Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1)

by Debra Gaskill

  Today will be the day I go home. But which way do I go?

  “This way,” she said aloud and headed west, deeper into the woods.

  The path twisted and turned and the dark green of the trees arched overhead, intermittently blocking out the sun, their branches reaching down with dark, craggy, grasping fingers to rifle through her hair and slap her bruised face. Lyndzee slapped back at the branches in frustration as if each was one more impediment to getting home.

  She wasn’t afraid any more, just determined. Her muscles, once sore from her bruises and scrapes and her rough night in the makeshift cave, felt better as she wandered deeper into the woods.

  As the hours passed, and her hunger increased, she lost confidence. Where did this path end? Would she ever find her way back home? What if no one ever found her? The sun was high in the sky when the trail emptied into an open field.

  Lyndzee, weak from hunger and once again close to tears, blinked at the sudden bright light and stepped into the waist-high prairie grass that waved softly in a gentle breeze.

  She watched, open-mouthed, as a bird swooped over head, calling gently to its mate as it flew across the cloudless sky.

  “I can’t walk any more,” she said out loud. “Maybe if I just sit here for a few minutes,” Lyndzee sat down cross-legged, relaxing as the prairie grass sheltered her in a soft green blanket. She smiled as she found a small blue flower blooming. She picked it and sniffed its sweet odor. Next to the flowers, clover peeked up shyly. Lyndzee stretched out on her belly to examine them—maybe finding a four-leaf clover would mean she was on the right track, that she’d be home soon.

  Tina would have thought that went against God, believing in silly stuff like four-leaf clovers and black cats crossing in front of you, Lyndzee remembered and rolled over on her back. What was the word she used? Blasphemy? Did that matter if you were lost and trying to get home? Could you be a blasphemer then? What was a blasphemy? She locked her fingers behind her head and stared at the sky.

  The waving grass and the warm sun soon made her eyelids heavy. Her thoughts drifted from home into a heavy sleep.

  It was the sound of a buzzing bee near her ear that woke her up with a start. How long had she been asleep? The sun was heading into the western sky. Panicked, she jumped up. Across the field was another clump of trees and above them danced a small wisp of smoke.

  People! Lyndzee ran across the field and into the woods. There had to be someone there, a camper or a house or some one who could take her home!

  Before too long, the path she was on made a sharp turn, circling a small rise in the earth, covered in a clump of trees.

  As she came around the trees, she saw the smoke of a dying campfire and a tall angular man, sitting on a log. He was drinking something from inside a paper bag, staring into the embers. He wore a tattered stocking cap that flopped back as he tilted his head to drink. Behind him was a small lean-to built into the rise of the earth, branches and odd pieces of cardboard and plywood hanging between the two biggest trees. A bicycle with a bundle of rags strapped into the handlebar basket leaned against a rusted-out oil drum in front of the lean-to. Newspapers and empty cans littered the circle of earth around the campfire.

  Lyndzee recognized him immediately—it was the Crazy Man.

  She stepped closer into the enclosure.

  Crazy Man jumped when he saw her, shoving the bottle into his pocket.

  “What are you doing here? What do you want?” he asked defensively.

  “My name is Lyndzee Ruth Thorn and I want to go home.”

  ***

  At 4:30, Addison found herself jostling for position among reporters from two Cincinnati newspapers, and six television reporters, their camera equipment and crews at the foot of the steps of the Golgotha administration building. A podium had been set up on the worn limestone steps and TV crews moved back and forth adjusting their microphones and their equipment as David Horatio kept repeating "Testing, testing, sibilance, sibilance." into the mikes.

  Luke Brockmore was beside her, not making notes about what questions to ask, as she was, but checking his teeth for food.

  "I knew I shouldn't have had that spinach salad for lunch," he muttered. Addison wasn't going to tell him about the grease spot on his light blue tie. Hopefully, it would show up on camera.

  At precisely 4:30 p.m., Seaford and Jaylynn Thorn, along with the university's counsel, Winston Blytheman, walked out the administration building door with Jubilant's Police Chief Marvin McGinnis, Gary's older brother.

  Seaford looked resolute and strong, a soldier in the army of God—a wounded soldier, to be sure, but one who still believed in his cause. Jaylynn had dark circles under her eyes and, despite her impeccable pink Ann Taylor suit and matching heels, she looked bedraggled and worn.

  David Horatio stepped up to the podium.

  "Thank you, ladies and gentleman of the press. What we're going to do here today is, following a few brief statements, give you the opportunity to ask question of Dr. and Mrs. Thorn as well as Chief McGinnis. As you know, this has been an exceptionally trying time for the family and they are under a great deal of stress, so we will understandably keep this short. I'd like to start with Chief McGinnis. Chief?"

  Marvin stepped up to the mike, adjusting with authority the gun belt that hung around his substantial middle. He detailed the basics of the girl's disappearance, that she'd been allowed to walk across campus by herself for the first time, that she'd gone to Pop's Carryout to spend a dollar she'd received the night before and that after leaving the carryout at approximately 4:30 p.m. she'd disappeared.

  "We continue to search for Lyndzee Thorn and have been utilizing the services of the Plummer County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team, as well as volunteer search teams," McGinnis finished.

  "Do you consider this a stranger abduction at this point?” a Cincinnati reporter called out.

  "Because of the victim's age and the fact she has no prior history of running away, we are beginning to look at this as a stranger abduction," Chief McGinnis said.

  "Have you called in the FBI?" Addison asked.

  "The Cincinnati field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigations has been notified and agents are en route," the chief answered.

  "What kind of leads do you have?" someone else called out.

  "We are looking for three men who may have seen Lyndzee in the carryout. They are not suspects at this time, but we do consider them persons of interest and would like to speak to them," he answered. As if on cue, Horatio stepped from behind the podium and handed out flyers with mug shots of Ripsmatta, Castlewheel and Lundgren on them. Stapled to the back of that page was another with Lyndzee's school picture at the top and a general description of what she was wearing at the time of her disappearance—everything, except the suspect's names, that Addison had run that morning in the Journal-Gazette.

  Other reporters began to shout questions, one on top of the other, each of them melding into a hopeless din. Addison didn't worry about jumping into the fray. She'd had all the information before and knew she could get Gary's ear on a moment's notice. She was waiting for Seaford Thorn to speak.

  McGinnis waved them all off with another terse sentence. "We're not prepared to reveal anything else about this ongoing investigation except to say we would like to talk with these three men. Also, anyone who believes they have information leading to Miss Thorn, please call the Jubilant Falls Police Department."

  Seaford stepped up to the microphone and pulled a piece of paper from his breast pocket.

  "Two days ago, my wife Jaylynn and I allowed our six-year-old daughter Lyndzee Ruth to walk across campus with her dog Punky for the first time. That was the last time we saw our daughter. Please —" Seaford's voice cracked as if on cue. "If you have our daughter, please, bring her back. We won't ask any questions, we just want our baby back."

  He stepped back from the mike and wiped his eyes.

  Addison saw her shot and took it: "Dr. Thorn, you have told p
olice you have been experiencing threats in the last few days, Do you believe these threats are related to your daughter's disappearance?" she called out.

  Seaford gazed upward, organizing his thoughts. He sighed and looked straight at Addison. There was nothing of the angry man who had ranted at her about missing money two days before, nothing of the man who had been known to be more than a little vain about his appearance. This was simply a father who wanted his little girl back. For once, Addison wondered if Jaylynn was wrong—or if Seaford was a better actor than she gave him credit.

  "I don't know," he said simply. "I have to think that everything that's happened to me over the last few days has to do with Lyndzee's disappearance."

  "Even the half million dollars that's missing the college endowment fund?"

  Before he could answer, Winston Blytheman tottered up to the mike. "That's an internal matter for the college at this point. We do not believe Dr. Thorn is involved nor do we believe it is connected to the little girl's disappearance."

  “That’s a serious reversal of your previous position. When this investigation concludes —and I think I speak for everyone here that we hope it will be soon—does that mean the college will resume its own investigation of the missing funds?” she asked.

  Shaking his head to indicate he wouldn’t answer, Blytheman stepped back behind Seaford.

  “Mr. Blytheman, why won’t you answer my question?” Addison shot out. “Has the money been repaid? If it hasn’t, what is the next step in that investigation?”

  David Horatio stepped up to the microphone. “At this time of great sorrow for the Thorn family, we will not answer any questions regarding the missing endowment funds, except to say the college does not believe the two events are connected,” he said smoothly.

  Jaylynn, clutching a piece of paper in her visibly shaking hands, stepped up to the mike.

  "First let me say that I deeply appreciate the efforts of the police and volunteers who are searching for my daughter," Jaylynn's voice caught. Addison wondered if David Horatio had scripted her statement. "All we want is our baby back." She looked up from the piece of paper in her hand, her eyes cresting with tears. "Please, if you know anything about who has our baby, please, please, please tell the police or tell us or…or…" Sobs began to shake Jaylynn's shoulders. "We just want her home. Lyndzee, if you can hear us, baby, try to get away. Try to escape! We love you, baby and we want you home!"

  Seaford stepped up and laid his hand on his wife's shoulder. He tried to draw her close, pulling her into the perfect picture of two grieving parents. Instead Jaylynn pushed away from him, throwing her prepared remarks at him. With her hands over her mouth, she went running into the administration building, her sobs echoing along the walls.

  Chapter Eight

  Following the press conference announcing the FBI was coming to aid the JFPD, Addison went back to the mobile command post and stayed there until midnight, when the search was called off for the second night.

  She was waiting at the old school bus door when Assistant Chief McGinnis, rumpled from two straight days in uniform, stepped outside.

  "Gary, how's the search going? Can you give me something for tomorrow's edition?" Addison's pen was poised above her notebook.

  "We have yet to hear from any abductors, and we’ve yet to find any trace of Lyndzee once she left the carryout. We will begin the search again tomorrow morning at daybreak," said Gary McGinnis, exhaustion eating at the edge of his perfect-for-quoting words. He sighed and looked sideways at Addison, pain filling his eyes. "Off the record?"

  Addison nodded.

  "We've looked everywhere, Penny, absolutely fucking everywhere. This kid is nowhere to be found. Indy, our cadaver dog, can't even raise a scent. We've talked to the family several times, we've talked to the staff at the college and here at the carryout. Nobody's seen her— and we still can't find any one of those three suspects."

  "Nothing with the father, huh?"

  "I know what you're thinking, Penny, but he's clean. His marriage is in the shitter and his career at the college is probably over, but he's not a kidnapper."

  Addison laid an ink-stained hand on his arm. "We both need to go home and get some sleep."

  McGinnis nodded and Addison thought she saw tears cresting in his tired gray eyes. "Yeah."

  She went back into the office, banged out the story, and, as she sank into the wingback chair, Addison slipped her swollen feet out of her flat black loafers, propping them up on the small decorator table.

  God, what fresh hell could Jaylynn be going through right now? Addison wondered as she lit a cigarette. The pain of watching Jaylynn run back into the Golgotha administration building that afternoon was searing. What if my child was missing and I thought my husband had done it? I couldn't live with him—or myself… I couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose my daughter…

  With a start, Addison made a painful connection: I wonder how my own mother feels?

  The blue-gray smoke from her cigarette surrounded Addison as her memory drifted back into her own childhood and the mother she hadn't seen in more than forty years.

  Despite June's long absence, Penny Addison McIntyre still had some memories, not all of them bad. June had been around long enough to leave more than a taste that was both sweet and sour in Penny's memory.

  She remembered being a toddler held aloft in her mother's arms as June twirled around in the living room of a house at a location Addison could no longer remember.

  She did remember laughter—infantile giggling and June’s manic, hysterical cackle. June’s long red hair swirled behind her as mother and toddler spun. The wildness of her laughter, the feeling of abandon, of total freedom and the wind beneath Penny’s swinging legs encircled her as their laughter co-mingled in the room.

  “I love you I love you I love you, little Penny Addison,” June sang out as the duo went round and round.

  Did June remember that too? Addison wondered. Did it hurt her to think of it, like every memory Jaylynn Thorn had? What would it be like to not know if you'd ever see your child again? Did June mourn losing me, even after all these years? Addison wondered, inhaling sharply on her cigarette.

  But she also remembered dark, terrible days when June—she called her Momma then—wouldn’t speak to her or anyone else, sitting instead in an armchair near her bedroom window with the blinds closed, the glow of her cigarette the only light in the room. There was a glass on the arm of the overstuffed chair and a bottle of Kentucky bourbon at her feet. Her red hair would be dirty and hanging in greasy strands to her shoulders. There would be stains on her nightgown and the smell of whiskey and a pungent lack of soap.

  “Momma?” she’d asked, scared that something was wrong, something she’d done to make Momma not want to be around her.

  “Go away.”

  “Are you OK?”

  "Leave me alone."

  There would be a sigh, the sound of her sucking on her cigarette and then, silence. Penny quickly learned to close the door and leave her alone until the days of laughter returned.

  And when they did, there would be wild shopping trips where June bought her daughter all new clothes: new dresses, new jeans, new panties and undershirts and more shoes than she could ever wear in a month.

  Momma would buy herself clothes, too. If a pair of pants or a skirt or a suit flattered her thin figure—and it was hard not to— she'd get one in every color, till the salesclerks knew her by her first name and nearly fell over themselves to take her credit cards.

  Then they’d come home loaded with packages. Daddy would yell and Momma would laugh, then cry and all the pretty clothing went back to the stores and Penny saw how the salesclerks wouldn't be so nice to Mommy anymore.

  When she was older, she heard the stories of how Daddy had found Momma in the back seats of cars with other men or how she’d disappeared for two days and come home, wearing nothing but a rayon slip and another trooper’s yellow rain coat, clutching a bottle of Jim Beam in on
e fist.

  June liked to think she had a magic hold over these dupes and maybe she did, others told Addison later. They'd call her late at night or she'd slip out to meet them in bars after Penny had gone to sleep and Walt was working third shift. She'd call them “dahling'” like she was some sort of 1950s chanteuse and bat her eyes and smile. Then they'd buy her drinks and light her cigarette and she'd go out to their cars and screw. Then they'd call and beg for more and she'd laugh and hang up or, her lip curling in disgust, cut them to the quick.

  Then she was gone.

  At her big Victorian house, Grandma Addison converted the upstairs of the carriage house where she parked her old Hudson into a two-bedroom apartment. It only made sense that Walt and Penny live there. When Walt’s shift rotated to midnights, as it did until he became post commander, Penny could be tucked into the guest bedroom at Grandma’s and be up and having a good breakfast when Walt, wearing his patent-leather knee-high boots and the gray wide-brimmed hat of the Ohio State Highway Patrol came in from work, filling the doorway with his muscular frame.

  Addison stubbed out her cigarette and watched the smoke waft toward the ceiling.

  Where did my mother go? She wondered. Does my mother miss me?

  Her only answer, as sleep engulfed her, was a vision of Jaylynn Thorn pushing Walt Addison out of his mother’s door way and running into the night.

  ***

  "Hey."

  Addison jumped as she opened her eyes and saw Dennis Herrick standing over her, sliding his glasses up his nose. In his left hand, he held her office coffee mug filled with black coffee.

  "Jesus Christ, Dennis! You scared me to death!" She stood up and tried to brush the wrinkles from her clothing. "I spent the night here again, apparently."

  "You need to go home. You've been here three days straight."

  Addison nodded and took the coffee mug from Herrick's hand. "I know. Anything new?" They both knew she meant the Thorn case.