“He does have a lot of anger in him.”
“One other thing. Though rage arsonists enjoy watching the fires they set, sometimes they also enjoy helping to put them out. It’s not at all uncommon to find them working at a fire department.”
“Or in a volunteer fire brigade?” I suggested.
Richard nodded. “They crave attention, and by assisting with the fires, they become heroes.”
“The way Linwood did after the Woolworth’s fire.”
“The problem is that the attention doesn’t last forever, so the arsonist strikes again.”
“But Linwood didn’t get as much attention the second time.”
“Which could fuel the rage even more.”
“That does sound like Linwood, doesn’t it?” I said unhappily.
Richard closed his notebook. “Laura, that sounds like a lot of people.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said.
Our lunch arrived then, and I did my best to forget what we’d just been talking about so I could focus on the barbecue. Goodness knows it was worth my attention, and I managed to clean my plate and eat my share of hush puppies.
It wasn’t until we were drinking down the last of our iced tea that I let myself think about arson again. “You know, Junior must have suspects other than Linwood,” I said speculatively.
“Probably,” Richard agreed. “Byerly isn’t so small that there might not be other people who fit the profile.”
“What do you think about going to see her?”
“I thought we promised Aunt Edna not to.”
“I’m not going to tell her what Aunt Edna told us,” I assured him. “I just want to see what Junior knows. Maybe there’s something that would eliminate Linwood as a suspect.”
“Maybe,” he said.
I thought then that he sounded reluctant, and I should have asked him why. Instead we paid our check, dropped the van off at Aunt Maggie’s, and drove to Byerly’s police station.
Chapter 16
As we came into the police station, Junior was reading a file at the battered metal desk she’d inherited from her father; but when she saw us, she closed the folder.
“Hey, Junior,” I said, as Richard and I sat in the two wooden chairs opposite her.
“What brings y’all down here this afternoon?”
“Just coming to visit.” Then, realizing how ridiculous that sounded, I said, “And we want your opinion about something.”
“Is that right?”
I nodded vigorously, starting to wish I’d planned what I was going to say so I wouldn’t have to make it up as I went along. Or even better, that Richard would take over. “It’s about the Saunders. What do you think about them?”
“I don’t know that I’ve seen enough of them to have an opinion.”
“What about the buyout? Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I told you yesterday, all I want is for it to be decided. I’ve already had to break up half a dozen brawls over it, which is a waste of time and paperwork when I’ve got more important things to worry about.” She looked me right in the eye. “Like this arsonist, for instance.”
“Actually, Richard and I were just talking about the fires.”
“I thought you didn’t have any interest in catching arsonists.”
“There’s been so much talk that we got curious. It sounds as if you’ve got a serial fire-setter, the kind who gets a kick out of setting fires.”
“Y’all know much about arson?”
“We’ve done a little reading,” I said.
“Recently?”
“Fairly,” I said vaguely. “Of course, if you’ve found evidence of arson for gain…”
“I don’t know that I should be talking about an open case, particularly not to you.”
“You have before,” I said, stung.
“Not when somebody in your family was my chief suspect.”
“Somebody in my family?” I said unconvincingly.
“Laurie Anne, you and I have known each other too long for you to start playing dumb. I’m talking about Linwood Randolph, and you know it.”
“Why Linwood? Do you have any proof that he’s involved?”
“Not yet, but with all your vast knowledge of arsonists, doesn’t it seem to you that Linwood just might match the usual profile?”
“Other people in Byerly match that profile.”
“Name one,” she said, but before I could, she held up a hand to stop me. “Never mind—there’s no need for me to encourage you. I know you’d say just about anything to get me to look at somebody else.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Isn’t it? Tell me the truth, Laurie Anne. If you knew that Linwood had set those fires, would you tell me?”
I wanted to say that I would, but I honestly wasn’t sure. “I don’t know, Junior.”
“That’s what I figured. I don’t blame you—I don’t know that I’d turn in a cousin of mine, either.”
“I can tell you this much, Junior. I don’t know that Linwood is setting the fires.”
“You mean you don’t know for sure. I don’t know for sure, either, but I mean to find out. You might want to tell him.”
“I don’t think I have to. He already knows.” I looked longingly at the file on her desk, sure that it had something to do with the fires. “If I knew more about the case, I might could help you.”
But she shook her head. “Not this time, Laurie Anne. I know I can’t stop you and Richard from nosing around and trying to find somebody else to pin it on, but I don’t want you to come running to me anytime you find somebody with a book of matches, saying that he’s got to be the one. I’ve let you get away with playing fast and loose before, but it’s not going to happen this time.”
Maybe she was right, but it made me mad anyway. “Thanks for the warning,” I said stiffly.
“One other thing,” Junior said. “You might want to think about what could happen if somebody happens to be in the next building that goes up. Fire does nasty things to the human body, Laurie Anne. Have you ever seen scars from a real bad burn, the kind where the skin doesn’t look human anymore? Are you sure you want to take responsibility for that, especially for a cousin you don’t even like?”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that, so I didn’t bother trying. Richard and I just left.
When we got back to the car, I had to take a deep breath to help me let go of some of the anger or I never would have been able to unclench my fists enough to drive. I didn’t know if I was angrier because I thought Junior was wrong or because I thought she was right. “Did you expect Junior to react that way?” I asked Richard.
“I had a feeling she might.”
“You could have warned me.”
“Would that have kept you from going?”
“Probably not.” I didn’t say anything else for a while, just concentrated on driving.
“Are you brooding?” Richard finally asked.
“Maybe a little, but I was also thinking about what you said at lunch about Junior not being able to stake out every possible target.”
“Please don’t tell me you want us to watch them all.”
“No, there are way too many abandoned buildings around here for that. But we could watch Linwood. Junior may suspect him, but she doesn’t have the manpower to put a tail on him. She and her deputies have their hands full already.”
“And we don’t?”
He was right, so I ignored the remark. “Since Linwood works all day, we’d only have to worry about the evenings. All it would take is one fire to be set during a time when we know where he is, and then we’d know he’s innocent. What do you think?”
“ ‘Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt,’ “ Richard said. “Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4.”
“Does that mean that you think we should do it?”
“Let me put it another way—”
“Could you just
give me a ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”
“If you insist. Yes, I think we should do it.”
It turned out we didn’t have to start watching Linwood that night. When we got back to Aunt Maggie’s house and called Aunt Edna, she said Linwood, Sue, and the kids were coming to her house that night for dinner with her and Caleb, leaving us free to focus on the Saunders.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have much luck. I tried to get Burt Walters again in hopes of getting a copy of the investigator’s report, but couldn’t reach him at the office or at his home. Neither Richard nor I could come up with another place to start our snooping that wouldn’t let everybody in Byerly know what we were up to, so we were stuck until we heard from Burt.
Then Aunt Maggie and Augustus showed up with a big load of stuff to sell at their flea market booth, and enlisted us to help unload, price, pack, and reload it all, which took a while.
After that, Aunt Nora called and insisted that Richard and I come home with Augustus for chicken and dumplings, which we were happy to do. Aunt Maggie was tempted, too, but was still holding a grudge over the buyout, and said she’d just eat the leftover pizza from the night before. Nobody talked about the buyout during or after dinner, which was a relief, and nobody talked about fires, either. We had more than enough to talk about just gossiping about the family, so it was fairly late when Richard and I got back to Aunt Maggie’s, carrying the leftover chicken and dumplings I was sure she’d been hoping for. After keeping her company while she ate a big helping, we all headed for bed.
That night, I dreamt about fires and smoking mattresses, but most of the memories faded the next morning. I just wish what I found out after waking up had been as easy to forget.
Chapter 17
Richard was still asleep when I woke up. I thought I’d heard the phone ring, and I stumbled downstairs to answer it, but Aunt Maggie had gotten there ahead of me. I looked at the clock. It was a little after nine o’clock, which meant that Aunt Maggie would normally have already been making the rounds of the thrift stores, and I wondered if there was something wrong. Since she was mostly listening, I couldn’t tell who she was talking to, so I got a glass and some water from the faucet, rummaged around to see if there was anything in the refrigerator I could eat for breakfast, and waited for her to get off the phone.
Finally she said, “I appreciate your letting me know, Tavis. I’ll talk to you later.”
“What are you still doing here?” I asked, stifling a yawn as she hung up. “No thrift stores open today?”
“I sent Augustus to make the rounds without me because I was planning to go to the union meeting with Saunders this morning.”
“I’d forgotten about that. When’s the meeting?”
“There isn’t going to be any meeting, at least not with Marshall Saunders.”
“They’re withdrawing their bid for the mill?” I asked, selfishly hoping that they had so I wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore.
“Marshall is dead, Laurie Anne.”
I guess I blinked, but I don’t think I did anything else for a few seconds. I know I didn’t speak, because so many questions were trying to crowd their way out that I couldn’t decide which one to ask first.
Aunt Maggie said, “You know that old warehouse out by the train tracks, the one where they used to store shipments for the mill before they started shipping by truck? They found him in there. What was left of him, anyway. The place burned to the ground last night, and he was inside. Tavis said they put the fire out last night, but it wasn’t until this morning that they realized he was in there.”
“Marshall wasn’t the one setting the fires, was he?” I asked, almost hoping he had been. It was terrible of me, but it was better than thinking Linwood could have done it.
Aunt Maggie snorted. “Not unless he set the fire and then tied himself up.”
My stomach rolled. Aunt Edna had only been worried about somebody being hurt by accident. Neither she nor I had even considered murder. I remembered how angry Linwood was about the proposed changes at the mill. Could he be angry enough to kill?
Aunt Maggie leaned over and touched my arm. “Are you all right, Laurie Anne? You look like you just saw a ghost. I thought you only met Marshall the other day.”
“I’m fine,” I said, knowing that I couldn’t explain the truth without mentioning Aunt Edna and Linwood. “It’s just hard to imagine Marshall dead.”
“People die every day, Laurie Anne,” Aunt Maggie said. “One time I was talking to a friend of mine, and she left my house to go to the grocery store and got hit by a car not ten minutes later. It throws you, but it does happen.”
I was a little leery of asking the next question, but I tried to make it sound casual. “Do they have any idea who did it?”
“Not that Tavis knew of. I imagine Junior will be keeping busy with this one.”
“How is the murder going to affect the buyout? Is Mrs. Saunders going to go through with it?”
“Nobody’s sure yet. I think that even Big Bill has enough sense not to ask a brand-new widow a question like that, but I hope she says something soon. Tavis says he’s going to see what he can find out and get back to me. I’m going to see if I can catch up with Augustus.” She got up and gathered her pocketbook, but stopped at the kitchen door to look at me. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” It was a lie, but it satisfied her, and she left.
I sat at the kitchen table while too many thoughts ran through my head. First was the shock of somebody I’d just met dying, especially since I’d liked him. Second was the idea that my cousin might have been involved. And third was what Junior had talked about: coincidences. The day after Richard and I showed up to investigate Marshall and his wife, he was murdered. What with the problems with Linwood and not being able to get in touch with Burt, we hadn’t done much yet—certainly nothing that could have pushed somebody to murder Marshall—but it was a big enough coincidence that I couldn’t help but feel guilty.
Eventually, Richard came downstairs, rubbing his eyes. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully.
I didn’t answer.
“No sausage biscuits?” he asked.
The thought of well-done meat made my stomach roll again. “I’m not hungry.”
He sat down across from me and studied my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Marshall Saunders was murdered last night.”
“Good God! What happened?”
“He was burned to death,” I said and told him what Aunt Maggie had told me.
“Do you think Linwood did it?” he asked once I was finished.
“I just don’t know, Richard.” Suspecting Linwood of arson was one thing; suspecting him of murder was something horribly different. Then I remembered something. “He couldn’t have!” I said. “He was at Aunt Edna’s house last night.”
“You’re right,” he said, sounding as relieved as I was. “Let’s call Aunt Edna and give her the good news.”
Unfortunately, there was no answer at Aunt Edna’s house.
“What about Burt?” Richard said when I hung up the phone.
“I’m sure he knows about Marshall already.”
“Don’t you think we should find out if he still wants us to investigate?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” I tried Burt at the mill and at home again and left messages at both places. “No luck,” I said, “but surely he’ll call us sometime today.”
Realizing that Linwood was off the hook had given me my appetite back, but there still wasn’t anything to eat in the house, so Richard and I took turns in the shower and were about ready to head for Hardee’s when we heard Aunt Edna at the front door.
“Thank goodness y’all are here!” she said, rushing into the kitchen. “I tried to call, but the line was busy, so I came on over. Have y’all heard about Marshall Saunders?”
I nodded. “Tavis Montgomery called Aunt Maggie and told her about it.”
“Then it’s true!” She burst
into tears.
“Aunt Edna?” I said, mystified by her reaction. “This is good news, isn’t it? Not about Saunders being dead, of course, but at least it clears Linwood. He was with you last night, so he couldn’t have set the fire.”
Aunt Edna started crying even harder, and I got that sick feeling in my stomach again. “Linwood was with you last night, wasn’t he?”
“No, Laurie Anne, he wasn’t.” She made a visible effort to pull herself together. “Linwood, Sue, and the kids did come to my house for dinner last night, just like they were supposed to, and things went real well at first. Caleb was really working hard to kind of bring Linwood out of his shell—playing with the kids, and talking to Sue about cars because he knows they’ve been looking at minivans—and it was going so well. Linwood didn’t talk much, but at least he wasn’t saying ugly things the way he has before.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“We ate dinner, and the kids were cranking homemade ice cream when Caleb said, ‘Linwood, I’ve been seeing your mother for quite a while now—I think it’s pretty obvious how I feel about her. I want you to know that I’m going to ask Edna to marry me, but I want your blessing first.’ ”
Aunt Edna’s eyes shone as she remembered Caleb’s words, but then they teared up again. “Laurie Anne, I swear that was the first I’d heard of it. Oh, we’d talked about marriage, but I didn’t know Caleb was going to say anything to Linwood like that.”
“How did Linwood react?” I asked.
“It was awful. He said there was no way in hell that he’d let me marry Caleb. And that Caleb had no right to come sniffing around me the way he had been—that everybody knew he was only after one thing.” Aunt Edna snorted. “As if a good-looking man like Caleb couldn’t get that anyplace he wanted it. Sue was trying to hush him up in front of the children, but then Linwood turned on me. I know he didn’t mean it, but—” She paused to wipe her eyes again, and I reached over to take her hand and squeeze it gently. “He said that I should be ashamed of myself for running around with Caleb, that I was being disrespectful of Loman’s memory.” She shook her head. “Everybody knows what he did to me. He doesn’t deserve any respect. But still, I’ve tried to do the right thing. Loman had been dead over a year before I started seeing Caleb. Don’t I have a right to be happy?”
Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 06 - Death of a Damn Yankee Page 9
