Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1)

by Debra Gaskill

  She’d gone back to the newsroom and sketched out the bare bones of her story on her office computer and, putting her head down on her desk, was able to doze a few hours before her cell phone rang.

  Now, she absently fingered her mother’s locket around her neck as she watched pairs of headlights drive past on their way out of town. Occasionally, a car would turn into the strip mall and, thinking McGinnis was pulling in, she would sit a little straighter. When the car didn’t stop, she’d slump back against the back of the booth, wondering why she’d agreed to this.

  “I could be back home in bed,” she said to herself. “Good God.”

  Finally, Gary’s Crown Victoria pulled up to the front of the restaurant; Addison waved as the assistant chief stepped through the glass door.

  “Hey, thanks for meeting me,” he said as he slid into the seat opposite her. The waitress, an overweight woman with greasy hair and bad skin, came from behind the counter, coffee pot in hand. “Decaf please. Bring me an order of scrambled eggs, a large order of bacon, a small orange juice and a slice of apple pie.”

  “Jesus, Gary.”

  “I missed dinner.”

  “I guess so. So, on the record, what’s the deal on the fire and the body?” Addison pulled her reporter’s notebook out of her purse and laid it on the table.

  “OK, Boderman’s going to shit, but I cleared this with my brother. This is on the record. This definitely was Roy Castlewheel and he definitely was dead before his body was dragged to the barn and set on fire. Sonengaard gave you the details on how he thinks the fire started. The state fire marshal will verify those details after his investigation.”

  “How did Castlewheel die?”

  “According to a preliminary autopsy, Bucky said our victim was beaten pretty badly and there was a gunshot wound to the back of his head. The wound was close range, execution style. There were bruises around his midsection and splinters in the back of his shirt.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We think there was a fight involving at least one other person that started in the house. We think they fell through that plywood window and whoever he was fighting with struck him with the rock, then shot him.” McGinnis leaned his head forward, indicating the location of the bullet wounds with his finger. “It looks like his attacker then rolled him up in the shower curtain and dragged him to the barn, where the fire was started.”

  You have positive confirmation on this guy’s identity?”

  “Yes. I notified his sister on the way over here.”

  “I’m sure she’s devastated,” Addison commented offhandedly as she continued writing.

  Gary shrugged. “Not really. She’s been expecting it for a few years. They hadn’t had much contact. We’d been looking at Castlewheel for a while for being a mule, bringing large quantities of crack cocaine into Jubilant Falls.”

  “Don’t you think that it’s strange two suspects in Lyndzee Thorn’s kidnapping have ended up shot dead and their bodies found in burning barns?”

  Gary had a moment to consider his answer as the waitress brought his plate. He dug his fork into the yellow eggs, shiny with grease, and took a few bites before he answered.

  “It certainly complicates things. There are footprints through the cornfield behind the barn and Boderman sent a couple of guys with dogs to follow them, but the scent stopped at the side of a road about two miles away from the scene.”

  “Like the killer got into a car or something?”

  Gary nodded as he took another bite of eggs.

  “There’s another thing, though—and this is off the record.”

  “Oh for Christ sake, Gary! You can’t do this to me!” Addison threw her pen down in disgust. “You get me out here in the middle of the goddamned night, tell me half the story and then go off the fucking record?”

  “Ssshhh!” McGinnis held his finger to his lips. “OK, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. But I know I can trust you, Penny. I know you’ll keep this under wraps.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Are you close to recovering Lyndzee—or her body? I know you’ve told the family the mission is shifting more from rescue to recovery at this point.”

  “Are we on or off the record?” Gary repeated.

  Addison sighed. “I want this girl back with her parents as badly as you do. Yes, I’ll go off the record.”

  “There’s some evidence that someone was held in that house. We think it might have been Lyndzee. We think she might still be alive.”

  Addison’s jaw hung open in disbelief. Almost automatically, she started asking rapid-fire questions. “Why do you say that? Does the family know? How can I go off the record with that? Gary, you’ve got to let me make that part of the story.”

  “I’m not prepared to say anything more right now.”

  “Oh come on. You know I’ll have to draw some sort of conclusion that two of the three original suspects in her kidnapping have both turned up dead. It’s too damn strange. Can I say that police may have found evidence at the scene tying Castlewheel to Lyndzee’s disappearance?” Addison began writing furiously.

  “You can say that much and I won’t get hung too bad.”

  “You’ve got to tell the Thorns before tomorrow’s paper.”

  “I will.”

  “And you cleared Talley, right?”

  “Why are you so concerned about that old wino?”

  “Because he’s basically harmless and I don’t think he had anything to do with anything.”

  “Investigators think he may have had something to do with the Kernenberger fire, that he may have been cooking with Sterno in the barn and it caused the fire, even though he says he has an alibi for that night. There’s too much against him, Penny. Dr. Thorn claims he threatened him. The girl’s shoe was in Lundgren’s camp. He claimed that he saw her, that she wandered into his camp and then left after he came into town to go Dumpster diving for their dinner. He’s disappeared once again and suddenly, the second suspect comes up dead and we’ve got us another barn fire. I think it’s awfully damned strange, Penny, awfully strange. That’s on the record—except the ‘damned’, of course.”

  “I don’t know. I just can’t see Talley, nutty as he is, trying to kidnap some little girl.”

  “I’ll just say he remains a person of interest to the FBI and the Jubilant Falls police.”

  “Have you looked at Seaford Thorn again? What about the girlfriend connection? I’ll go off the record for that one.”

  “He did tell us he was having an affair and he did say there was some difficulty ending it, but that letter was several months old. He said he and Jaylynn were working on reconciliation. He identified the woman as someone in the bursar’s office.”

  “And you believed him? Did you check the woman out?”

  “Off the record? Hell no, we don’t believe him. The woman in the bursar’s office checked out, but the wife is too angry to ever let than loser back into her life. If they are reconciling, I’m in the starting line up for the Cincinnati Reds.”

  Addison nodded. “I don’t know what it is, but somehow I think old Seaford had some connection to do with all this. I just can’t get away from that.”

  “Maybe your friendship with Jaylynn is coloring that belief.” Gary pointed at her with a slice of bacon, then took a few bites.

  “And maybe I’m right.” With a sweeping motion, Addison slid her notebook and her pen into her purse. “The story will run tomorrow about the fire. Are you guys going back out to the scene to do more investigating?”

  “Boderman’s got his panties in a twist, so his folks will be out there doing the crime scene investigation stuff. Seevers and Renfield will be on hand though.”

  “Maybe I’ll drop by.”

  “Go right ahead. Just be prepared for Boderman to do his usual song and dance, if he’s out there.”

  “I will.” Addison stood up, tossing a couple dollars on the table as she did.r />
  “And Penny, how’s your daughter doing?”

  “You heard.”

  “Yeah. She’s a tough kid, but she’s got a good mom behind her. She’s going to be OK.” He reached out and clasped her hand, friend to friend.

  “God, I hope so Gary. I really hope so.”

  Chapter 29

  The next morning, the story of the fire and its connection to the Thorn kidnapping ran with a huge 50-point headline: ‘Second Thorn Suspect Dead in Suspicious Blaze.’ A subhead proclaimed ‘Police believe Lyndzee Thorn could still be alive.’

  Addison tried to call Jaylynn after the paper went to press, but there was no answer. I hope Gary got in touch with her before this comes out, she thought.

  “Jesus God, you think people will have any trouble reading that?” Pat looked over her shoulder at a computer mock-up of the front page. “You didn’t use my photo of Gary McGinnis screaming at the sheriff, huh? And what did you do to piss them off so badly you got escorted from the scene?”

  “No—I thought the fire was more important than Boderman’s pissing match. I was just writing stuff down, that’s all. Boderman just went ballistic.”

  She looked up to see Marcus Henning enter the newsroom, a sheaf of police reports in his hand.

  “Yesterday was a busy day for everybody, I guess. You’re not going to believe this, but a Golgotha student got assaulted last night in front of her dorm,” he said, handing Addison the reports. “Looks like she got beat up pretty bad, but for some reason didn’t report it until she got to the hospital.”

  “You have got to be kidding me. I swear to God, when it rains it pours.” She scanned the reports. “Hey! Wait! That student who was assaulted was Tina Andersen, that little Nazi maid at the Thorn’s house.”

  She reread the report aloud, half to herself, half to the two men standing beside her. “Said she was assaulted by an unknown black man who was trying to steal her purse and her car. Hmmm… she apparently struggled with her attacker and fell, breaking her left arm on the pavement. She also suffered a number of bruises and a broken nose. My God, he really beat the shit out of her. She didn’t call campus security, but had the presence of mind to get in car and drive away? With a broken arm and a broken nose?”

  “If an unknown black man did that to her, then it’s the same unknown guy who stole Susan Smith’s car with her children in it way back when,” Pat said sarcastically.

  “Huh?” Marcus asked.

  “Remember the South Carolina woman, Susan Smith, who drowned her babies by letting the car they were in roll into the lake? Remember she originally claimed the car was stolen by an unknown black man?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that guy in Boston, Charles Stuart. He blamed his wife’s shooting on that same guy!” Addison pointed at Pat.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Marcus said.

  “Mr. Unknown Black Man gets blamed for a hell of a lot of white crime,” Pat arched his eyebrows.

  Marcus still looked confused.

  “Don’t you see?” Addison asked. “In both these cases, these suspects, these black men never existed. Both Stuart and Smith made their stories up! Susan Smith was the one who let her babies roll into the lake and hoped to get away with it by blaming it on a black man she’d never seen before. And Stuart had taken a pile of insurance policies out on his pregnant wife. I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut this is the same thing. There’s something fishy going on here.”

  “Huh?”

  Addison jumped up from her chair, notebook in hand. “Marcus, think about it. How many African-Americans live in Jubilant Falls?”

  “Not very many. There’s more Mexicans coming in to work the farms than any other minority group.”

  “Exactly. And how often do we report cars stolen on campus?”

  “Not very often.”

  “And if your car was being stolen, would you fight back?”

  “No. The guy could have a gun. He could kill me.”

  “Right. If you had any sense, you’d turn over your keys—and, if you were a woman, your purse. That’s why we have insurance, right?”

  “Right.”

  “OK, so some little Jesus freak takes on some big black guy over a—what is it? A 1988 Toyota? C’mon! Supposedly, the college physician, Rachel Wiseman, treated her when she showed up at her house and then took her to the emergency room. Miss Tina was released to her afterwards. I think something is going on. I may be wrong, I may be going completely off on a wild goose chase, but either way, I’ve got to find out.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” Marcus asked.

  “Then we’ve got the first story of the year on Golgotha campus crime. David Horatio says that never happens here and if nothing else, I’m about to prove him wrong.”

  ***

  Protocol demanded that Addison first check in with Horatio before contacting any member of the Golgotha College staff, but that was the last thing on her mind as she drove toward the small group of brick townhouses behind the college that regularly rented to married students or staff members.

  Rachel Wiseman rented one of those townhouses, according to the address listed on the police report and Addison was betting that she had Tina there under her care.

  The townhouses lined both sides of the cul-de-sac a block away from the college. Each had concrete stoops with three steps and wrought iron railings. Each tiny lawn was perfectly manicured. Only different colored shutters or individual touches like flowerpots or front door wreaths differentiated one townhouse from another.

  Only Rachel Wiseman’s lacked any of these personal touches, Addison noted as she knocked on the door. White Venetian blinds hung in the front window, drawn against the mid-day summer sun.

  Addison waved at Wiseman as the doctor peeked from behind the blinds. Two dead bolts slid back with a metallic thunk, and the door swung open.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Wiseman. She was wearing a sleek peach top, spandex-tight black pants and black flats.

  “May I come in? I’m here about the assault of Tina Andersen.” Addison elbowed her way past Wiseman and into the front room. She gazed across the large room, taking in the white leather sofa with chrome arms, and a red chair in the same modern style, its shiny chrome legs on the edge of a fuzzy white area rug. A glass-and-chrome coffee table stood on the rug, adorned with an upswept piece of yellow glass sculpture and a large art book of Monet prints. Toward the back of the room was a glass-topped dining room table topped by a modern multicolored ceramic candelabra and circled by yellow upholstered chairs. A modern fireplace, framed with brass and dark glass doors, was built into the wall behind the dining room table.

  That’s odd, Addison thought. Everyone who works for the college has a picture of Jesus hanging somewhere real obvious or a cross by the door. This place has all the warmth of a furniture store window. Scanning the room again, she caught site of a large battered white Bible, the kind you keep the family genealogy in, leaning against the sofa.

  “What do you want?” Wiseman pushed her small black eyeglasses up her nose and placed her hands on her hips defensively.

  “I just saw a police report that said one of Golgotha’s students, Tina Andersen came to you for medical treatment following an attempted car theft. I was wondering if she was here and if either one of you would talk to me about it for a story,” Addison smiled ingratiatingly.

  “It’s all right. I’ll talk.” A female voice came from the top of the stairs.

  Addison looked up to see Andersen standing on the top step, one arm in a sling and the other holding the banister. Both eyes were black and her nostrils were stuffed with cotton. She had on a cotton granny-style nightgown and white socks. Addison could see bruises on her thin white legs as she came demurely down the stairs.

  “You don’t have to say a word. That is, if you don’t want to,” Dr. Wiseman put her hands protectively on Andersen’s shoulders.

  “Oh, no, no. I don’t mind. If there’s someone out there
targeting college students, it would be wrong of me to not tell my story,” Tina smiled wanly. “I just need to sit down for a few minutes.” She made her way over to the couch and sat down beside the bible curling her bruised legs underneath. Wiseman perched behind her on the chrome arm of the couch.

  Addison sat down across from Tina and pulled out her notebook and pen from her purse. “So tell me what happened.”

  Tina took a deep breath and, running the fingers of her good hand across the top of the battered bible, smiled at Addison. “Well, it was late at night and I was coming home from the library. I have a final on Monday in Old Testament History and I was studying late. It wasn’t much of a drive across campus and I probably could have walked, but I’d worked all day at Dr. Thorn’s house.”

  “How is Mrs. Thorn coping these days?” interjected Addison.

  “Not well. She’s, she’s…” Tina looked up at Wiseman.

  “She’s devastated of course,” Wiseman spoke up. “Dr. Thorn is very concerned Lyndzee’s disappearance may lead to a relapse of Mrs. Thorn’s substance abuse problems, so we are monitoring her very closely. Addiction is a terrible disease.”

  “Fighting powerful demons requires powerful weapons,” Tina murmured.

  Addison scribbled in her notepad. “So after studying late at night, you drove from the library across campus to the parking lot in front of your dorm. Then what happened?”

  “I was getting my books out of the back seat when this big black man came up behind me. He stuck a gun in my back and told me that—”

  “What was he wearing? I can’t remember what the police report said.”

  “Um, I-I’m not sure. He was behind me.”

  “But he hit you in the nose, obviously. You didn’t see him when he was throwing that punch?”

  “Not really. I mean, it all happened so fast.“

  “Something else I have a question about. I don’t know many people who can hit someone in the nose when they’re standing behind him or her. Isn’t that what the police report said?”

  “Now, didn’t he push you down? Maybe that was when you broke your nose,” Wiseman offered.