced ourselves, walked through every room, main level, basement, upstairs. I remember the basement was more of a cellar: stone walls, dirt floor, musty smelling. Not much down there except for a small freezer and some canning jars on a shelving unit.

  “The rooms in the main levels of the house were tidy, no signs of a struggle, no blood anywhere, no unusual odors. Nothing to indicate anyone had been killed. We left and then later on, after you talked to the Hardings, we determined it was unfounded.”

  “That’s right on with my recollection and what the reports state. But there was something about the way Mr. Harding reacted to the incident that didn’t sit right with me. Nothing I could put my finger on, more of a gut feeling. Obviously, if kids really had gone into your house to make a prank call you’d be upset, but my impression was there was more to the story, something Harding wasn’t telling me,” he said.

  “Like his granddaughter. It’d be easier to pull wisdom teeth than information out of Sybil.”

  “Speaking of Sybil, did you find out if she lived here as a kid?”

  “No, she grew up in southern Minnesota. St. Peter.”

  “And she lives in Golden Valley now?”

  “Correct.”

  “And her parents are in New Mexico?”

  “Yes. Why are you asking?”

  “Just trying to put some family background together. First and foremost, what was it that Sybil’s father said or did that caused the rift? And why did the grandparents give power of attorney to Sybil instead of one of their sons? I’d like to get their contact info so we can talk to them, get answers to those questions.”

  “I’ll ask Sybil. She didn’t know anything about the family feud. As far as why the grandparents chose her, I’d guess it’s because she’s close by. The sons are far away—Canada and New Mexico.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  “She said she’s an only child.”

  “All right. Well, I did a little more digging and found out Damon Backstrom, the one who has wholeheartedly embraced the code of silence relating to family matters, works in St. Paul, commutes from western Wisconsin. I’m going to surprise him on his lunch break.”

  No one liked those kinds of surprises. “What time are you leaving?”

  “Ten fifty. His break’s right at noon, so I figured I’d give him time for lunch before I show my ugly mug.” Smoke’s mug was far from ugly.

  “I’d like to tag along,” I said.

  “You should take the day off. Do something recreational.”

  “Like you? You’ve worked how many days in a row now?”

  “I’ll be catching up on days off soon enough.”

  “Captain, may I?”

  It took him a few seconds to answer. “If you’re at the office in forty minutes.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you in the parking lot.”

  Damon Backstrom was a machinist for a reputable company and, as predicted, was not the least bit happy to see Smoke and me when we walked into the lunchroom. He was sitting at a table facing the door, eating with another man about his age. I hung in the background when Smoke walked over to him. “Good afternoon, Damon. Go ahead and finish your lunch. We’ll be over there when you’re done.” He acted like Backstrom was expecting us.

  Backstrom didn’t say yea or nay, or nod or shake his head. Mr. Stoic. A guy I would not want to play poker with. Smoke and I sat down at an empty table. We didn’t talk. We listened and casually looked around. Backstrom’s tablemate moved his head toward us, and must have asked him who we were or why we were there, because Backstrom shook his head and waved his hand like it was nothing, or he’d tell him later. He spoke too low to hear, and I couldn’t read his lips from that angle.

  Backstrom stuffed the paper remains from his lunch into his metal pail then closed it, stood up, and walked over to our table like he was dragging a fifty-pound weight on each leg. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “Have a seat,
” Smoke said and pulled out a chair. “This can be a brief conversation, or it can get long and ugly. It’s all up to you.”

  Backstrom sank down onto the chair and looked at me. I gave him my best, “I’m so sorry,” face. And I was. A family had been torn apart.

  “I’m not comfortable talking to you about private matters here at work. Can we meet somewhere later?” Backstrom said.

  “How much longer is your break?” Smoke said.

  Backstrom looked at his watch. “Sixteen minutes.”

  “Is there a better place to talk than the lunchroom?”

  “The parking lot, maybe.”

  “We’ll follow you,” Smoke said.

  The three of us trekked outside and went over to a bench by a large bush. Backstrom sat down on one end, Smoke sat on the other. Smoke turned to face him but Backstrom looked straight ahead. I backed up to a nearby tree and pulled a memo pad and pen from my back pants pocket. My main job was to listen and observe.

  “Damon, I know you’ve been protecting a family secret for all these years. And I respect that. But here’s the deal, things are escalating in Blackwood Township, and you’ve got a daughter and grandchildren living there. I know you must appreciate our concern. I sure would.”

  “They should move,” was his response.

  “Whether they do or don’t is up to them. But what is up to you—right here, right now—is whether you’re going to cooperate with us, tell us what happened all those years ago so we can figure out who’s committing these crimes, and why.”

  Backstrom shifted his body toward Smoke. “I don’t see how they can be related.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You asked about Sybil, my cousin’s daughter? If you’re wondering about her being involved, she wasn’t even born when it happened.” Little zings ran through me.

  “You said it was twenty years ago. Sybil’s older than that.”