by B. T. Lord
“I sure hope whatever is going on doesn’t have anything to do with Logger-Palooza,” Emmy responded with a hint of worry in her voice.
They knew enough not to intrude even as she worked straight through lunch. With each passing hour, their concern deepened. They’d never seen her so intent before as she continued to work both the computer and her phone.
It was near six o’clock when she finally emerged. Emmy swallowed a gasp when she saw the drawn look on Cammie’s face.
“We need to talk,” the sheriff announced grimly as she stepped back into her office. Rick and Emmy had no choice but to follow.
Just as Paul had predicted, Saturday dawned sunny and warm. The sidewalks of Main Street were already busy, even though the festivities wouldn’t start for another couple of hours. It was controlled madness as vendors, cooks, decorators and street performers hurried with last minute preparations.
Cammie arrived early and went straight to the coffee machine. She hadn’t slept as she tossed and turned in both anger and frustration, all directed at herself. When Rick walked in, she saw the look of exhaustion on his face as well.
“It’s my fault,” he said as he came up to her. “I should have realized. I completely screwed up.” He took off his badge and placed it on the counter in front of her. “I totally understand if you need to sack me.”
“Please put that badge back on. I’m the one who’s at fault. I’ve been up all night asking myself how I could have missed it.”
“I suppose that proves we’re only human.”
“We can play the blame game later. For now, let’s get everything ready.”
At precisely nine am, the door to HQ opened.
“I’ll show you to the interrogation room,” Emmy replied as she walked towards the back of HQ. She poked her head in and looked at Cammie and Rick. “He’s here.”
“Thank you, Emmy.”
She stepped aside and Jim Newton entered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Thanks for coming by, Jim,” Cammie replied in a light, friendly voice.
“I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when Rick called me last night and asked me stop by this morning.”
He was dressed in jeans and a dark green t-shirt, the large bandage still taped to the back of his head.
“How’s the head, bro?” Rick asked.
“Still getting headaches. But with each passing day, it hurts less and less.” He sat down opposite Rick and Cammie. “So what’s this all about?”
“We’re tying up some loose ends in the George Peabody murder investigation and just needed to ask you a few more questions to clarify a few things for us. By law, I’m required to inform you that everything we say in this room is being recorded.”
“Why? It’s over, isn’t it? You already arrested his wife.”
“We did. But we need to make sure the district attorney has what he needs to get a conviction. You understand, don’t you?”
“Oh sure, yeah.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Cammie noticed Jim’s leg nervously jiggling up and down under his chair. She calmly stood up and came around the table. “Once again, I want to thank you for your information. It actually helped us crack this case.” Reaching him, she held out her hand to shake his. He looked down at it for a long moment. Just as she thought he was going to refuse, he slowly and reluctantly held out his left hand and awkwardly shook hers. Despite the clumsiness, it was a hard, steady shake.
Cammie pointed to his right hand that was shoved into his jeans pocket. “Rick told me you had an accident about eleven years ago.”
“That’s right.”
“What happened?”
Jim shrugged. “I slipped off a ladder and landed on some glass. I managed to slice through the ligaments in my hand and they shortened up.”
“Do you mind if I see?”
He slowly withdrew his hand and she saw that it was basically a claw.
“That must have been devastating.”
“I’ve learned to adjust.”
She returned to her chair and opened up the file in front of her. “You once managed a house painting company out of Houlton, correct?”
Jim narrowed his eyes at her. “What is this all about?”
“Like she said, we’re just tying up some loose ends. Boring, but necessary,” Rick replied, smiling congenially at him.
“What happened to the business?” she asked.
“The economy went tits up and the business went with it. When people don’t have a lot of money, the last thing they’re going to want to do is hire someone to paint their house.”
“When did you close up shop?”
“About nine years ago, I think it was.”
“Is that when you turned to drugs?”
He jerked his head up and glared at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Margo is a very rich lady who has hired some very high priced attorneys. They’re going to dig into the background of every witness in order to find anything they can to get her off. We need to make sure the district attorney knows all of this so he isn’t blindsided. You don’t want to be responsible for allowing a murderer to walk away scott free, do you? Especially when she tried to kill you as well?”
This seemed to calm Jim down. “No, I guess not.”
“You were arrested for drug possession shortly after the business failed, is that correct?”
“Yeah”.
“You got lucky, didn’t you? Since it was your first offense, they were pretty lenient. A slap on the wrist and a fine.”
“Uh huh”.
She flipped through some papers in the file. “You had an employee by the name of Reginald Steepman?”
“I did.”
His leg was jiggling harder now.
“What kind of employee was he?”
“He was a good worker. Always showed up on time. Did the job without complaining, which is more than I can say for the rest of my crew.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was painting an eave on one of those 19th century Victorians. Somehow he lost his grip and fell. Thank God he landed on soft grass and thank God he wasn’t killed. He did sustain a back injury that pretty much ended his house painting career. Workman’s Comp had to come in and pick up the tab.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Just before we closed the business.” He looked at his watch. “Listen, how much longer is this going to take? I told Naomi and the kids we’d get to the parade route early so they could see the jugglers. The kids just love the jugglers.”
“What do you do now for a living?”
“You know what I do.”
“I know, but we need you to state it for the record.”
“I deliver packages that come into the post office. I also do deliveries for some of the businesses, like the flower shop, the small appliance store, places like that.”
Cammie withdrew a photograph from her file and laid it on the table in front of Jim. It was the woman in the tight red t-shirt that she’d gotten from Bill.
“Do you know who this woman is?”
He looked at the photo, then glanced up at her in surprise. “How do you have a picture of her?”
“That’s your mother, isn’t it, Jim?”
He said nothing as he stared intently at her.
Cammie took the photo and placed it back inside the folder.
“Jim, I’m going to tell you a story. Stop me any time if you think I’ve got it wrong. About sixteen years ago, George Peabody started a relationship with your mother. Maybe it started out as one of those casual deals. But somewhere along the line, they fell in love. You and your mom were living in Bangor and he became like a second father to you, something you’d been lacking since your own father walked out on you when you were a baby. Unlike most dads, George only showed up every couple of months. But when he did, it was like your birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. You were probably curious where he went when he wasn’t with you and I�
�m sure you were told he was travelling on business. Then ten years ago, he announced he was there to stay. No more business trips. No more being away for months on end. You must have been so excited. Your surrogate dad was finally going to stay and you were going to have that picture perfect family you’d always dreamed of. Only, it didn’t quite turn out that way, did it? You somehow discovered that he hadn’t been travelling on business when he was away from you and your mom. He was actually living another life entirely separate from the one he lived with you. And part of that other life included a wife. As if that wasn’t bad enough, right after making the announcement he was there to stay, he stole your mother’s entire savings - money she’d scrimped and sacrificed to earn so that, no matter what happened, there would always be a roof over your heads. It must have completely destroyed her to discover that the man she’d poured so much time and trust and love into was nothing but a damned criminal. So you decided to teach him a lesson. How am I doing so far?” Jim’s face had grown dark and menacing as he silently regarded her. “I’ll take that as a thumbs up. You tracked down George and, what do you know? He lived in the same town as the girl you’d been dating, who just happened to be Rick’s cousin, Naomi. It really must have enraged you when you saw the grand life George was living in that huge Victorian house over on Sunset, while you and your mother were holed up in a crummy, two bedroom apartment in Bangor. Despite his wealth, he still had the audacity to rob your mom blind. So this is what I think happened. You waited until he was alone in his workshop. Then you confronted him. He must have told you about his meeting with Barnes since you were able to provide us with so many details. Did he tell you that, because of his guilt taking the money from your mother, he concocted a way to recoup that money from Bill? The sad part is that he was planning on paying back what he’d stolen with an additional $35,000 to boot. But by that point, you didn’t care. He’d lied to you for sixteen years. He’d taken your dream of the perfect family and ripped it into a million pieces. You were so furious over what you saw as his treachery, you knocked him to the ground. While he was down, you grabbed a sledgehammer and drove it into his skull. Did you set out to kill him, Jim? Or did you just want to scare him and it went too far? Whatever the reason, the deed was done. You washed up the blood as best you could, put his body into your truck and dumped it right where he’d had the meeting with Bill. There must have been some sort of poetic justice picking that spot, eh?”
“However, you made a few mistakes when you tried to throw us off by pointing the finger at Bill and Margo. Mistake number one. You told us you’d been out the night of April 14, 2007 hunting moose. First of all, I doubt very much you can hold, much less shoot a weapon with your right hand disabled as it is. Mistake number two. According to your statement, you fell asleep after visiting the Grandfather Tree. I checked the weather for that night and the following week. You must have been back in Bangor during that time or else you would have remembered that during the dates in question, we had one of our freak snow storms. The temperatures were in the single digits for almost six days. If you’d fallen asleep the way you told us you did, you would have frozen to death. Mistake number three. You stated, and I quote ‘I’d heard the stories around town about how much he hated Native Americans’. Now, that may not sound like much of a mistake, but we spoke to dozens of people about George Peabody and you’re the only one who said you’d heard the rumors of his racism before he left Twin Ponds. Everyone heard the stories after he supposedly left. That’s probably because it was you started those rumors, wasn’t it? You wanted to make sure he was hated as much as you hated him. And if his bones were somehow found, who would care about a racist bully like him anyway? Mistake number four. Why did you throw away the sledgehammer and wallet near the Grandfather Tree? Why didn’t you go deeper into the woods to dispose of the evidence? Better yet, why didn’t you just bring them to Bangor and dispose of them there? We never would have found them in Bangor. Did you get lazy, Jim? Is that what happened?”
Cammie shook her head as she looked at him. “If you’d only kept your mouth shut and not tried to get fancy by attempting to mislead us with your story of witnessing the meeting between Bill and George, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
She saw his jaw tighten as his eyes bounced between her and Rick.
“You have no proof,” he seethed.
“I have enough to arrest you for the murder of George Peabody and Reginald Steepman.” Jim’s eyes widened at the sound of Steepman’s name. “That’s right, old Steeper the Peeper. You make monthly deliveries to the veterinary clinic, don’t you? And because of your drug habit, you know your way around a needle.”
“And your mom was a nurse who worked in the emergency room, so she’d know all about sux,” Rick added.
“You were making a delivery at the clinic on the day they were dealing with two emergencies,” Cammie continued. “You’d delivered supplies of sux in the past so you knew they had some on hand. You saw the medicine cabinet was left open, the office was in chaos and realized this was the perfect opportunity to finally get that son of a bitch blackmailer off your back once and for all. I’m guessing you put the sux in an aspirin or water bottle you happened to have on you.” Once again she shook her head. “Just goes to show, you should never do drugs and spill your guts out to a guy who’s later going to use that information to blackmail you.”
Cammie saw the hate glowering in Jim’s eyes.
That hate is the last thing George and Steepman saw before you took their lives.
She shut the file and was about to stand up in order to cuff him when Jim suddenly shoved his chair backwards. In one swift movement, he withdrew a knife he’d had strapped to his ankle and flung it at Rick.
He cried out as the knife struck him in the right shoulder blade, sending him tumbling out of his chair and onto the floor.
“Rick!” Cammie shouted.
She saw Jim racing for the door. Torn between seeing to Rick and not wanting Jim to get away, she hesitated for a split second.
“Go after him,” Rick gasped. “Quick.”
Withdrawing her revolver, she ran into the foyer where she found Emmy struggling to stand up from behind her desk.
“He pushed me and ran outside,” she said, pointing to the front door.
“Call Doc,” Cammie ordered. “Rick’s been hurt. Radio our other deputies and tell them Jim has escaped.”
Before Emmy could ask any questions, she holstered her gun and dashed outside.
The sidewalks were filling up with people eager to see the parade begin. Her stomach clenched as everywhere she looked, she saw the potential for hostages if Jim grew desperate enough. Turning to her right, then to her left, she glimpsed Jim fighting his way towards Town Hall.
“He’s heading north towards the mayor’s office,” she informed Emmy, using the radio she had clipped to her uniform.
“I’ll get Tom and Dave over there.”
Trying not to panic the crowds, she swiftly and coolly made her way through the throngs until she reached a spot near the bank where there was a break in the swarms of people. There, she was able to sprint, her mind reeling with the terrifying possibility that he was heading straight towards Bill. She saw his head bobbing through the mass of humanity as he roughly pushed people aside in a frantic attempt to escape.
“What’s going on, Sheriff?”
“What’s happened?”
“Haha, is there a fire?”
She ignored all the shouts as she continued to jog down the center of the street. As she drew closer to the town offices, she saw two of her part-time deputies emerge from the crowd.
“He’s right in front of us,” Cammie shouted. “We need to encircle him.”
As the two officers headed up on opposite sides of the street, Cammie remained in the middle of the road. She was just reaching the parking lot in front of the town offices when she heard the sickening sound of terrified screams. A moment later, she was almost trampled as a stampede of
panicked townspeople hurtled towards her.
“Oh, shit,” she cried out as she swung this way and that, fighting to keep from being knocked down in the reckless evacuation.
Just as the last of the crowd raced past her, she broke into a run and finally reached the front of Town Hall.
Where her worst nightmare was waiting for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A dais had been erected in front of the entrance where the town’s businessmen sat to watch Bill stride to the podium and give the speech that would officially open Logger-Palooza.
As Cammie skidded to a stop, her eyes took in everything at once. On the ground near the dais, her deputy Tom Melbourne lay sprawled on the ground. He wasn’t moving. Dear God, was he dead?
It was still too early for the businessmen to assemble, but for the first time in his career as mayor, Bill had decided to show up early - a decision he was now regretting.
Jim stood atop the dais. He had Bill in a chokehold in front of him, a revolver – no doubt Tom’s revolver – pointed at Bill’s temple.
“Put your gun down, sheriff, or the mayor dies.”
Bill was ashen as he tried to remain perfectly still.
“Jim, you don’t want to do this,” she replied in a calm voice as she slowly walked towards the dais.
“You were right about a lot of things, but there was one mistake you made. I can shoot a weapon. And if you don’t put your gun down right now, I’m going to prove it to you.” As if to emphasize his point, he pulled up on Bill’s throat, causing the big man to choke.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Deputy Dave Penney sneaking up towards the left of the dais. Suddenly Jim cried out, “You come one step closer, Penney and I blow his head off.” Dave abruptly stopped.
“You’re never going to make it out of here alive,” Cammie warned as she continued moving ever closer to the dais.
“That may be so. But if you and your deputy don’t put down your weapons, I won’t be dying alone.”
By this time, Cammie was only a few feet from the dais.
