“Tell me about him.”
There were a lot of hems and haws and ums in his answer, a lot of backtracking and repetitions, but eventually the story came out. Esther simply had not recognized her cousin in the brief moments she saw Julie in the conference room. Julie had kept her blond hair long and wore glasses; Emily had short black hair and didn’t. She realized it was Julie only after I gave her a look at Emily’s pic on my smartphone. I asked why Esther didn’t identify Julie then.
“She was afraid,” Eric said.
“Afraid of what?” I asked.
Instead of answering, Eric said that Esther called him the first chance she got after I left the offices of U.S. Sand. Eric came to St. Paul to see if he could find out what was going on and encountered me. He insisted that he had only wanted to ask a few questions. When I started running, his partner lost his head.
“Why did you ambush me at the high school last night?” I asked.
“We wanted to scare you into leaving town.”
“Why?”
“They thought they were protecting me,” Blevins said.
“Protecting you from what?”
“They thought I killed her.” Blevins bent to Eric and cocked his hand as if he wanted to slap him, yet stopped himself. “Didn’t you? You thought I killed her.”
Eric didn’t answer. He didn’t move an inch.
Blevins turned on me. His nostrils flared and his fists clenched and his breath started coming in short gasps. I was convinced that he was about to attack. Instead, he turned on his nephew. Eric used his feet to propel himself backward across the floor.
“Get out,” Blevins said. “Get out, get out, get out.”
Eric scrambled to his feet and literally jumped out the door, leaving his uncle to slam it shut behind him. Blevins glared at me for a moment, went to a chair in what amounted to the trailer’s living room, and sat down. He rubbed his face with both hands and spoke into the palms.
“I didn’t kill my daughter,” he said.
“I didn’t think for a moment that you did.”
“Julie never lived in Arona. Not for a day.”
“I know.”
“How did you trace her here, then?”
I couldn’t answer his question, so I asked one of my own.
“Why was your daughter living under the name Emily Denys? Mr. Blevins? Why was she hiding?”
He hesitated before answering.
“She was hiding from me,” he said.
“Why?”
“I did something.”
“What did you do?”
“What do you know about me?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Before I came here, before I moved to Arona, I lived in a small town in Michigan called Menominee, me and Julie. Ever hear of it?”
“No.”
“People confuse it with Menominee, Wisconsin.”
Blevins explained it to me. I admit the story of how he lost his home seemed much more compelling the way he told it as compared to Special Agent Rachel Colgin’s version. He ended it by saying, “The morning we left, someone blew up the city’s so-called Welcome Center.”
“Did Emily—excuse me,” I said. “Did Julie know that you bombed the building?”
“Who said I did?”
“Call it a lucky guess.”
“Julie had nothing to do with it.”
“Okay.”
“It’s all on me.”
“Okay.”
“She’s the one who bought the hydrazine, the ammonium nitrate, the aluminum powder, that’s true. She didn’t know at the time what I planned to do with it, though. Do you believe me?”
“Why not?”
“Later she thought it made her an accomplice, and it shook her. I explained about the corrupt government and people’s rights and how we must fight tyranny wherever we find it. She wouldn’t listen. We had people in Arona. A sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephews. I told her it would be a new start for us, that we would put the past behind us. Jules knew about the Patriots, though. She knew that my family was involved and that I intended to join them and continue the fight against injustice. She wanted no part of it. My daughter—she wanted no part of me, either. She said she was afraid of me. She said … When we reached a gas station in Eau Claire, Julie took her bag out of the trunk of the SUV and left. Just walked away without a word. Didn’t even say good-bye. She was over twenty-one; I had no hold on her. If that’s what she wanted to do…”
“Did you look for her?”
“No.”
“I guess she thought you might. That’s why she changed her name.”
“Funny. I actually thought she would turn me in to the FBI. For the longest time I waited for a knock on the door.”
“She didn’t turn you in.”
“No. Taylor, you didn’t answer my question. Why did you come here?”
I answered without thinking.
“I believe whoever killed the mayor might have also killed your daughter.”
“Todd Franson? That makes no sense. Julie never lived here. She never met the man. There’s no connection between him and her.”
“Tell me about Esther.”
“What about her?”
“She worked for Mayor Franson right up until he was killed. Now she works for U.S. Sand.”
“So?”
“You said there’s no connection between the mayor and Julie. Esther connects them.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
Blevins went to his feet and crossed the trailer to a window. He gazed out as if he wanted to make sure there was no one near enough to eavesdrop.
“I’m going to tell you something in absolute secret. Only me and Eric know.”
“Know what?”
“Esther is a spy.”
Oh, for God’s sake, I thought yet didn’t say.
“She was keeping tabs on the mayor for me, and now she’s doing the same with U.S. Sand.”
“Then you knew that Franson was attempting to seize private property through eminent domain and give it to the sand miners long before it was announced in the Kamin County Record.”
“I knew, but…”
Blevins stopped speaking, his eyes grew wide, and he became very still. I understood why, too. He had all but confessed that he blew up the Welcome Center in Menominee, and now he’d just admitted he had a motive for killing the mayor. Certainly he had the means. That left opportunity, and I bet he had that, too.
“Where were you the night Franson was killed?” I asked.
“I didn’t kill the bastard. The Patriots didn’t do it, either.”
“Okay.”
“Something else—I never actually said that I bombed a building in Menominee, did I?”
“No, you didn’t.” Although, I thought, you said enough.
“Even if I did do those things, I would never have hurt my daughter. Never.”
“That’s the only thing I care about, Mr. Blevins—finding out who killed your daughter.”
“So you can get the Barrington bitch off.”
“So I can get the Barrington bitch off. What about you? What do you care about?”
Blevins sat in the chair again and buried his face in his hands. I heard him say, “What am I going to do?” in a muffled voice.
“How should I know?”
I could have been more empathetic, I know. Then again, why would I? In any case, I figured it was as good a time as any to make an exit, so I moved to the door and opened it. I glanced back over my shoulder at the man. His face was stained with tears, and for a moment, I did feel empathy. I had lost a daughter, too.
“Mr. Blevins,” I said. “For what it’s worth, the medical examiner said Julie died instantly. She never knew what hit her. If that’s true, she died happy. She was living a good life. She had many friends. They all loved her.”
I stepped out of the trailer and closed the door. I could hear him weeping behind it.
&nb
sp; * * *
Thirty minutes later, I found Special Agent Rachel Colgin of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives waiting for me in the front seat of a white van. The van was parked at the mouth of the road that led to the compound of the Red Stone Patriots, about fifty yards from where my own car was parked. The side door slid open, and Colgin hopped out, followed by a man who looked even younger than she did. I removed my jacket and shirt and winced as the tech peeled off the tape that held the wire to my chest.
“I’m sorry about your wife and daughter,” Colgin said.
“I talk too much. Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you. The number of Patriots, how they were armed—I appreciate that, too. Now all I need to do is travel to the office of the U.S. attorney of the Northern Division of the Western District of Michigan, which is all the way up in Marquette on the south shore of Lake Superior, prove that we have enough evidence to prosecute, get a warrant complaint because I don’t think Blevins is going to respond well to a simple court summons, assemble a team, come back down here, and arrest the man without triggering a siege of a militia compound like they had in Waco or the Bundy ranch in Nevada. Easy peasy puddin’ and pie.”
“While you’re at it, tell me what’s the penalty for slapping the hell out of a federal agent, because right now I think it might be worth it.”
“Hey, I’m the one who has to deal with the bureaucracy.”
“You knew Emily Denys was Blevins’s daughter before you sent me in there.”
“Yeah.”
“You heartless bitch. You made me tell the man his daughter was dead. That someone shot her in the fucking head.”
“There’s no need for obscenities.”
Colgin’s colleague smirked as he crawled back into the van and shut the door. Colgin hooked her arm around mine as if we were on a second date and walked me along the county blacktop toward my Camry.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I figured the fact you clearly didn’t know who Emily was would only add confusion to the old man’s grief, thereby increasing the likelihood that Blevins would do exactly what I needed him to do—confess his crimes. It was a cruddy thing. My only consolation is that it worked.”
“Did you know Julie Blevins?”
“Of course I did. We were onto her two days after she ditched the old man. I tried to turn her, only she would have none of it. Blevins was a jerk, but there was no way she was going to testify against him, not even when I offered her a new life in WITSEC. I liked her for that, believe it or not, standing by her father.”
“Rachel, how could Julie get a birth certificate and an authentic Social Security card with you watching? How did she become the ghost of Emily Denys?”
“I suppose it’s possible that someone felt sorry for her and helped her out off the books. She needed help, too. It took a devious mind to do what she planned to do, and she didn’t have a devious mind.”
“On the other hand, a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Taylor.”
I gave her hand a squeeze.
“You have a kind heart,” I said.
“Yeah, well, keep it to yourself. Something like that gets out it can only hurt my career.”
“Especially if Emily … Julie was playing you like she had so many others.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Blevins taking the blame for the bomb, insisting Julie had nothing to do with it—what if Julie had planted it and he was just trying to protect her name, the image people have of her?”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he loves his daughter, why do you think?”
“You honestly believe he’d risk going to prison…”
“He didn’t know he was providing evidence to the ATF, did he? He didn’t know anything he said could be used against him in a court of law.”
We reached my car.
“What are you going to do?” Colgin asked.
“Keep at it until I learn who killed Julie.”
“What if you discover it really was Eleanor Barrington?”
“Then I’ll stop.”
“Take care, Taylor.”
“Don’t forget. We have a deal.”
“I won’t forget.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I was hungry, yet I wanted to check in before I ate, so I went to my room, sprawled out on the bed, and called Freddie.
“I have some good news and I have some bad news,” he said. “The good news—according to her credit card statements, Eleanor Barrington bought cheesecake at a joint called Junior’s Restaurant and Bakery in New York City exactly ninety-seven minutes before the mayor got dead in Wisconsin.”
“That should make Helin happy,” I said. “More to the point, it’ll make the county attorney very unhappy.”
“I hear that.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“The kid—Joel Barrington? He was with her. They shared a suite at the Park Savoy Hotel.”
“That doesn’t mean they shared—you know what? I don’t want to know what those freaks shared in New York, only that they weren’t here when the killing took place.”
“Kinda makes you want to take a shower, though, doesn’t it?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“Have you called the professor yet?”
“I haven’t had time.”
“I’m telling Echo.”
“C’mon … Freddie?” He hung up. “Dammit.”
* * *
Next I called David Helin. I caught him between meetings. He once told me that seventy percent of his job was meetings of one sort or another. I told him everything that had transpired since I arrived in Arona, including my adventures with the ATF and Freddie placing Eleanor Barrington in New York at the time of Mayor Franson’s murder. I knew he was taking notes because he kept saying, “Wait, wait,” when I spoke too quickly.
“You know, I’ll be sending you a written report like always,” I said.
“This thing about Emily actually being the fugitive daughter of a crazed anti-government bombing suspect who’s also a suspect in the murder of the mayor, that’s pure gold, Taylor. This special agent—”
“Rachel Colgin.”
“You say she’s agreed to testify that Emily was afraid of her father, afraid that he would find her?”
“That was the deal we made.”
“Pure gold. It might even be enough to get Marianne Haukass to drop the charges against Mrs. Barrington. Are you sure the county attorney knows nothing about this?”
“I don’t know how she could, but David, I don’t think he did it.”
“Blevins?”
“I don’t think he killed his daughter.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“I get the point. I’m telling you, though, if we could actually find the real killer, it would be better all around.”
“I’m not Perry Mason, I’m not—who was the guy that Andy Griffith played?”
“Matlock.”
“I’m not Matlock, either. I’m not interested in finding the real killer. I only want to get my client off.”
“Colgin said it would take at least twenty-four hours before she’s ready to drop the hammer on Blevins and all hell breaks loose around here, assuming someone higher up on the food chain doesn’t take the case away from her. I’d like to use the time.”
“All right, sure.”
“We’re good, then?”
“You know how it works. The more suspects I can throw at a jury, the better.”
“There’re no lack of suspects for the mayor’s murder, that’s for sure.”
“If you can connect any of them to Emily, I mean Julie, that’s gold, too.”
“Okay. By the way, did you know that Devon Barrington was in Arona?”
“I did not.”
“She delive
red a message for her mother at the town hall meeting I told you about. She did very well.”
“Stay away from her, Taylor.”
“The girl isn’t even seventeen. Of course I’m going to stay away from her.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just keep your distance, okay? Eleanor’s orders.”
“Sure.”
* * *
I went downstairs searching for food and found Devon Barrington. She and Ophira were in the restaurant eating a late lunch. I might have avoided them, except Devon saw that I was standing in the doorway and waved me over to the table.
“Taylor, you’re still here,” she said.
“So are you.”
“Do you believe it? There isn’t any real food at Mereshack at all. Just cans. Is this a nuclear holocaust, I’m going to eat out of a can?”
“I eat canned food all the time,” Ophira said.
“After lunch we’re going grocery shopping. Sit, sit; please join us.”
“I was just told to stay away from you,” I said. “Your mother’s orders.”
“Then you should go,” Ophira said.
Devon was visibly jolted by the remark. She turned her head and stared at her companion; an expression of anger seized her face.
“I asked him to join us,” she said.
“Your mother—”
“Fuck my mother.”
Ophira rested a hand on Devon’s wrist as if she were a piece of machinery that required delicate handling.
“Now, now,” she chanted. “We all be friends here.”
Devon rested her hand on top of Ophira’s and gave it a squeeze. Just like that, the flash of temper disappeared; Devon’s expression became one of playful rebellion. She shook Ophira’s shoulder the way she did the evening before and smiled.
“Resist much, obey little—that’s what Walt Whitman wrote,” Devon told us. “Geez you guys, worrying about my mother.”
The transformation from light to dark and back again was so pronounced, and happened so quickly, that for a moment I lost my breath.
“Are you going to sit down, Taylor?” Devon asked.
I sat.
“Are you hungry?”
“I’m going to eat later,” I said. “I need to interview a few people before it gets too late in the day.”
“You’ll have to come out to Mereshack, then. I’ll show you around. It’s really nice.”
Darkness, Sing Me a Song--A Holland Taylor Mystery Page 20
