Slow Burn

by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

  “If she left the camp, who would chase off the troublemakers?”

  “Good question,” Roy said.

  20

  I spent most of the next day at the zoo on an extended outing with Anne, her daughter, Amelia, her parents, and Mike and Joe. I forgot Mike’s Redwall book and Joe’s Darth Vader shirt again, but all things considered, it was a good day. We piled into an Italian restaurant on Sawmill Road afterward, and I had the boys home to their respective houses with an hour to spare before bedtime.

  Trying to turn over a new exercise leaf, I walked to the bank the next morning, finally getting around to depositing Dorothy’s check. I had just come back to the house when my phone rang with Mellencamp’s “Small Town.”

  “This is Helen Chen.”

  “Yes,” I said, pulling up.

  “You wanted to talk to me. About the fire.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “And about Aaron.”

  “All right.”

  “When’s a good time?”

  “This afternoon? My last class ends at four.”

  She gave me her address.

  “Before I come?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I told her why I wanted to talk to her. Told her flat-out that Dorothy didn’t think Aaron had done it.

  “Oh,” she said when I finished.

  “I wanted to make sure that’s OK.”

  “I see.”

  “I know that’s probably not something you want to hear.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m not sure Aaron set the fire either.”

  Helen lived on Woodruff Avenue, just a few blocks over from the Orton Avenue house. Same style of century-old brick building. Two stories with an attic, five steps leading to the lawn, five more steps leading down to the sidewalk. Wheelchair accessible this neighborhood was not.

  “I’m surprised you’re so close,” I said when I was seated on a couch in the living room. “To Orton Avenue, I mean.”

  “My parents weren’t happy,” she said. “They wanted me in the dorms. But I couldn’t have dealt with that. All those eyes on me. Rent was cheap here, and my roommate and I get along.”

  “Makes sense,” I said, not sure I thought it did. She was slight, with black hair and light-brown skin and a serious expression. She didn’t bear obvious scars from the fire, with the exception of a penny-sized scar on her throat, which I knew from Suzanne’s extended interview with her parents was the incision from the tracheotomy she’d needed after inhaling so much heated smoke. Which also explained her raspy voice, like that of a two-pack-a-day smoker twice her age. She’d spent weeks in the hospital and months in outpatient therapy and treatment afterward, but overall she’d been lucky. Some fire victims had permanent tracheotomies from the severe scorching as they breathed in superheated air and smoke. Others, of course, didn’t leave the scene of the fire at all.

  “You’re from Columbus?” I said.

  “Worthington.”

  “Nice city. Got that cute downtown.”

  “I guess. We live in a subdivision.”

  “What do your parents do?”

  “Mom’s a doctor. Dad’s an engineer at Honda.”

  “Why’d you go to Ohio State?”

  “Lots of reasons, I guess.” When I didn’t say anything, she went on. “Didn’t want to be that far away. Both my parents went here. Got a scholarship. And Mom was in the marching band, so that was always a big deal, hearing about that.”

  “You said you didn’t think Aaron set the fire. Why?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “I know it sounds strange.”

  “Ever tell the police that?”

  “I was never interviewed.”

  “Your injuries.”

  She nodded. “I wasn’t really with it until at least a month later. And by then Aaron was in jail and had already confessed and been charged.”

  “Did you have doubts then?”

  “I didn’t really think anything. I was just trying to survive. To live, you know? But afterward, I just thought about it. I remember seeing him trying to talk to Tina Montgomery. The look in his eyes. Even though he was drunk. He cared about her.”

  “You know about the security video, from the gas station? The print on the lighter?”

  “Sure.”

  “The threat? To kill everyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t change your mind?”

  “I’m just telling you what I think. It didn’t seem like he was threatening Tina. More like he was warning her.”

  “He was angry about her and Jacob Dunning. Isn’t that the whole thing?”

  “More like he was worried about Jacob.”

  “Worried?”

  “About something happening to him. So that made him worry about Tina.”

  “What about threatening to hurt Jacob? ‘The boss is gonna take him out.’ All that.”

  “That’s not what he said.”

  “What?”

  “The boss. That’s not what he said.”

  “It’s what Chelsea Fowler heard. And Eric Jenkins.”

  “It wasn’t boss,” she said. “It was posse. He kept saying posse. You know, like cowboys? Like some posse was going to do something to Jacob.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t drink,” Helen said. “I was probably the only sober person there that night. Aaron was slurring his words and all that, but it was clear. ‘The posse’s gonna take him out.’”

  “Any idea what kind of posse we’re talking about?” I said. “We’re a little short of cowboys in Columbus at the moment.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe something to do with drugs? I mean, everybody knew Jacob sold pot.”

  I told her what Eric Jenkins had said, about Jacob not selling that night.

  “That could be true,” she said.

  “Eric said Jacob sort of showed up uninvited.”

  “Not sort of. Just did.”

  “Why didn’t Matt tell him to leave?”

  “He did, at first. But then Jacob kind of disappeared and Matt was talking to other people. It was a really big party.”

  “Eric said Jacob and Tina hooked up.”

  “That’s true,” she said.

  I mulled the possibilities. Posse, not boss. I thought about Karen Feinberg. This isn’t TV, Andy.

  “So Aaron might have been worried about Jacob,” I said.

  “Maybe not worried, like, cared one way or the other. But worried that if something happened to him, it could affect Tina. Like that.”

  “No idea what he was talking about?’

  “No.”

  “Did anyone threaten Jacob at the party?”

  “I don’t know about threaten,” she said. “Tina said something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something about somebody named Ryan.”

  “Ryan?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “This is after Aaron and she were arguing?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And after Aaron left?”

  She nodded.

  “How did this come up?”

  “I asked Tina what Aaron had been talking about. She said she didn’t know. But later, I guess she’d been talking to Jacob, and supposedly some guy named Ryan had come by and threatened Jacob.”

  “Came to the party?”

  “Yes.”

  “No idea who the guy was?”

  She shook her head.

  “Anybody else see him?”

  “I don’t know. It was a huge party. Lots of people in and out all night.”

  “And nobody told the police this?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think Tina told anybody else but me.”

  “And she and Jacob were the only two that would have known about it,” I said.

  She nodded.

>   I was about to ask her another question when we were interrupted by the door opening. A young woman walked in, dropped her backpack on the floor, said, “Hey, girl!” then stopped, seeing me.

  “This is Lori,” Helen said. “Lori Hume.”

  Matt Cummings’s girlfriend.

  “I’m sorry,” Helen said. “I should have told you he was coming over.”

  Lori was sitting on a chair opposite the couch, her knees up and her arms wrapped around them. She was quiet, not moving.

  “I didn’t realize you were roommates,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I guess I thought you knew,” Helen said.

  “I can’t believe it,” Lori said.

  We were quiet.

  “I can’t believe you would do something to try to help that guy. After what he did.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  She stared at me a few moments longer, then walked out of the room. Disappeared around the corner past the stairs, into the kitchen. A moment later I heard stomping as she went up a back stairway. I sighed.

  “She know about your doubts?” I said to Helen a moment later. “About Aaron?”

  “No.”

  “You never told her?”

  “Didn’t see any reason to.”

  “Why not?”

  “We both know how we feel about what happened,” she said. “What I think of Aaron wouldn’t change any of that, I guess.”

  “OK,” I said.

  “It definitely wouldn’t change Lori’s mind,” she said. “And she’s my friend.”

  “Friends are important,” I said.

  “They are when you’ve lost them the way I did,” Helen said.

  I’d planned to stay in that night, organize my notes, see if I was close to making a report for Dorothy. But my conversation with Helen turned everything topsy-turvy. Instead, late in the afternoon, I walked down to Whittier and over a few blocks, and a few minutes later I was sitting at the bar in the Hey Hey Bar & Grill, “The bar so nice they named it twice,” sipping a draft PBR and snacking on fried sauerkraut balls. I stared at the Hawaiian lei-wearing puppet behind the bar, daring her—him?—to stare back. The Cavaliers were on TV, and this sparked a conversation about basketball with a couple beside me originally from Parma Heights. My first beer led to a second, and then a third, and I was finally starting to relax when my phone rang.

  “Andy? Billy Maxwell.”

  I looked at my watch. Nearly 7:30 p.m.

  “You’re working late.”

  “Pileup on 23. Nobody killed, but a mess. Just got off. Anyway, I got the skinny on your suicide.”

  “All ears.”

  “Only going to need one of ’em. You were right about the bad news. This Eddie Miller? His sister was found dead of a heroin overdose the morning before. That stuff they’re lacing with fentanyl. Bad, really bad. We’re starting to see it everywhere down here.”

  “OK.”

  “Thing I’m told, Miller and her both used, but he saw himself as her protector. Long as he was around, she’d stay off the bad stuff. They did a needle-exchange program together.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “When he was out of the picture, there was no one around to look out for her. That’s what my guys who investigated it said.”

  “He blamed himself for her overdose.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “So the suicide was legitimate.”

  “Looks that way.”

  I thought about the power that heroin had had over Miller. Enough to send him to prison for bank robbery. To leave his sister exposed to the perils of the street. To push him to suicide despite sitting on an explosive tip that might have helped get him out earlier, or make him a rich man, or richer than he’d been, anyway. Rich enough to take care of himself and his sister.

  Or buy them more drugs.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Now I owe you.”

  “No problem.”

  “We’ll talk football soon.”

  “Love to. Have a good one.”

  I finished my beer, signaled the barkeeper, paid my tab, and left. I’d had enough of the day. It was time to look into a new one.

  21

  When I got up the next morning I knew in my heart the right thing to do was go for a jog to work off the beer and sauerkraut balls from the night before. But I was still thinking about what Helen had told me, piled on top of seeing Lori react to my presence, and I made more coffee and fired up my laptop instead.

  The first person I should have called was Suzanne. But after pondering my unpleasant discovery about Glen Murphy, I decided to stay clear for now. I couldn’t undo the damage I’d done, but I could keep it from getting worse.

  Instead, I considered who in law enforcement to tell about what Helen had said. Or even if I should. Did the fact somebody had threatened Jacob matter? It could have been true, and still not be relevant to the case. The world was full of those kinds of coincidences. But the information was still new, something investigators never heard. It was worth a chance. I dug a nickel out of my pocket. Heads, I called Omar Sharif. Tails, Lord Voldemort.

  I flipped and got tails. I called Omar after all. And left a voice mail.

  I turned to filling in the gaps about Lori Hume. I already knew about her early departure from the party. I supposed it raised suspicions, but you’d have to say the same about Chelsea Fowler and Eric Jenkins and however many others, probably several dozens, who also left the party before the fire. And her grief was so obviously real. And she didn’t remotely resemble any criminal I’d ever encountered. I rewatched Suzanne’s Channel 7 interview with Lori, marveling at how good Suzanne looked in the power suit and pearls she’d worn for the occasion. I found a picture of Lori in the Ohio State Lantern, holding a candle at a vigil outside the Orton Avenue house two days later. I read a Dispatch account of the funeral where she made a few heartfelt remarks. And that was about it.

  Some of the most touching comments that day came from Tanner Gridley, Matt’s environmental geology professor. The story included a link to his university home page, and I clicked on it for no other reason than to give myself a reason not to stare any longer at the victims’ photos. Idly, I scanned Gridley’s résumé, charting his life from native of Youngstown, Ohio, bachelor of science received twenty years earlier at Youngstown State, then Ph.D. from Penn State. After a few minutes of searching, a picture of parallel lives took shape. Professionally, he was a widely published geologist with a specialty in seismology. Personally, he was an activist fighting the spread of fracking. His pointed reminder to me that he was an assistant professor meant he didn’t have tenure yet. There were also a few outliers in his online life, including frequent references to events involving multiple sclerosis. That gave me pause. I checked out his Facebook page and then his wife’s and soon pieced it together. She had MS. He was fundraising for the cause. Turns out he had some pretty decent 5K times. I thought guiltily of the run I’d skipped that morning.

  I visited a few more Web pages and learned a couple more things about fracking and MS and the Youngstown State Penguins, but the well of information was starting to dry up. I was close to calling it a day and setting out to do some real work when I came across an agenda for a hydraulic fracturing conference Gridley had attended in Dallas two years earlier. He’d given a paper on seismological indicators related to a series of small quakes in Oklahoma that had been linked to injection wells, though I was hoping the discussion was more interesting than the title: “Anthropogenic Seismicity Rates and Operational Parameters in the Eola Field.” I struggled through the abstract of the paper, but then paused when I came to the list of participants on a panel discussion that had followed. Three names down from his was someone I’d heard of before. But in a different context. I lifted her name and title and plugged them into the search engine, then hit enter.

  How odd, I thought, as the results of the search populated my screen. Gridley had sat on a pa
nel at an academic conference with Kim McDowell, the Pendergrass Research scientist whose head Buddy “Killer” Keeler had bashed in.

  22

  I was still weighing this information, and trying to decide if it was a coincidence or just the obvious result of a finite number of Columbus geologists attending an important national convention, when Omar Sharif returned my call.

  “What do you need?”

  “I came across something I thought I should tell someone.”

  “It’s the police department’s case,” Whitestone said.

  “I’ll tell Fielding,” I promised. “Just hear me out.”

  I explained about Helen and posse vs. boss and somebody named Ryan threatening Jacob and Matt’s anger at Jacob’s presence at the party.

  “Jacob wasn’t dealing that night?” he said when I’d finished.

  “Supposedly not.”

  “Have you talked to Custer yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t he have known what he said? That he said posse, not boss?”

  “He’s a blackout drunk who suffered a pretty serious head injury that night from the beating. He doesn’t remember anything,” I said. “Plus, his nickname was boss. He knew that much.”

  “Flimsy. He’s either lying or stupider than I think. And still guilty as hell.”

  “What about the threat to Jacob?”

  “Somebody named Ryan. That’s all Helen said?”

  “Yes.”

  “First I’ve heard of it. We talked to a lot of kids.”

  “But not Helen.”

  “Because she was in the hospital for weeks. And we already had the guy who did it.”

  “Still new information.”

  “So Jacob made enemies selling pot. News alert.”

  “I didn’t have to call you,” I said.

  “Got that right.”

  “I just thought somebody should know.”

  “A real do-gooder, you are.”

  “So you’re not interested?”

  “Half the stuff you just told me we know. The other half isn’t worth crapola. And to get right back to square one, it doesn’t matter because we have the guy who did it behind bars. And now I’ve got to go. And Andy?”