Murder on the Lake of Fire

by Mikel J. Wilson

  Emory was unable to conceal a grin at the nickname bestowed upon him. “Hi Dan.”

  Sheriff Rome clapped his hands once. “Thank y’all for coming.”

  As if they had designated a speaker ahead of time, the male Claymons looked to Abigail, the matriarch, in her denim dress, faux rabbit coat and galoshes. “You’re welcome, Sheriff, but we’re a bit confused about what we’re doing here.”

  Sheriff Rome and Emory had discussed the need to put them at ease, which could help minimize the effort needed to separate them, so the sheriff spoke in his folksiest tone. “Well, we just wanted to talk to Dan some more about Britt.”

  Abigail’s eyes squished together, and her pallid skin flushed. “We want nothing more to do with that horrible family.”

  Dan scowled at the sheriff. “I already talked to you anyway.”

  Emory adopted his father’s tone and mannerisms, relaxing his shoulders and adding a little extra twang to his enunciation. “We’ve had some more questions come up that we were hoping you could help us with, if you don’t mind, since you knew Britt so well. It would really help us out.” He waved his left arm toward the interrogation room.

  The Claymon men looked at Abigail, who huffed and nodded. As the family followed Emory, the sheriff acted like he had a last-minute thought. “Charlie, could I speak with you alone for a minute?”

  Without a word, Charlie let his wife and son go with Emory while he followed the sheriff to the break room.

  In the interrogation room, Emory sat in a folding chair across a white portable banquet table from Dan and Abigail. The teenager hunched forward with his forearms resting on the tabletop, while his mother rested against the back of her chair, her shoulders at attention.

  The special agent started by introducing himself to the matriarch. “Mrs. Claymon, my name is Emory Rome. I’m with—”

  Abigail put her hand up to interrupt him. “Rome? Are you any relation to the sheriff?”

  Although he was uncomfortable with sharing personal information, he believed answering would get them started on the right foot. “He’s my father. I’m a special agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and we’re here looking into the murders of Britt Algarotti and now Rick Roberts.”

  “Mr. Roberts?” Abigail placed a hand on her son’s forearm. “My son certainly had no reason to kill Mr. Roberts!”

  Dan pushed off the table with a sideways glance at his mother. “He didn’t say that.”

  Defensive tears pooled in her eyes. “You think I don’t know what people are saying? He loved that girl. He would’ve never hurt her. It’s not in him!”

  Dan touched his mother’s hand to calm her before turning his attention to Emory. “We dated for eight months. I loved her.” His head dropped. “Now, I can’t even go to her funeral.”

  “Why not?”

  “Victor had that asshole assistant of his call me up to let me know that my presence would not be welcomed.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. So why did you and Britt break up?” The teenager looked down at the table in silence. “Was it because your dad was let go from the water factory?”

  “He wasn’t let go,” Dan said, mocking Emory’s tone. “He was fired over a lie! Dad never took anything from anyone that wasn’t rightfully his. Britt wouldn’t even defend him. She said she didn’t want to get in the middle of it. Can you believe that? She sat at our dinner table a hundred times. She knew my dad, and she refused to defend him. I guess it’s easy for someone with money to sit on the sidelines while others struggle to get by.”

  Abigail touched her son’s shoulder. “He didn’t do it.”

  Emory kept his focus on Dan. “Didn’t you confront Mr. Algarotti about the firing?”

  Abigail came to his defense. “Of course not.” She looked at Dan and her assuredness seemed to evaporate. “Dan?”

  “I just wanted him to listen to me, to realize what he was doing to us.” Dan’s eyes glistened as a tear dripped down his cheek. “Where’s Dad supposed to go when the place he’s worked at for eleven years called him a thief? Nowhere! Mr. Algarotti will deny it, but I know the only reason they singled out my dad, without any proof whatsoever, was because he didn’t like the fact that the son of one his employees was dating his daughter. That’s why I went to see him. I told him that I would never talk to Britt again if he would give my dad his job back. Mr. Algarotti just blew me off.”

  “Is that when you threatened him with a knife?”

  Over his mother’s gasp, Dan insisted, “It wasn’t a knife. I picked up a letter opener from the desk.”

  Abigail dropped her hand from her mouth. “Daniel.”

  Dan slapped the table. “I did it for dad.”

  “He wouldn’t want you—”

  “I know. I know. I wasn’t thinking. Agent Emory, I’ve done some stupid things, but I’ve never killed anyone. No matter how angry I got. I was pissed at Britt, sure, but I would’ve never laid a hand on her. I loved her.”

  In the small break room of the sheriff’s station, Charlie Claymon sat with his forearms resting on a round table and two vending machines at his back. He wiped away his black stocking hat to reveal dark brown hair, thinning at the crown, and he squeezed the hat as he told Sheriff Rome, “I don’t know how much more I can say about it. What would I get by stealing bottled water? We drink well water and always have.”

  The sheriff said, “You could’ve sold it.”

  “Are you kidding?” Charlie buried the dirty fingers of his left hand into his hefty beard somewhere in the vicinity of his jawline, grating the silence as he scratched his face. With flourishes of grey in the mats of brown hair, the beard seemed tangled in his leaden wool jacket and the top buttons of his mottled brown shirt like Spanish moss draped on an oak tree. When his fingers reemerged and returned to the table, he again spoke. “All the water that was stolen probably adds up to about five or six hundred dollars. That’d be nice to have, but it ain’t worth losing my job over.”

  “No one ever saw you take it. Maybe you thought you were too good to get caught.”

  “No one saw me ’cause I didn’t do it! They blamed it on me since I was the last one on the docks when they went missing. That ain’t proof! That’s circumcisional.”

  A snicker snuck from the sheriff’s mouth before he could stop it.

  Charlie jerked his head back. “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m sorry.” Sheriff Rome got ahold of himself. “I think you meant circumstantial.”

  “Whatever you call it. Anyway, if someone was looking to sell it, who would be crazy enough to buy bottled water from the back of a truck?”

  “You got me there. I have no idea.” The sheriff shifted his body forward to lean on the table. “Listen, the missing water isn’t really why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Well then, what is it?”

  “Charlie, how angry are you at being fired?”

  Charlie leaned forward, glaring at the sheriff. “What kind of question is that?” He pounded a fist on the table.

  Although Charlie’s face was now a few uncomfortable inches from his own, Sheriff Rome didn’t alter his expression or scoot back. “Were you angry enough to take it out on…Britt Algarotti?”

  Charlie’s bushy eyebrows met over his bloodshot eyes. “What are you asking? Now I’m being accused of murdering that girl? Did Mr. Algarotti say that?” He jerked his body out of the chair, sending the back of it slamming against one of the vending machines – the glass of which would’ve broken if the chair had been of sturdier make. He pounded his fist on the table again. “I ain’t a thief, and I ain’t a murderer! If I was gonna get revenge on anyone, I would’ve done it on him or that damn foreman. Not some girl. Don’t try pinning that on me!”

  Charlie Claymon stormed into the interrogation room and threw open the door, roaring at his family members, “We’re leaving! Come on.”

  Abigail and Dan didn’t say another word. They followed Charlie from the room, and a moment later t
he three exited the trailer.

  Sheriff Rome asked his son, “Well?”

  “I’m kind of torn. I don’t think Dan had anything to do with the murders, but I’m not certain enough to eliminate him as a suspect.”

  “Well, I’m certain about Charlie.”

  Emory looked at his father, as if he were about to reveal Charlie as the murderer.

  “He’s not the water thief.”

  One corner of Emory’s lips pinched into his cheek. “Is he a murderer?”

  The sheriff thought about it for a second. “I can’t answer that. A man accused and punished for something he didn’t do…” He shook his head.

  Emory glanced at his watch and realized that he needed to leave if he were going to catch the last bus to Knoxville. “Dad, I have to head out.”

  “You’re not staying?”

  “Wayne’s picking me up,” Emory answered – a half-lie since Wayne would be picking him up from the bus station once he arrived in Knoxville.

  One of the desk phones rang, and the sheriff saw there was no around to answer it. “I better get that.”

  Emory took the opportunity to leave. “You’re busy. I’m going to wait for him outside.”

  “Okay, Son. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be here.” Emory waved to him once before walking out the door and hurrying to the bus station.

  CHAPTER 20

  AS THE BUS pulled into the Knoxville station, Emory spotted Wayne’s decade-old, garish-green SUV in the parking lot. Stepping onto the pavement, he buttoned his denim jacket and rammed his hands into the pockets. I think it’s colder here than it was in Barter Ridge, even without the snow. Hurrying to the frog mobile, he could see the grin on Wayne’s face before he opened the passenger door, and once he did, he heard the laughter.

  “I’m sorry, mister, but the posse’s gathering at the ranch.”

  “I blame you for this.” Emory pointed to his clothes with both hands. “You left me there.”

  “What, you look fine…partner. I can’t remember ever seeing you without a suit on.” He turned the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, still laughing.

  Emory forced a change in subject. “Where’s my car?”

  “I parked it at the office last night and had Mandy pick me up.”

  “How’d your court date go?”

  “It went all right. The defense attorney tried his best to trip me up, but I held my own. So you said you talked to the boyfriend again?”

  “I did, and Dad talked to his father.”

  “His father? Why?”

  Emory filled him in on the conversations with the Claymons, the water theft and the potassium permanganate’s use in bottled water manufacturing, but he kept quiet about his trip to the water factory. Once apprised, Wayne grunted twice. “Looks to me like if we find the thief, we find the killer.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “What? That’s a logical assumption.”

  Emory averted his glare by keeping his eyes fixed on the passing buildings. “They could be parallel lines.”

  “Okay, you’re saying that like I should immediately understand where you’re going, but I have no idea what you mean.”

  “When do parallel lines intersect?” asked Emory.

  “Parallel lines? They don’t.”

  “That’s all I’m saying. Events that happen simultaneously aren’t necessarily related. I mean, unless you consider time the relation.”

  Wayne slapped the steering wheel with each word when he asked, “What in the holy hell are you saying?”

  Emory had to look at him now. “Remember the murder of that college football player? We spent most of the time investigating his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend because she had a restraining order on him.”

  “It was a reasonable assumption that he had something to do with the murder.”

  “It was right to look into him, but our focus on that one possibility obscured the fact that the evidence suggested a female killer. I think we would’ve caught his cuckoo neighbor sooner if we had let ourselves take a three-sixty view of his world.”

  Wayne’s voice grew aggressive as he grumbled, “You thought we were on the right track too.”

  Emory remembered it another way. The younger agent had been with the TBI for two months when they were assigned the case, and he wasn’t yet confident enough to question Wayne’s investigative process. Instead of arguing right now, Emory decided to ease the building tension in the car. “You’re right.”

  The statement seemed to deescalate the tension, as Wayne’s voice softened. “I’m still putting my money on the water thief.”

  “That’s fine, but I’m not ready to make that connection yet.”

  “What about the butterfly effect?”

  Emory frowned at his reflection in the side window. That’s random. “What about it?”

  “You know, an event that seems like it’s not related to another turns out to be.”

  Emory nodded to appease him. “So what happened with Rick’s wife?”

  Wayne chuckled, “She’s a…What do you call those women who date young guys?”

  “A cougar.”

  “Yeah, she’s a cougar.” He grinned as he said the word. “Get this, her new boyfriend is a former student of her husband’s.”

  “A skater?”

  “No, he said he had him for science class.” Wayne released a bellowing laugh before delivering his impending joke, “And then she had him for recess.”

  Emory half-laughed to be polite, and then it struck him. “Science.”

  “What about it?”

  “I thought he looked familiar. Rick Roberts was a chemistry teacher in high school when I went there.”

  “You mean you’re just now remembering him? High school was like last year for you.” Emory’s age was a wellspring of derision for Wayne, one that never elicited more than a polite smile from his partner.

  My god, has he got the giggles? “I wasn’t in his class, so he wasn’t that familiar to me.”

  “Now that you mention it, I’m surprised you don’t know everyone involved in this case. You did grow up in that little town.”

  “I was an introverted kid, and I wasn’t popular.” The admission stung more than Emory realized it would. “I do remember wishing I were in Rick Roberts’ class. He always took his top students to the state science fair. Mrs. Cooper, my crappy science teacher, taught line-for-line from the textbook and never did anything to encourage her students with scientific ambitions.”

  “You wanted to be a scientist?”

  Emory pulled away from the conversation when he realized he had shared more about himself in the past few minutes than he had in the previous year. “Just a fleeting interest.”

  “I think it was more than that. The pretty boy dreamed of being a nerd.” Wayne laughed yet again.

  Wayne’s amusement aggravated Emory, who took a vow of silence for the remaining few minutes to the TBI station. When Wayne pulled up to Emory’s parked car, the younger special agent didn’t wait for the car to come to a complete stop before he opened the door and prepared to step outside.

  “Are you going back there this weekend?”

  “Probably.”

  Wayne frowned as he handed Emory’s keys back. “Well, don’t crack the case without me.”

  Emory recognized the contemptuous countenance before him now. Wayne was annoyed over the fact that he didn’t stop working at five o’clock on Fridays when he had an open case to solve. Saturday and Sunday were family days for Wayne, a scheduling conflict his partner didn’t share. “I can’t promise you that.”

  “Whatever.” Wayne offered an apathetic wave. “I’ll see you on Monday, but keep me posted on any developments.”

  Emory shut the door. Waiting for Wayne to drive away toward the setting sun, he went inside the building instead of getting into his car.

  Apart from two other special agents working at their desks, the office was quiet. Once seated in
front of his computer, Emory logged in and opened the portal to the Tennessee Fusion Center, an information-sharing program among state and federal law enforcement agencies. He visited the Homeland Security section and searched for Jeffrey Woodard on the TSA no-fly list. Sure enough, he found the name, but when he clicked on it, the reason given for his inclusion was, “[Redacted].”

  “That’s odd.” Emory spoke as he typed the words, “Why is this information redacted?”

  The computer responded with the text, "Insufficient security clearance."

  “Crap.”

  CHAPTER 21

  WEARING A NIGHTGOWN, Lula Mae was brushing her hair in the master bathroom when she saw her husband sitting at the foot of the bed, putting on his boots. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to drive by the water factory one more time.”

  “But it’s so late.”

  “That’s the point, Lula Mae. All the thefts occurred at night.”

  “I thought you already knew who the thief was.”

  “I’m rethinking that. I’m positive they pointed the finger at the wrong guy, which means whoever it is, he’s still out there.” He stood and gave her a kiss. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Be careful, Nick.”

  Jeff was cleaning off his kitchen counter when his phone rang. He walked to the coffee table to answer it, glancing at Bobbie as he passed by her sleeping on the couch. “Hello. Hi August.” He grabbed a pen from his desk and wrote notes on a legal pad. “What’s the license number? Okay, I’ll see what I can find out.” Seconds after the conversation with one of his regular clients ended, his doorbell rang. He looked out the window and saw Emory below standing in front of the door to Mourning Dove Investigations.

  A moment after Emory rang the doorbell to Mourning Dove Investigations, Jeff opened the office door. “What do you want?”

  Still wearing the clothes from his former home, Emory blurted out, “I’m sorry.” The expression on Jeff’s face, however, refused to change. “I’ve never broken into a place or anything like that. It stressed me out.”