Murder on the Lake of Fire

by Mikel J. Wilson

  Jeff paid for the pancake and rushed into the dining area. Relieved to see Victor seated at a table, he sauntered through the large room, pretending to notice his client only when he was upon him. “Victor?”

  Victor had been staring at his untouched food before he heard his name. “Mr. Woodard, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m visiting the sheriff. Do you mind if I join you?”

  Victor began to say, “I’d rather be alone,” but he only got the first two words out before Jeff sat down.

  Jeff unbuttoned his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. “How is Pristine doing?”

  “Better.” Victor’s demeanor was unlike any previous meeting Jeff had with him. The sternness in his face had softened, and he had a slight bend to his back, as if defeated. “Thank you for asking. Do you have any idea who’s doing this to my family?”

  “I’m very close, but I can’t discuss the case.”

  Victor stopped what he was doing to sneer at the PI. “You work for me.”

  “I know, but I’ve been working intimately with the TBI, sharing information to help us get to the bottom of it. Truth be told, I’ve given them a lot more information than I’ve received from them – and much more valuable information. No matter, I don’t mind helping them. After all, we all want the same thing. Since we are sharing information, though, they’ve made me promise not to discuss the case until it’s concluded.”

  “Fine.” He stabbed a clump of his scrambled eggs. “I heard about Coach Roberts. He died in a house fire?” When Jeff nodded, Victor shook his head. “Terrible. Did his entire house burn?”

  “It was contained to a really small area.”

  “The news said it might not have been an accident.”

  “Definitely not.”

  This revelation piqued Victor’s interest. “Do you think it had something to do with Britt?”

  “We believe so.” Jeff clenched his jaw when he realized he was sharing too much. “Can I ask, what convinced you that Charlie Claymon was your water thief?”

  “Why are you concerned about that?” Within two seconds, his confusion morphed to anger as the knuckles around his fork grew white. “You think Charlie Claymon killed my daughter? And tried to kill my wife?”

  “No.” Jeff raised his hands to calm him, hoping to avoid more eyes turning their way. “Whoever stole the water might be involved, but we don’t think Charlie is even the thief.”

  Victor released the fork, which clinked onto his plate. “I was afraid of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted to fire him the minute I found out his son was dating Britt. Of course that wouldn’t have been just cause. When the foreman mentioned him as a suspect, I seized the opportunity.” Victor shook his head. “I just want it all to stop. How much tragedy can one family endure before we’re completely broken? You know, my first wife, Meredith, she was a wonderful woman. I know it’s cliché, but the moment we met is the instant I fell in love with her. From the beginning, she had this incredible inner light, and when the children came along, they just magnified that brilliance inside her. We had a wonderful life together. Britt has so many of her qualities, but she was daddy’s little girl.” Victor let loose a chuckle. “Ian was Meredith’s special guy – followed her around everywhere. I wish he had more time with her.

  “When I found out she wasn’t going to recover, I retreated to the office even more, so I wouldn’t have to see her like that. I know it was cowardly. It’s something I’ll always regret. One evening I was sitting in my office, bawling at my desk, when this new employee walked in for a meeting that had slipped my mind. She asked me what was wrong and listened to me wallow in my misery. She pulled a flask from her purse and offered me a drink. Next thing I know, we’re drunk and having sex in my office. After that, she came by regularly to comfort me. I wasn’t looking for someone to replace my wife. Hell, I didn’t think it was possible. She wasn’t even gone yet, but I fell in love with Pristine, almost as hard as I had fallen for Meredith all those years ago.”

  Jeff gripped the table, his heart punching his ribs like a speedbag. He knew that the encounter Victor described was not one of chance. He could no longer pretend that he hadn’t played an important part in the downfall of a strong marriage. If Victor hadn’t been staring at his food, he would’ve seen the guilt splayed across his face like fluorescent graffiti.

  With tears now flowing, Victor continued, “I had always been honest with Meredith, but I kept the affair from her. I didn’t want to add to the pain of her remaining days. After she died and her will was read, I realized I had been unsuccessful in my deception. She could always see right through me, to my soul.

  “Britt was a lot like her mother – beautiful, larger than life. When Meredith died, Britt just blossomed, like her mother’s life force had shifted bodies. She was so elegant on that ice. Her mother was good, but Britt was so far beyond that. She would’ve been an amazing woman. Ian went the opposite route. After his mom died, he just wasn’t as outgoing as he once was. He clung to me like he was afraid I was going to leave him next. His personality retreated inside himself. At least he gets along with Pristine. He’ll come out of his shell one of these days.” Victor stopped as if he had exposed himself to the bone and couldn’t go any further. “Sorry. I’ve droned on.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Jeff said. “I’m sorry…for all that you’ve had to go through. We’ll find the one behind it. I swear, you’re not going to lose anyone else.”

  In Pristine’s hospital room, Emory kept his back to her as he tried to think of how to respond.

  “Victor?” Pristine called again. “Who’s there?”

  Emory stuffed the hairs he had taken from her hairbrush into the baggie and buried it inside his jacket pocket. He forced his lips into a smile and turned to face her. “You’re up.”

  “Detective Rome. What are you doing here?”

  “Special agent. I came by to see how you were doing and ask if you had any information that might help us figure out who did this to you.”

  Pristine’s lips moved to one side, as if she were deciding whether or not to believe him. “Why didn’t you answer when I first called to you?”

  “I thought it was the TV.” Emory yanked the conversation to a different subject. “How are you feeling?”

  Pristine looked at her blanket. “I’m weak but better. They said I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “Have they determined the poison?”

  “The doctor found strychnine in my blood. How on Earth did I get strychnine in me? Do you know?”

  “The tests haven’t come back yet, but we suspect it was in your protein powder.”

  “No one touches that but me.” Pristine’s eyes turned wild with fear. “You’ve got to help me. Someone’s trying to kill me!”

  “I want to help,” Emory assured her. “To do that, I need you to be completely honest with me.”

  “Are you suggesting I haven’t been?” A glimmer of Pristine’s former self returned.

  Emory ignored her question. “Do you have any idea who would want to kill you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess our old maid’s not overly fond of me now, but she’d never be capable of this. Honestly, I don’t have any enemies. I don’t get out much, and the friends I do have are more like beggars who only talk to me when they need something. No, no one comes…to mind.” Pristine looked as if the culprit had appeared before her, ready to inject a fatal dose of poison into her IV.

  “Pristine, what is it?”

  “Nothing,” she answered in a manner both soft and unconvincing.

  “If you have any suspicions, you need to let me know.”

  Pristine tightened her face. “I told you I don’t know. Do you have anything else?”

  Emory frowned at her, wondering what she was hiding. “I suppose not. I’ll let you get back to resting.” He left the room and texted Jeff that he was done.

  Leaning against the fence behind his parents’ ho
use, Emory flipped through pictures of the Algarotti factory storeroom. The sun had dropped just enough for the treetop’s shadows to reach the phone in his hands.

  “There you are.”

  Emory turned toward the voice to see Jeff plodding through the snow.

  “Your mom’s home from church and is making lunch. And your dad said I could keep this cool shirt.”

  “So he did notice.”

  Jeff rested an elbow on the fence. “What are you doing?”

  Emory pocketed his cell phone. “Cathy called. There was strychnine in Pristine’s protein powder, enough to kill her ten times over.”

  “Wow. She’s lucky to be alive.”

  “She also finished testing the items from your place. The bottled water I drank was drugged.”

  Jeff pounded the fence. “I knew it! With what?”

  “She didn’t know exactly, but she thinks it’s a derivative of MDMA that’s been altered to stay stable in water for an extended period of time.”

  “That explains your reaction to it.”

  Emory pushed his eyebrows together. “Have you taken ecstasy before?”

  Jeff shrugged. “Once or twice. Didn’t you experiment any in high school or college?”

  “No, high school wasn’t any fun for me.”

  “Really? I loved it.”

  “I figured.”

  “Was it difficult being back there when you arrested Britt’s boyfriend?” Jeff laughed. “Is it true what they say about revisiting childhood haunts? Did it look smaller than you remembered?”

  “It actually was.” Emory’s smile morphed into a gasp. “Wait a second.”

  “What is it?”

  Emory pulled his phone back out and searched for a picture. He paused for just a moment before running toward the house. “Come on. We need a warrant to search the factory again.”

  CHAPTER 33

  AS THEY EXITED the car, Jeff said, “You realize if you’re wrong about this, Victor’s going to fire me.”

  “Let’s hope I’m not then.” Emory tried the front glass-paned door to the Algarotti Smoky Mountain Springs factory and found it locked.

  Jeff nodded toward a young uniformed man sitting in the lobby, watching TV and eating a dripping meatball sandwich. “Looks like Victor finally hired a security guard.”

  Emory knocked on the door and held his badge to the glass. The startled young man placed his dinner on the seat and walked over to open the door.

  “What can I do for you, officers?” asked the guard, fluorescent lights shining off his over-gelled black hair.

  Emory handed him a document. “We have a warrant to search the factory again.”

  “Wh…What?”

  Emory noticed the name on the guard’s badge. “Clarence, are you the only one here?”

  Clarence nodded. “It’s Sunday.”

  “We need to see the records room,” Emory said as he headed that way.

  Clarence stepped in front of him. “Wait, you can’t come in. Please. Today’s my first day. I don’t want to get fired.”

  Jeff smirked. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

  Emory asked, “Would you rather be jailed for interfering with an investigation?”

  “Well, no.” Clarence stepped out of the way. “I don’t even know where the records room is.”

  “That’s okay. I do.” Emory proceeded down the hall with Jeff at his side, and the security guard following.

  The guard pulled his cell phone from his belt. “I’m calling my boss.”

  “Please do,” Emory replied as the guard began talking on the phone.

  “God, I hope you’re right,” Jeff muttered.

  Clarence told Emory, “My boss wants to know what’s this about.”

  “Tell him we’re looking for narcotics.”

  “Narc…Drugs?” The guard told his boss on the phone, “That’s what he said.”

  When they reached the records room, Emory said, “New door.”

  Clarence covered his phone to tell them, “The door guy was here earlier.”

  Jeff tried the doorknob. “Locked.” He looked at the guard. “Did the door guy give you a key?”

  Clarence told his boss, “Sir, I gotta go. They want me to open a door for them.” The guard hung up his phone. “He’s calling the owner.”

  Emory’s only reaction was, “Open it.”

  Clarence looked at the door and frowned at the two men. “This don’t say record room.”

  “It’s the right room,” Emory insisted. “Do you have the key?”

  “They gave it to that other guy, the one who works here. Sam…Stuart…”

  “Scot?” asked Jeff.

  “That’s it!”

  Emory’s eyes locked on Jeff’s, and he could tell they were thinking the same thought. “Scot’s our guy.”

  “Wait!” Clarence held up a black key on the key ring chained to his belt. “I do have a master key.”

  “Will it work?” Jeff asked. “It’s a new door.”

  The guard laughed. “Big places like this always install locks with the same master core. And those locks can all be opened with the same master key.” He inserted the key and tried to turn the tumbler, but it wouldn’t budge. “That’s weird. It should work.”

  Emory nodded to Jeff, signaling him with his expression. The PI asked, “Are you sure?”

  Emory shrugged and pointed his hand toward the guard. “The key doesn’t work.”

  Jeff headed toward the receiving area. “God, I hope you’re right.”

  “Stop saying that. You’re making me nervous.”

  Clarence asked, “What’s he doing?”

  “Finding a key that works.”

  “Oh,” Clarence muttered.

  Emory knocked on the door and announced himself.

  The security guard told him, “There’s no one in there.”

  “Just a formality.”

  A moment later, a roaring sound caught the attention of the two men by the records room. They both faced the double swing doors and saw Jeff charge into the hallway in a forklift.

  Emory’s mouth dropped. “Oh my god!”

  Clarence shook his head and waved his arms. “No, you can’t do that! Seriously. It’s my first day!”

  Jeff stopped shy of the records room door. “The crowbar wasn’t there. Should I?”

  Emory stepped back. “Do it.”

  The skinny guard gasped and clenched his fists as Jeff rammed the forklift through the door. He drove inside a few feet before parking it and jumping out of the cab. Emory flicked a switch to illuminate the small room, lined with metal shelves full of file folders, ledgers and other archived materials.

  Clarence put his hands on his hips in a cocky stance. “Well, it don’t look like there’s any drugs. What made you think there’d be something in here?”

  Emory explained as he passed the shelves, touching various items, “Something the owner said. When Victor Algarotti saw this room yesterday, he said it seemed smaller than he remembered from when he was younger.”

  The guard said, “Yeah, I’ve heard that before, that places look smaller when you’re older.”

  “It’s not because you’re older. It’s because you’re physically bigger. Victor was in his twenties when he started working here, and from a picture I saw of him, he looked the same as he does now – same height, same build.”

  Jeff asked, “So why would the room look smaller to him?”

  “Exactly, so that got me thinking. When I flipped through the pictures I took of the room, I noticed something odd.” Emory pointed to the forklift tracks on the floor of the records room. “You see the tracks?” After the two men nodded, Emory pointed to where the tracks ended. “See how they end at the shelf against that wall?”

  The guard said, “Someone must’ve backed into it.”

  Emory shook his head. “That’s what I thought at first, but look at the shelf and the wall.”

  Jeff inspected the metal shelf where the tracks
ended and then the wall behind it. “There’s no damage to either.”

  “Not a scratch,” said Emory.

  “Maybe the shelf wasn’t there, and the forklift stopped just before it hit the wall.” Clarence grabbed the shelf and tried to move it. “It’s attached to the wall. Could’ve just been attached recently. There’s no telling how old them tracks are.”

  Emory stepped on one of the tracks, and he felt a slight stickiness when he raised his shoe. “The tracks are fresh. Two days ago, the foreman commented on the same sticky tracks in the hallway like they were new.”

  Clarence grimaced at him. “I didn’t see no tracks in the hall.”

  “They must’ve been mopped up by whoever cleans this place, but they didn’t have access to this room.” Emory turned on the flashlight feature of his cell phone and looked under the shelf. “The tracks continue, looks like all the way to the wall.”

  “There’s a hidden space!” Jeff exclaimed.

  Emory returned to his feet. “I think so. The foreman also told me they had recently refurbished the back area. Either something was put in there to stay for good—”

  “Or there’s a secret door.” Jeff put his hands on hips. “We need to find the trigger to open the door.”

  All three started pulling on ledgers and other items on the shelves, but Emory soon stopped to look at the massive amount of materials stored on the shelves against the wall and throughout the room. “This is going to take forever.”

  He abandoned the wall and jumped into the forklift. “Stand back!” Jeff and Clarence jumped out of the way as Emory turned on the vehicle. He raised the arms five feet, floored the gas pedal and crashed into the shelf-covered wall. The forklift crumpled the shelf and punctured two manhole-sized breaches into the wall.

  As Emory backed the forklift, Jeff squinted into one of the holes. “There’s definitely something back there!”

  Emory repositioned the arms and hit the wall again, repeating his actions until the opening was large enough to walk through. He turned off the forklift and joined Jeff and Clarence as they were about to crawl over the rubble.