Without waiting for Control to confirm her transmission, she grabbed the jump kit and defibrillator and pounded after Earl.
He knelt next to the still smoking body, pressing a bandana to his nose and mouth with one hand, gingerly searching for a pulse on the exposed wrist.
Cringing, Zoe glanced at the victim’s face, charred beyond recognition. The stench of seared flesh and hair mingled with something chemical sent her reeling. She dropped to her knees, gagging, cramming her nose into the crook of her elbow. She nodded toward the blackened wrist Earl was palpating. “Anything?”
Wide-eyed and pale, he shook his head. “Did you call for police?” Earl’s voice was muffled through his bandana.
“Yeah.” Zoe tried not to breathe and failed. Turning away from Earl and the body, she retched.
Earl stood and reached down help Zoe to her feet.
“I’m all right,” she insisted.
“I know you are.”
“It’s the smell.” She’d held a man’s brains in her hands one time and never so much as squirmed. But certain scents did her in. Burnt human flesh apparently was one of them.
She took a few unstable steps away from the body and surveyed the scene. The victim—she could only assume he was Carl Loomis—was mangled and contorted like a boneless ragdoll. She’d been to similar horrific accident scenes before. The spinning power take-off shaft—normally used to run mowers or bailers or other farm equipment attached to the tractor—would grab a loose piece of clothing and suck the hapless farmer in, slamming him against the equipment, often ripping off a limb. A scorched gas can lay a couple of feet away from the body along with a barely recognizable cigarette butt.
The combination told a tragic story. But something about it niggled the back of Zoe’s mind.
Darkness had fallen before Pete arranged for Sylvia to sit with Harry and for Seth to drive him out to the Loomis farm. Damn foot.
Monongahela County’s Crime Scene Unit was on the job. Generator-powered halogen lights had been set up in front of the barn.
In addition to the CSU’s vehicle, a pair of fire trucks, an ambulance, the coroner’s wagon, and seven police vehicles—township, county, and state—plus his own, created a morbid circus atmosphere. Pete started toward what was clearly the center ring.
“Do you need help, Chief?” Seth asked.
Pete waved him clear. “Go.”
The young officer jogged ahead of the chief, like an eager teenager planning to meet up with his buddies and see what the excitement was all about. Pete, however, dreaded what awaited him. Only hours earlier, he and Baronick had stood there talking to Carl Loomis as he worked on his tractor. Now Baronick stood in nearly the same spot, watching the county forensic guys do their stuff.
Four of the local fire fighters climbed aboard one of the idling diesels as Bruce Yancy shouted orders over the rumble. The fire chief, however, didn’t join the men who were heading back to the station.
Pete finally located Zoe standing away from the action near the tractor. She and her partner were engaged in deep conversation with Franklin Marshall.
Zoe glanced Pete’s way and blinked as though she didn’t recognize him. She looked spent, her eyes glassy, her skin ashen.
Marshall had followed her gaze. “Hey, Pete. Glad you could make it.” But there was no joy in the coroner’s voice.
Pete moved to Zoe’s side. She looked like she could use a hug, and he longed to give her one. But this was neither the time nor the place. “What have we got?”
Marshall motioned toward the tractor. “The victim was DOA. Looks like he got an arm caught in the power take-off. Nasty business all by itself, but then you add the burning cigarette and the gas can.” The coroner shook his head.
“Carl Loomis?” Pete asked.
“Presumably. Once I get him back to the morgue, I’ll check dental records for a positive I.D.”
Zoe didn’t say a word, but pressed her fingers against her mouth.
Bruce Yancy ambled up. “We’re gonna head back to base.”
“Did you have to put out the fire?” Pete asked.
“Nope. It’d burnt itself out by the time we got here.”
“It was still smoldering when we arrived,” Earl added. “So we called for fire backup.”
“No problem.” Bruce patted Zoe’s shoulder. “Funny thing, ain’t it, Zoe? You and me talking about your dad earlier. This kind of puts me in mind of that call.”
“Yeah, it’s a laugh riot,” Zoe said, her voice husky around her fingers.
Pete glared at the fire chief. Tact had never been the man’s strong suit.
Bruce gave a quick salute and shuffled off to the remaining fire engine.
Earl put a protective arm around Zoe’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I told you. It’s just the smell.”
“I’m gonna radio Control and put us back in service.” With a nod to Pete, Earl hurried away.
Marshall heaved a deep sigh. “And I better check on the forensics guys.”
Pete reached out to stop him. “Do you believe this was an accident?”
“I don’t believe anything yet. Talk to me tomorrow, after the autopsy.” Marshall paused and turned back to Zoe. “Which reminds me. You will be there tomorrow. Eight o’clock sharp.”
Zoe dropped her hand from her mouth. “I’m on duty until eight.”
“All right. Eight thirty. No later.” Marshall trudged off toward the tractor and the body.
Finally, Pete was alone with Zoe. Or as alone as possible in the middle of a potential homicide investigation. “What was that all about?”
Zoe shook her head. “I made a deal with the devil, and the devil’s name is Franklin Marshall.”
Pete decided against asking her to elaborate. He had a more sensitive question in mind. “You talked to Yancy about your father?”
“Yeah. After I talked to you, I stopped at the funeral home and spoke with Judy Roth, but she wasn’t able to tell me anything. So I went to see Yancy.” Zoe fell silent for a moment. “Warren Froats was there.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted to find out if Yancy remembered anything about my dad’s accident. You know. Anything more than what Froats had told us.”
“And did he?” The fact that Zoe had referred to it as her dad’s accident wasn’t lost on Pete.
“Yancy said it wasn’t the kind of thing he’d forget.” Zoe’s gaze drifted toward the tractor. “I guess it wouldn’t be. The body burnt like that.” Her voice cracked.
Pete took both crutches in one hand and pulled Zoe against him with his free arm. For a brief moment, she clung to him. Buried her face against his chest. Took a few deep, ragged breaths.
But then she steeled herself and stepped back. “I’m all right.”
He wasn’t buying it. “You should get out of here.”
“There’s something else.” She brushed a hand over her face and looked up at him. “Froats told me that my dad was on his way to see him when he died.”
“Your dad was on his way to see Froats? Why?”
“Apparently Dad had been asking questions all over town about the deaths of my great uncles. Froats told me he’d called and said he wanted to talk to him about something, but wouldn’t elaborate over the phone. Froats assumed it was about Denver and Vernon Miller.”
Over by the barn, Earl was helping Marshall drag the cot from the coroner’s van. “Seems like asking and answering questions can be hazardous to your health,” Pete mused.
Zoe gave him a perplexed look. “What?”
“Wayne and I were here earlier today talking to Loomis.”
She stared at him a long moment, her face still, but Pete sensed a whirlwind of activity behind her eyes. “Why?” she asked.
Pete hesitated. “I wanted to find out if he remembered anything about the accident.”
“My dad’s accident?”
“That’s the one.”
“And did he?”
“He maintained he didn’t remember a thing about it.”
“That’s not unusual. Especially if he suffered any kind of head trauma during the crash.”
“Or if he was drunk.”
“Which everyone agrees he was.” Zoe narrowed her eyes at Pete. “I’d given up hope finding out anything from him. I’m surprised you wasted your time questioning him again.”
“I didn’t say it was a waste of time.”
“He told you something?”
“Not about the accident. But he remembered seeing a couple of cars over at James Engle’s place last Wednesday.”
Zoe’s eyes shifted. “Wednesday?”
“The day Marshall thinks Engle died. Loomis didn’t recognize the one car. But the other belonged to your landlord.”
Pete watched Zoe try to process the information.
“But I remember Mr. Kroll telling me he never had much use for James Engle,” she said. “Why would he go to visit him?”
“You talked to him about Engle?”
She nodded. “When we were unloading hay with Tom and Patsy. But he wouldn’t tell me why he didn’t like him. Didn’t want to say anything bad about the dead.”
Pete watched as Earl and Marshall lifted the body bag containing Carl Loomis’ charred remains onto the cot. “Has Mr. Kroll regained consciousness?”
“Not last I heard, no.”
Damn. “Do you think Mrs. Kroll would be up to answering some questions?”
Zoe met Pete’s gaze with a scowl. “I can ask her.”
He shook his head. “That’s all right. I’ll call her tomorrow. There’s something else I want you to think about.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
“I know you want to believe that your father’s still alive out there somewhere—”
She reached out and touched his arm. “No.” Her voice was little more than a coarse whisper. “I did want to believe that. But now that I’ve talked to Froats and Yancy.” She shook her head. “Dad was asking questions. If he was really on his way to see the chief of police that night...”
“Someone might have wanted to shut him up,” Pete finished the sentence Zoe struggled with.
“You think so, too?” she said.
“I think it’s a possibility. And there’s something I’d like to do—with your permission—that might just tell us for sure.”
“Anything.” She studied him. “What?”
“I’d like to exhume your father’s body.”
The background chatter of emergency responders, the throbbing grumble of the generators running the halogen lights, the static and squawk of radio transmissions, all fell away into muffled silence as Zoe struggled to grasp Pete’s words.
Exhume her father’s body?
She hadn’t considered that option. Or had she? Maybe she’d thought of it briefly and dismissed it as—what? Too extreme? Too gruesome? Too...absolute? She’d never seen her dad’s body after the accident. Did she truly want to see it now? If his body was there, it would prove that he was really dead. And she’d have to come to grips with the loss once and for all. But that’s what she’d wanted, right?
“Zoe?” Pete’s voice cut through the veil of introspection.
She met his concerned gaze. “You think my dad was murdered?” Her voice stumbled over that last word. Considering the possibility was one thing. Pete giving credence to it was another matter altogether.
“I think there are too many unanswered questions dating back to the Miller brothers.”
“You want to exhume their bodies, too?”
The corner of Pete’s mouth twitched as if he were tempted to smile had the circumstances been different. “Let’s start with your father and go from there.”
Zoe thought about her mother. Kimberly, who couldn’t face seeing the body twenty-seven years ago, would undoubtedly raise holy hell over the proposition of reopening old wounds. “Mom will have a fit. But she and Tom are leaving for Florida tomorrow anyway.”
Pete frowned. “What time is their flight?”
What had Kimberly told her? “I think around 10:30 a.m. I know they were planning to leave for the airport right after breakfast.”
The frown deepened, and Pete turned away from her, apparently watching Franklin and Earl load Carl Loomis’ body into the coroner’s van.
Suddenly she remembered the white board back at the police station and realized why he’d asked. “You think Tom had something to do with my dad’s accident.”
Pete didn’t reply.
Which was all the answer she needed. She braced to chastise him for thinking such a thing. And yet, hadn’t she had the same fears? Tom had been acting strangely ever since they’d arrived. He’d avoided her questions. He’d been downright surly with her on more than one occasion. And he’d completely neglected to mention that her dad had been asking questions about her great uncles’ deaths shortly before his own.
The heavy night air sent a shiver through her. “How soon can we get Dad’s body exhumed?”
Twenty-Two
The only way Zoe could make it to the morgue in Brunswick by eight-thirty in the morning would be to leave the ambulance garage in Philipsburg promptly at eight, hit zero traffic, and break a few speed limits along the way. Franklin knew the county well enough that he had to realize he’d made an impossible request. So when Zoe managed to get off duty a few minutes early, she figured she could make a brief stop at home, be a little late for Carl Loomis’ autopsy, and still not get into too much trouble.
Although the sky had been clear at dawn two hours earlier, by the time Zoe parked behind the farmhouse, clouds had rolled in and transformed from a dull, leaden gray, to roiling black with flickers of lightning to the west—the leading edge of a cold front the weather station had been forecasting. Wind threatened to snatch Zoe’s ball cap from her head as she stepped out of her truck, but the air was still thick with humidity.
Tom’s rental car remained parked where it had been last night. Part of her wished he and Kimberly had left for the airport already, but Zoe wanted to talk to her stepfather—needed to talk to him. She intended to get answers. No matter what.
She stepped into the enclosed back porch and noticed Mr. Kroll’s Muck Boots and a pair of Mrs. Kroll’s garden Crocs sitting side-by-side on a faded rug next to their door. The old couple had been inseparable in all the time Zoe had known them. A heavy sadness settled over her at the thought one of them might never wear those boots again.
Bracing to deal with something she did have control over, she stepped into her half of the house.
Tom and Kimberly’s luggage was lined up inside the door. Jade had made a nest on one of the bags and lifted her head to acknowledge Zoe’s entrance. The cat yawned and tucked her nose under a paw, returning to her nap. Merlin was nowhere to be seen, leading Zoe to hope he hadn’t packed himself inside one of the bags.
Zoe’s round dining table was set for two. Not three. The aroma of coffee wafted from the kitchen along with the murmur of conversation barely louder than a whisper. Zoe side-stepped the suitcases and carry-ons, intent on storming into the other room. But the door between them swung open and Kimberly breezed through, coffee pot in hand.
“Oh.” She stopped short, forcing Tom, who followed carrying a pair of steaming plates heaped with eggs and sausage, to dance an awkward jig or risk rear-ending her. “We didn’t expect you.”
Zoe glanced at the dual place-settings. “Of course not.” She made no effort to disguise the annoyance in her voice. “Why would you? It’s not like I live here or anything.”
Kimberly huffed and reached for one of the cups. “You’re too old to act like a spoiled brat. I made plenty of coffee. And there are more eggs and sausage if you want some.”
Being called a brat by her mother did nothing to ease Zoe’s mood. She eyed the plates Tom set on the table. Prompted by the aroma, her stomach let out a rumble. She pressed a hand against her belly to shush it. “I don’t have time. I have to attend an autopsy this morning.”
Tom shot a curious glance her way, but didn’t say a word.
Kimberly’s face had soured. “Zoe,” she said sharply, “I do not want such talk at the meal table.” She slid into one of the chairs and picked up her fork.
Ignoring her mother, Zoe kept an eye on Tom who settled his tall frame into the chair across from his wife. “Carl Loomis died last night.”
The fork clattered from Kimberly’s fingers to the plate. “Carl Loomis?”
Tom’s expression remained as still as a mask.
Zoe considered taking a seat, but decided she held a slight advantage if she remained standing. “It’s been a bad week around here. First James Engle. Then Mr. Kroll. Now Carl Loomis.”
Tom sipped his coffee. Swallowed. Picked up a napkin and wiped his lip. “How did Loomis die?” He kept his gaze on his plate.
The tightness in Zoe’s gut turned from hunger to dread as she realized she was thinking of her stepfather as a suspect. How much to tell him? God. Could Pete be right? “His arm got caught in his tractor’s power take-off.”
Tom buttered a slice of toast. “Farming’s dangerous work.”
Especially when someone is helping matters along. “It’s a good thing you didn’t get into town until Saturday morning.” Zoe hoped it sounded like she was joking even though she was not. “Otherwise the cops might try linking these incidents to you two.”
Kimberly slammed a well-manicured hand down on the table, rattling plates and silverware. “Enough. I told you, I want none of this kind of talk while I’m eating. It’s not good for the digestion.”
2 Lost Legacy Page 20
