“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Zoe. Just because you live on a farm doesn’t mean you have to eat like a pig.”
At least she had her mother’s attention. “And just because you’re on the verge of going to jail doesn’t mean you have to live on bread and water. Eat.”
Kimberly huffed but leaned forward and inspected the contents of the plate in front of her. She picked up the slice, handling it as if her nail polish was still wet.
Zoe waited until her mother had taken a couple of bites and visibly relaxed before breaking the silence. “Why didn’t you say anything about Tom flying in three days ahead of you?”
Kimberly chewed slowly. Swallowed. “You never asked.”
Zoe glared at her. “Don’t be a smartass, Mother.”
“Watch your mouth.” Kimberly turned her attention back to her pizza. “I had commitments at the end of the week and couldn’t take time away until Saturday. Tom was eager to see you, so he left early.”
“But Tom didn’t come see me. I never saw him until you both showed up. Together.”
Kimberly sighed dramatically. “True. When he picked me up at the airport, he told me he’d run into some old friends and ended up spending time with them instead of you. He felt so bad. We decided not to say anything because we knew your feelings would be hurt.”
Zoe choked out a short laugh. “That’s a switch. You never worried about my feelings before.”
Kimberly flung the slice of pizza down onto the plate. “This is why we never should have come here. You take such pleasure in playing the poor wounded little girl. Well, grow up, Zoe. Believe it or not, Tom and I really do worry about you.”
Zoe let her slice drop as well, her appetite gone. “All right. What about after you learned of James Engle’s death. Didn’t you wonder about Tom then?”
“No. Heavens, no. You can’t possibly believe Tom had anything to do with that, do you?”
Zoe leaned back in the chair crossing her arms. “Think about it, Mom.”
“I don’t have to. Tom did not kill Jim Engle.”
From inside Zoe’s pocket, her phone buzzed. She ignored it. “Okay. What friends did he run into and spend time with when he got here?”
Kimberly shifted in her chair and took another look at her plate, pushing what was left of the pizza around in a small circle. “I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
“No. I don’t care who he spends time with.”
Zoe considered reaching over and giving her mother a shake. Was she really so naive? “You don’t care? Really? What if the friend was a woman?”
Kimberly turned to Zoe with a raised hand. For a fleeting moment Zoe believed her mother was going to slap her. But Kimberly must have reconsidered. She sat taller in her chair. “Tom loves me. I trust him implicitly. He wouldn’t cheat on me. And he sure as hell wouldn’t kill anyone. Ever. I’m ashamed of you for even suggesting such a thing.” She shoved the plate and the half-eaten pizza at Zoe. “Take your damned peace offering or bribe or whatever it is and get away from me.”
Even with their ragged past, the venom in Kimberly’s voice stunned Zoe. With trembling hands, she gathered the plates and walked back to Harry and Wayne Baronick, who had done a fair job of emptying both pizza boxes.
The detective gave her an exaggerated sheepish grin. “I hope you didn’t want seconds.”
“No, thanks.”
The smile faded. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you okay?”
“Just terrific,” she lied.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you got way more out of her than I did.” Baronick lowered his voice. “And I have to be honest, Zoe. Your mother scares me.”
Zoe huffed a laugh.
Baronick’s phone rang, reminding Zoe that she’d missed a call. While the detective answered his cell, she dug hers from her pocket and pulled up her voicemail.
The wild accusation failed to produce the angry response Pete had hoped for. Jackson’s eyes never wavered, but his mouth drew to one side in a fleeting hint of a smirk.
Pete flipped a page in his notebook. “Let’s jump ahead a few years. Your good pal Gary Chambers was married to a beautiful young woman. They had an adorable little girl. You decided you were in love with Kimberly, but Gary was in the way, so you arranged for him to have a fatal accident. You drove him off the road and set up Carl Loomis, the town drunk, to take the fall.”
Jackson’s face relaxed a bit, but his eyes never shifted.
“Then your old friend James decided after all these years to clear his conscience. He wrote a letter to your wife—the wife you rescued from widowhood—and threatened to tell her how Gary really died. But you intercepted the letter and came back to Pennsylvania for a visit to shut him up.”
Jackson’s face darkened again.
“Which brings us to Marvin Kroll.” Pete tapped the notebook. “While James was busy setting everyone straight, he decided to tell Kroll who really got Mae pregnant and stirred up the fight between the Miller brothers. Kroll confronted you about it so you had to get rid of him, too.” Pete set the pen down. “But Patsy Greene walked in and caught you, so you started CPR to make it look like you were a big hero instead of cold-blooded killer.”
Jackson leaped from his chair and swept an arm across the table. Pete’s notebook and pen went sailing. “You son of a bitch. You have no idea what you’re talking about. All you’re doing is alienating my daughter from me.”
Pete gripped the edges of the table, fighting an urge to lunge at the man. “You mean Gary Chambers’ daughter.”
“My daughter. I raised her. I helped her with her homework. I held her while she cried over the stupid boys in school who broke her heart. Me. As for that story of yours? If that’s the kind of police work you do, Chief Adams, you might want to consider a new career. Because this one is going to get you sued for slander. And that’s just for starters.”
For a moment, Pete thought Jackson might throw a punch at him, but a knock at the door saved him from finding out. Before Pete had a chance to call out, the door swung open and a large man in a charcoal suit stormed in.
“Not another word, Mr. Jackson. Chief Adams, you weren’t interviewing my client without me being present, were you?”
Pete lowered his foot to the floor and rose, extending his hand. “Mr. Imperatore. Of course not. I was simply entertaining your client with a story.”
“I figured it must be something like that.” Anthony Imperatore, Esquire, grasped Pete’s hand. “Nevertheless, you’ll excuse us now.”
Pete gathered his crutches and hopped over to where his pen and notebook had landed on the floor. He scooped them up, nodded to a seething Tom Jackson, and maneuvered to the door with as much dignity as he could muster with a bum foot. As he stepped out into the hall, his phone rang. He glanced at the screen before answering. “What have you got, Marshall?”
“A body,” the coroner said. “At least I’ll have it in another couple of hours. Your court order came through. Gary Chambers is being exhumed as we speak.”
Twenty-Six
Pete expected to find Zoe and Harry waiting in his office. When he discovered it empty, he knew exactly where she’d gone with his father.
The conference room door swung open as Pete reached for the knob, and Baronick charged out, nearly bowling Pete over. “I’m glad you’re here,” the detective said. “I just got a call from the county lab.”
Pete peered over Baronick’s shoulder. Kimberly Jackson huddled at one end of the table, Harry at the other with Zoe standing over him talking on her phone. Everyone present and accounted for. Good. No discernible bloodshed. Even better. “And?”
“The bullet the ME dug out of Carl Loomis matches the others.”
Pete breathed a sigh. He needed to call Nate to check on the search at the
Kroll farm. But Pete knew damned well if they had found the gun, he’d have heard about it already. Find the gun, solve this entire string of homicides. “Did you get anything out of Mrs. Jackson?”
“Not a thing. Zoe talked to her, though.”
“What?” If he didn’t have the crutches, he’d have grabbed Baronick by the throat. “You let Zoe talk to her mother? Alone?”
“Not alone. I was in the room. And the conversation was too loud to be considered private.”
Pete relaxed. A little. “Learn anything?”
Baronick glanced back into the room, apparently making sure Zoe wasn’t in earshot. He lowered his voice. “I learned I’m sure glad Kimberly Jackson isn’t my mother. Beyond that, the woman is staunchly convinced her husband is the most honest, trustworthy man on the face of the earth.”
Pete grunted.
“Did you get anything out of him?” Baronick motioned toward the interrogation room.
“I talked. He listened. Mostly.” Pete pictured Tom Jackson coming over the table at him. “The man has a temper. And I believe he’s absolutely capable of violence.”
An eager smile spread across Baronick’s face. “So you think we’ve got our man?”
That very question had been nagging at Pete since he’d left Jackson with his lawyer. “No. Truth be told, I don’t.”
Before Baronick could respond, Zoe pushed between him and the doorjamb. “You don’t what?”
“Nothing.” Pete shot a look at Baronick and then turned on Zoe. “I told you to wait until after I talked to your mother.”
Zoe dismissed the subject with a quick shake of her head. “I just got a phone call.”
“A lot of that going around,” Pete said.
“Oh? Well, mine was from Mrs. Kroll. Mr. Kroll is awake.”
“Really? That’s great. Can he talk?”
“I don’t know. She sounded ecstatic so he must be doing well. I was gonna head to the hospital to see him. If you still need me to keep an eye on Harry, I can take him with me.”
Pete’s mind raced, sorting out the latest developments. “You can take both of us. I need to question Marvin Kroll. Hopefully he saw his shooter. And I had a phone call, too.” He lowered his head, fixing his gaze on Zoe. “Your father’s body has been exhumed. It’s being transported to the morgue right now. Marshall intends to do the autopsy this evening.”
A gasping cry caused all three of them to turn toward the conference room. “What?” Kimberly stood a few feet inside the door, her trembling fingers pressed to her lips. “You dug up Gary’s body? Without my consent?”
“We didn’t need your consent, Mrs. Jackson,” Pete said. “Your late husband’s part of an open, ongoing case. A judge issued a court order this morning.”
Kimberly took two staggering steps toward them. Pete thought for a moment she might collapse. But her eyes grew damp and fierce, and she pointed a shaking manicured finger at Zoe. “You. This is all your doing. You’ve insisted on seeing his body. You couldn’t just let him rest in peace. That man loved you. And Tom loves you. But it’s not enough. Nothing is ever enough for you. How dare you desecrate your father’s grave...his memory?” Kimberly’s voice broke. “How dare you.” With a movement as smooth and as fast as a cat, Kimberly swung, slapping Zoe full across her face.
The crack echoed down the hall. Zoe gasped. Staggered. Pete grabbed for her, dropping a crutch that clattered to the floor. Baronick made a move to block Kimberly, but too late. Harry snatched the woman from behind by her shoulders, and pulled her away from her daughter.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Harry said.
Kimberly appeared as stunned as the rest of them. She brought both hands to her face, and her eyes widened in shock. Whimpering, she sagged back against Harry. Baronick jumped to catch her before she could slump to the floor taking Pete’s father with her.
In Pete’s peripheral vision, he noticed Harry and Baronick ease Kimberly into a chair at the conference table, but his full attention was on Zoe, rigid against his chest. Her breath came in short, choking huffs, refusing to surrender to tears.
“Detective,” Pete called over Zoe’s head, “take care of charging Mrs. Jackson with assault. Pop? Help me get Zoe out of here.”
A smile spread across his father’s face. “You got it, son.” He stepped away from Kimberly, but stopped and turned back. He shook his head at her. “That wasn’t very nice at all.”
Zoe’s face finally quit stinging by the time she parked her truck at the Brunswick Hospital, but the slap had penetrated much deeper. Her mother may have done a lot of insensitive things to Zoe over the years, but Kimberly had never once struck her. Until now.
The drive to the city was silent, and the silence continued during the ride in the elevator. Flanked by Pete and Harry, Zoe hugged herself against the memory of her mother’s fury. Her driver’s license might state she was thirty-five, but at that moment she felt as lonely and raw as when she lost her dad twenty-seven years ago.
As if reading her thoughts, Harry put a fatherly arm around her shoulders.
A flush of heat boiled up behind her eyes. She blinked hard and sniffed back the threatening tears. She would not cry. Bad enough to ache as if she’d lost another parent—because she had—but she wouldn’t let Harry and Pete see her bawling like a child.
Leaning against Harry, she forced her thoughts to the murders. Could Tom really be a cold-blooded killer? Now that Mr. Kroll had regained consciousness, they would find out for certain. Tom would either be charged and tried. Or cleared.
The doors swished open, and the three of them stepped out. Arrows directed them to the ICU where they were greeted by a pair of automatic doors labeled with signs restricting patients to no more than two visitors at any time. Another placard indicated that to be admitted, use the green phone. Pete reached for the receiver.
“Zoe?” a frail and familiar voice said.
She turned to find Mrs. Kroll and Alexander coming up behind them.
“Zoe dear. I’m so glad you came.” The older woman drew her into a feeble embrace. “Isn’t it wonderful? Marvin’s going to be all right.”
Ashamed of being so wrapped up in her own self-centered woes, Zoe smiled at the love and relief in Mrs. Kroll’s voice. “It’s definitely wonderful, Mrs. Kroll.”
Pete shook hands with Alexander. “I hoped to be able to speak with your father. He might be able to clear up a few things.”
“Yes, of course.” Alexander glanced at his mother. “We haven’t spoken to Dad about what happened. I didn’t want to upset him. But he’s doing remarkably well. All things considered.”
Mrs. Kroll picked up the phone that Pete had reached for and pushed a button.
Zoe frowned at the sign limiting visitors to two per bedside. She wanted to be there when Pete questioned Mr. Kroll. She wanted to know who had been killing area farmers for over four decades—who may have been responsible for her father’s death as well.
Pete must have figured out what she was thinking. He took her hand. “I need you to stay with Harry.”
“But, Pete—” She winced, hating the whine in her voice. Took a breath and tried again. “But, Pete, I need to find out—”
He gave her hand a squeeze, gentle but firm. “I’ll find out for you. We can’t both go in there and leave Harry out here.”
She looked at Pete’s dad and was once again struck by the resemblance. Except Pete maintained his air of authority, while Harry appeared lost, gazing down the hallway toward the elevators, a bewildered look on his face.
Zoe heaved a resigned sigh. “I know. Go ahead. I’ll take care of him.”
Pete gave her hand another squeeze. But instead of releasing it, he drew her closer, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Thanks,” he whispered into her hair.
Mrs. Kroll
hung up the phone, and the automatic doors crept open. “Chief Adams? We can go back now.”
Pete held Zoe’s gaze for a moment before turning and hobbling through the doors with Mrs. Kroll at his side.
As the doors drifted shut, Zoe became aware of the silence and noticed Alexander grinning at her, obviously aware of the moment that had just passed between her and Pete. Her cheeks warmed. She cleared her throat and looked to Harry, who had missed the whole thing. He continued to look toward the elevators with that befuddled look on his face.
She moved to his side. “Harry? Are you all right?”
Startled he looked at her wide-eyed. Then smiled. “When did you get here?”
Zoe opened her mouth to remind him she’d driven him here, but thought better of it. “Just now. How are you?”
“Fine and dandy.” But he scowled when he lifted his gaze to the elevators again.
“Harry? Is something wrong?”
He gave his head a shake and reached up to rub his forehead. “It’s hell to get old. I could swear I just saw someone I know, but I can’t recall his name. If he comes back, I’m gonna feel like an idiot. He’ll know me, but I won’t know him.”
Zoe looked down the empty hallway. She hadn’t seen anyone come or go since they’d arrived. “Don’t worry about it.” She patted Harry’s arm. “Whoever it was probably left and won’t be back.”
The possibility didn’t seem to placate him. “I can’t place him, but I know I’ve seen him before.” Harry’s eyes narrowed. “And I don’t think I liked him much.”
Pete hesitated in the doorway to Marvin Kroll’s cubicle. The old gentleman had always seemed so robust. An unstoppable source of energy who loved to drive his tractor and his quad and take care of his farm. Lying there, his head swathed in bandages—tubes, lines, and catheters streaming from his body—he reminded Pete of a deflated balloon.
Mrs. Kroll struggled into a paper gown she’d removed from a shelf outside the room. “You’ll need to put one of these on, too, Chief.”
2 Lost Legacy Page 24
