Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1)

by Debra Gaskill

  “So that was how it happened? He knocked you over?” Addison sensed that the girl’s story wasn’t fitting together and she kept shooting out questions, waiting for half an answer, then firing another question, trying to confuse the girl.

  “Yes. And then he tried to grab my purse, but I held on to it.”

  “So this unknown black man dragged you then?”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw your legs were bruised when you sat down, but there’s no scratches, no abrasions.”

  “My jeans were pretty torn up when I got to Dr. Wiseman’s house. They got the worst of the deal, I’m afraid.” Tina smiled weakly. She reached over and pulled the bible into her lap, clutching in close to her thin chest. “God was looking out for me.”

  “Uh-huh. Did this black man get your purse? Did he say anything?”

  “Just ‘give me the car and your purse.’ He had a real deep voice.”

  “And you struggled with him? He had a gun?”

  “Well, I never saw the gun. I just know that he stuck something in the back of my head.”

  “I thought the report said he stuck the gun in your back.” Addison looked up from her notebook. A brief look of panic shot from Wiseman to Andersen, then quickly disappeared.

  “I’m sorry,” Tina said sweetly. “I meant my back. I’m still kind of in shock that this whole thing happened. I never really saw a gun. It could have been a toy for all I know. We struggled for a while, we fell down and that’s when I broke my arm and my nose. Then he ran away. I got in the car and came here to Dr. Wiseman’s house.”

  “Did you scream? Did you make any noise at all? If you did, why didn’t anybody come to your aid?”

  “I-I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t hear me.” Tina’s voice wavered.

  “I know that when any woman is attacked, most can scream pretty damn loudly. I can’t imagine all that commotion going on in the parking lot of a Christian college and no one coming to your aid. They don’t teach the parable of the good Samaritan here?”

  “Now that’s not fair!” Tina struggled to her feet, still clutching the bible. “I don’t have to take this abuse! I’m the victim here! I’m the one who had to struggle with this, this crack-addicted animal! I’m the victim here!”

  “How do you know your assailant was a drug addict?”

  “I don’t know that for sure. I’m just assuming that he wanted my car or my purse to go buy drugs!”

  “Did he say anything to that effect?”

  “Mrs. McIntyre, as the college physician, I have to say that this line of questioning is certainly very harsh,” Wiseman was calm and collected. “My patient is not up to this kind of harassment.”

  “Maybe you can help me then? What happened to her clothes when she came over here? Why did she come here instead of going directly to the hospital or calling the police? Why didn’t you call the police, Dr. Wiseman? Do you have a cell phone, Miss Andersen? Could you have called the police from your dorm? There’s an awful lot that isn’t adding up in this incident.”

  “I think this interview is over.” Wiseman rose and walked toward the door, Addison right behind her.

  “Is it a possibility that Miss Andersen is covering up for an abusive boyfriend?” Addison turned to Tina, who with her good arm was leaning on the back of a yellow dining room chair. She laid the bible on the glass-topped table.

  “Oh, please,” Andersen rolled her eyes. She’d lost her sweet demure pose. Despite her injured face, Addison could see her eyes were the hard and angry eyes of a zealot. “Fornication is a sin.”

  “Just one more question, Dr. Wiseman. Were you ever sexually involved with Dr. Seaford Thorn?”

  Chapter 30

  “Of course not. Don’t be—” Wiseman stopped and turned to face her patient. Tina Andersen was making an odd hissing sound, like an angry snake.

  “Oh, stop it. I’ve about had it with you and your holier-than-thou attitude.”

  “Let he who is without sin…” Andersen said slowly.

  “And you’d certainly know about that, wouldn’t—“ she stopped, turning sharply to face to Addison. “If this allegation comes out print, then I will sue you and that rag of yours for slander, do you understand me? I have never been sexually involved with Dr. Seaford Thorn, nor would I ever consider such a thing. I find that offensive both as a woman and as a Christian.”

  Addison nodded curtly. “I think I’ve got all the information I need, thanks.”

  Her mind churning with ideas, she walked quickly to her car. There wouldn’t be any story, outside of a small two or three paragraph brief, for tomorrow’s police blotter. Like it or not, assaults such as Tina’s weren’t all that out of the ordinary in certain other areas of town. What made this noteworthy was the connection to the college.

  Addison rolled down the window to let the pent-up midday heat escape before she slipped into her car. In a few seconds, the air conditioner was cranking out a breeze to rival any butcher shop’s meat locker. Addison rolled her window back up and pulled away from the curb, heading back to the newsroom. Her mind continued to work as she drove.

  Something deep down told her there was a connection between these two women, more so than just a physician and a college student. Why would this humorless little maid be staying at the doctor’s townhouse and not curled up in her own dorm room? Miserable as she looked—however her wounds occurred, there was no doubt Tina got the shit beat out of her—there was no need for her to have continuous care. Plummer County Hospital had released her, after all. Why would Dr. Wiseman keep her at her house? Their sharp exchange didn’t indicate any deep or abiding friendship. Was there something one of them had over the other that forced this unlikely relationship to continue?

  And what happened to Tina’s clothes? If her attacker dragged her, she would have had some sort of red marks or abrasions on her legs or arms and only bruises showed on her thin white legs, even if the jeans she claimed to be wearing took the worst of the abuse. Why was she wearing that nightgown? Was it hers? Was it Wiseman’s? Addison actually couldn’t see the sleek, fashionable doctor wearing anything so frumpy.

  And Wiseman’s reaction to the question about Seaford was a little weird as well. Anyone else who wasn’t involved with him would have laughed off the accusation, or at least be less knee-jerk in their reaction.

  Maybe Jaylynn could shed some light on this. Addison pulled over to the curb and pulled her cell phone from her purse, tapping in the phone number with thumb. Jaylynn’s private phone rang once.

  “Jaylynn? It’s me Addison.”

  “Addie, how can you do this to me?” Jaylynn wailed, her voice choked with tears.

  “Do what?” Addison was confused.

  “Your story! It said that the police think Lyndzee is still alive!”

  “Well shit. The police were supposed to talk to you and tell you! I talked to Gary McGinnis late last night and he said he was going to get in touch with you. He didn’t call you?”

  “No he didn’t call me! And I find out about my baby from the front page of the newspaper?” Jaylynn broke down in sobs.

  “Jaylynn, I’m so sorry. I tried to call after the paper went to press, just to make sure, but there wasn’t any answer.“

  “I went to the emergency room. Tina Andersen got assaulted.” Jaylynn blew her nose and sniffed. “Even though she’s been absolutely hateful to me, I had to go see her when Dr. Wiseman called me.”

  “Rachel Wiseman called you this morning from the emergency room?”

  “Yes.”

  “The police report said she was assaulted late last night.” The police report must have just been processed and Marcus must have picked it up almost immediately for us to have it by this morning, Addison thought.

  “Yes. For some reason she went to Dr. Wiseman’s home before going to the hospital.”

  “All night long? And why would Rachel Wiseman call you to tell you?”

  Jaylynn thought for a moment. “Maybe because she works in our ho
use? Maybe because—oh, I don’t know.”

  “There’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense,” Addison said. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Are you alone? Where’s Seaford?”

  “He’s at police headquarters. He was pretty angry when he saw the paper.”

  “I’m sorry. Gary assured me he’d call. I wouldn’t have run that story without telling you first. Can you meet me for a cup of coffee? I’m real close. I can pick you up or you could meet me somewhere.”

  “I’m alone, for once. Just come on over.”

  Within minutes, Addison was at the door of the big white house, listening to the sonorous doorbell echo through the entryway.

  Jaylynn opened the door and the two women embraced without words. There were dark circles under Jaylynn’s eyes and her normally well-coiffed shoulder-length hair was flat and stringy from lack of shampoo. She motioned and Addison followed her up the wide curving staircase and down the hall to her solitary bedroom, a guest room containing twin beds covered in matching ruffled and flowered lilac bedspreads.

  A suitcase was open on one of the twin beds. Jaylynn’s clothing was strewn across the floor and across the other bed. A cigarette butt floated in a dainty porcelain teacup on the nightstand between the beds. A battered New Testament bound in brown leather lay open beside the cup, its thin onionskin pages puckered where Jaylynn’s tears had fallen.

  “You’re leaving.”

  Jaylynn nodded mutely. “I can’t stand this anymore, Addie,” she said, sadly. “Every day, I wake up, thinking this is going to be the day that Lyndzee comes back to me. Then something happens like Chief McGinnis tells us that they think she’s dead, that we’ll be lucky to find a body. Then a few days later I read in the paper they may have proof that she’s still alive.” Jaylynn opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Her hands shaking, she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, exhaling toward the ceiling. Her jeans had a torn knee and her tee shirt was stained. Jaylynn didn’t look like any college president’s wife Addison had ever met. In fact, she looked like just exactly what she was, a struggling addict from the wrong side of the Georgia railroad tracks.

  “Been smoking in the house long?” Addison remembered the surreptitiousness of their smokes on the back porch just a few weeks ago. It all seemed like a scene from a previous life.

  Hard to believe that a week ago everything had been so different. She’d been here for iced tea and cheesecake, listening to a woman’s story about how her marriage was crumbling and who was in fear that her estranged husband was going to take her only daughter from her. Addison had been confident that he wasn’t going to do any such thing, but she’d also been confident that everything back at her own home was just fine, too.

  Now, nothing was the same in either of their lives. Addison wondered how Isabella was doing. Duncan was knocking at their daughter’s bedroom door to wake her up for the morning’s milking when Addison, running on just a couple hours of sleep, had called her goodbyes through the bedroom door before returning to the newsroom. She’d heard her groggy daughter call out “Bye. Love you, too,” and, without further thought, run out the door.

  Jaylynn smirked. “I don’t care anymore. I look like a white trash crack whore. Seaford told me that last night. Said I’ve looked like one for days.”

  “Isn’t that warm and fuzzy? Is that why he’s had his two little Rottweilers on your ass?”

  “I can’t go out looking like this, he said. He tells them that he’s worried I’ll relapse, but I know that’s not it at all. He doesn’t want his precious image to be tarnished.”

  “Have you told him you’re leaving?”

  “Well, until the paper came out this morning, I figured there wasn’t any sense in my staying, that I could call a cab any time and just go to the airport. For once, his precious image wouldn’t matter. I figured I’d go back to Suwanee Bend, and then have the police call me when they’d…” Jaylynn’s eyes filled with tears and she looked at the ceiling. “…When it was time to bury my baby.”

  Addison reached out and clasped her friend’s hand. “Listen, they have evidence she may still be alive. Gary wouldn’t tell me what, but if you can hang on for a little bit longer…”

  “And what if they’re wrong, Addie? What if they’re wrong?” Jaylynn demanded. “I can’t stand this roller coaster! If I get more bad news, I’m going to go over the edge. I know I’ll fall off the wagon and no one could blame me if I did.” She opened the drawer again and pulled out a plastic amber bottle. “See these? This is Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication. Dr. Wiseman wants me to take two or three of these a day, but I’m too scared I’ll end up taking seven or eight at a time, just to keep the devil at bay—or end all my misery. And what good would that do my baby girl if she’s still alive? So I just sit in here, read my Scriptures, smoke cigarettes and wait for the phone to ring.”

  Addison sighed and hung her head. “I need you to tell me something. Do you know if Seaford was ever involved with Rachel Wiseman? Or Tina Andersen?”

  Jaylynn shook her head. “Anymore, I have no idea. I don’t think that he would ever go after a student, but with everything else that’s happened, I couldn’t say. Besides, Tina’s parents are missionaries in Ghana, what I would have called real Bible pounders once upon a time. I’ve never known a young woman to be so humorless.”

  “If she was raised in Ghana, what kind of environment would she have lived in? Would she need to learn how to protect herself?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, she’s always talked about what a crack shot she is.”

  “Really. That’s interesting. Does she own a gun?”

  “If she does, she’s not allowed to have it on campus.”

  “Oh, please. Like that would stop someone. Could Seaford have been involved with Dr. Wiseman?”

  “I’ve seen him give her the once over a couple times, but honestly, I don’t think he would. She’s one cold fish and he likes his women to have a little personality.”

  “Who do you think that letter was from? The one that you brought to my house?”

  “Seaford told me that he was seeing the assistant bursar Judy Lindeman for a while, but I went down to the administration building to see if I could get a look at her and I think she wasn’t his type.” Jaylynn wrinkled her nose. “She was a little pudgy and I know Seaford likes his women thin.” She patted her own slim hips, her cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth. “What do you think kept me on a perpetual diet these last ten years?”

  “Well, unfortunately, the police talked with her and she confirmed it.”

  “Figures. Bastard.” Jaylynn dropped her cigarette into the half-filled teacup and ran her fingers through her hair. “’Till death do us part:’ he takes that real seriously, doesn’t he?”

  “But you don’t think he’s ever done anything with Rachel Wiseman.”

  Jaylynn shrugged. “I don’t really know. He’s probably done everything on campus that wears a skirt.”

  “What do you know about Judy Lindeman?”

  “Well, I know she’s a single mother and she’s got a bit of a vicious streak in her. Staff comes and goes through that bursar’s office because of her vindictiveness. I hear she’s not a church-going Christian, but she’s very good at what she does. I’ve been told—so I don’t know any of this first hand—that she’s a real good time and then, if you rub her the wrong way, she can be nasty.”

  “Like sending the wife of your former lover one of his mushy letters?”

  Jaylynn arched her eyebrows as Addison continued with her hypothesis.

  “I think that whoever is behind Lyndzee’s kidnapping is one of Seaford’s scorned lovers. And I think it was why you got that letter. Whoever it was wanted you to see that.”

  “That’s what the police said.”

  “Let me ask you something else. I’m not sure if Tina Andersen’s assault has anything to do with Lyndzee’s kidnapping but I think there’s something odd going on there, too. Tel
l me what Dr. Wiseman said when she called this morning.”

  Jaylynn rattled off the same details Addison had read in the police report: an unknown black male had tried to steal her purse and her car, they’d fought, he escaped and she’d driven to Wiseman’s townhouse despite her injuries.

  “You didn’t think it was strange that she’d gone to Dr. Wiseman’s before she either called the police or went to the hospital?”

  “I did, but then I didn’t think anything of Dr. Wiseman treating her first. That’s her job, maintaining the student health service. She’s a doctor, after all.”

  “Even though she’d chosen to treat her at home rather than transport her to the hospital?”

  Jaylynn shrugged. “I didn’t know how badly she was hurt until I saw her at the hospital.”

  “What was Tina wearing when she was at the emergency room?”

  “Just one of those awful hospital gowns.”

  “Did you see her clothes at the ER, like in a corner or on a chair or something?”

  Jaylynn thought for a moment. “You know, now that you mention it, no, I didn’t.”

  “I wonder if the police have them?” Addison wondered aloud.

  “I’ll bet they do.”

  “Then I think that’s my next stop.” She reached out and hugged Jaylynn. “I’ll let you know what’s happening.”

  Chapter 31

  Addison’s cell phone buzzed in the bottom of her purse as she slipped her keys into the ignition of her Taurus. It was Dennis Herrick, calling from the newsroom.

  “What’s going on, Dennis?” she asked.

  “I’ve got something you might be interested in. Remember when you talked to Rachel Wiseman’s former employers? The guys in Maine and Indianapolis, who wouldn’t tell you anything about her?”

  “Oh, God, that’s right! I forgot all about that!” Addison took her notebook out of her purse and began to take notes, her cell phone cradled on her shoulder. “Our dear doctor just denied she’s ever slept with Seaford Thorn, but she does have that history of falling for married men.”