The Thriller Collection

by S W Vaughn

  According to Danica at least, ‘inconclusive’ wasn’t in Sherry’s vocabulary. But she’d apparently given up investigating this fire in less than a day, without coming to a resolution.

  He went back to the search results and clicked on the next entry about the fire, again from the County Star. This one detailed the arrest of a suspect, Martin Lunn — a Providence Forge resident and small-time criminal out on parole after serving three years of a five-year sentence for assault and drug charges. Lunn’s ex-wife and teenage son lived in the apartment building, and the ex-wife had been one of the casualties. Police alleged that Lunn had set the fire to target his ex. He had no history of arson.

  The article was dated two days after the main piece about the fire. And again, the mention of Sherry was in a single paragraph toward the end.

  Building inspector Sherry Price could not be reached for comment. The New Kent County Department of Building Development issued a statement that Miss Price was selected to attend an intensive class on building safety and code enforcement as part of an “ongoing effort to improve safety and security in all areas, and prevent tragedies such as the Magnolia Estates fire from ever happening in our community again.”

  No statements from the fire department investigator who’d been poised to conduct an ‘extensive search’ appeared in the article. But there were plenty of quotes from Deputy Sheriff Theodore ‘Teddy’ Armstrong, who was credited with arresting Lunn.

  Back on the search results page, one of the last relevant entries was from a smaller news source, the Victory Falls Independent Register. Dated two months back, the brief item announced that Sherry Price had been named Building Chief in charge of the department, after the ‘unexpected’ death by heart attack of the former chief, Bernard Copeland, a week prior.

  No photo of Sherry accompanied the few paragraphs of text, but there was a photo of Copeland, a man in his seventies who looked like a heart attack might not’ve been that unexpected.

  Jude spent a few minutes going through the rest, what little there was, with a nagging sense of unease. If he was the paranoid sort — and nine years in the CIA learning exactly what the government was capable of had instilled a healthy sense of survival-based paranoia — then a little reading between the lines here could point to a conspiracy. It was still insane … but not as impossible as he wanted it to be.

  Sherry did have a Facebook page, and her posts were set to public. A lot of pictures. Some of herself, usually dressed in wacky art-teacher casual, quite a few of Danica or both of them together. A few with her sister, Danica’s mother. Some with other relatives, teachers or school kids. Images and a few short videos from last year’s haunted basement extravaganza. Photos of the flower beds in front of her house. Maybe she did love her plants.

  The last post was dated one day before the apartment fire. It was a selfie photo of her and Danica, both laughing and sporting huge, goofy star-shaped sunglasses, lifting cocktails in a salute to the camera. Sherry had written: My fave niece makes a mean margarita! She’s a SUPER star! A string of hearts and kiss emojis followed the post.

  Not the kind of aunt you’d expect to suddenly dump her family and throw herself into a stiff semi-government job.

  At least now he could see why Danica was so convinced something had happened. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe some other woman had replaced Sherry, but there did seem to be something going on here.

  It wouldn’t hurt to look into it a little more.

  Chapter 5

  Jude was up at six, despite having turned off the daily alarm on his phone. He went to the diner they’d hit last night, had breakfast there, and then wasted some time driving around Providence Forge. He was careful not to go down the street where his family home had been, or anywhere near the cemetery on the south end of town.

  But he did swing past Sherry Price’s place. Closed up and silent, no lights inside or out, the front lawn showing some not-so-recent, halfhearted attempt at mowing that had since grown shaggy and run to weed in several large patches.

  All the flowers were dead.

  Around nine, he headed for the sheriff’s office and parked in the visitor’s lot. He expected a less than friendly welcome after last night, but he knew one thing about Sheriff Andy Singer — the man wanted Danica to stop looking into her aunt’s not-disappearance. And whether Singer was involved in some crazy conspiracy, which he doubted, or just tired of hearing about a crime that didn’t happen, he might be able to play on that.

  He went into the more modern building, figuring they only used the old place when they arrested someone. And in a town like this, last night’s bar fight had probably been the biggest bust to happen this month.

  Beyond the glass doors was a small, pleasantly air-conditioned lobby with cushioned chairs, a telltale sign of a small-town police force. Bigger law enforcement agencies didn’t want visitors getting too comfortable, so they used hard plastic chairs. There was a reception desk across the room from the entrance. The woman behind the desk was about his age and pinged faintly on his recognition radar.

  He’d probably gone to high school with her, too.

  The nameplate on her desk read Lisa Copeland. That rang a bell — Copeland, like the former building chief who’d passed away. Considering Bernard Copeland’s apparent age from the photo on the website, he’d probably been her grandfather.

  Then he remembered another, stronger reason she seemed familiar. She’d had an awkward fifteen minutes of fame during junior year. Poor Lisa had been cast in the lead role of that year’s drama club production due to her mother’s incessant badgering and longtime position on the school board — her mother being an ‘out-of-work actress’ who was convinced her daughter had immeasurable talent.

  Lisa didn’t exactly share her mother’s beliefs. At the first performance, halfway through the second act of Our Town, she’d burst into tears on stage and run off, absolutely refusing to continue.

  She’d spent the rest of her high school career majoring in smoking and cutting classes.

  At some point she must’ve gotten it together again, because she looked happy and confident now. She also looked slightly suspicious as he approached the desk. “Aren’t you Jude Wyland?” she said.

  He smirked. “Unfortunately.”

  “Wow. I remember you from high school.” A tiny smile formed on her lips. “You were voted ‘most likely to put three guys down in a bar fight,’ weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” he said. “Guess you heard about last night.”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “Great.” As if he needed to remember how fast news spread in this town. “I don’t suppose Sheriff Singer is in?”

  Lisa’s brow furrowed. “You want to talk to him? On purpose?” she said. “You’re really not his favorite person right now.”

  “I gathered that.”

  Before she could say anything else, a door set in the wall behind the desk opened and a younger man in full uniform emerged. One of the deputies who’d been with the sheriff last night, which made him either Mike or Teddy. They hadn’t exactly introduced themselves.

  He looked at Jude and his eyes narrowed. “You’re that asshole we arrested,” he said.

  “I’m the asshole. Right.” Jude shook his head once. “Look, I just need to talk to the sheriff. Is he here?”

  “Why, do you want to turn yourself in?”

  “Yeah, sure. You can charge me with failure to yield at a douchebag crossing.”

  Lisa laughed, earning her a dirty glare from the deputy. “Come on, Mike,” she said to him. “Dylan is a douchebag.” She picked up her desk phone, pressed a button and held the handset to her ear. “Let me find out if the sheriff has a minute.”

  At least now he knew which deputy this was. So the other one, the bigger guy who’d been more forceful than necessary with a suspect who wasn’t resisting, who’d slammed him against the car a few times last night for good measure — that was Teddy Armstrong, the often-quoted arson-bu
ster from the article.

  “Hey, Sheriff,” Lisa said. “Y’all busy right now? Jude Wyland is here to see you, if you have a minute.”

  She frowned and took the phone away from her ear. There was a lot of shouting on the other end.

  When it stopped, she brought it back. “All right. I’ll tell him,” she said, then hung up the phone and gave a sweet, gently mocking smile. “The sheriff will see you now. Go on back — it’s the second door on the left.”

  “Terrific. Thanks.”

  He walked into the back of the building past Deputy Mike’s angry stare, stopped at the second door on the left and knocked. The sheriff snapped, “Come in,” through the door.

  When he stepped into the office, he was greeted with a cold expression. “I see you’re not very good at subtle,” Sheriff Singer said, not moving from his seat behind a desk just as old-fashioned as the one in the lockup building. “When I suggested you had better things to do with your time, I meant for you to do them somewhere else.”

  “And I heard you, loud and clear,” Jude said.

  “Then why the hell are you still here?”

  “Danica Murray.” He’d already decided not to waste time trying to get on this man’s friendly side. “She asked me to help her find her aunt.”

  “Christ on a crutch. And you’re actually doing it?” The sheriff tipped his head back and huffed a breath. “I’ll tell you right where she is,” he said. “Building chief’s office, Department of Building Development up in Victory Falls.”

  “I know.”

  “You know.” Sheriff Singer drummed his fingers on the desk. “Care to tell me what you’re doing in my station, then?”

  “I’m helping a friend,” he said. “Figured if I can prove that Sherry Price is herself, then Danica can stop obsessing over this crazy idea that someone replaced her aunt with a fake. And she’ll stop coming to you about it.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “That girl’s in here every week asking me to do something about it,” he said. “Wants me to arrest Miss Price and interrogate her, compare fingerprints, take a blood sample. I keep telling her there’s nothing illegal about moving to the city.” He frowned at Jude. “But you haven’t answered the question. What are you doing in my station?”

  “I want a look at some of your reports,” he said. “Specifically, anything you have on that big apartment building fire and Martin Lunn, the man who was arrested for it.”

  “The hell’s that got to do with Sherry Price?”

  Jude shrugged slightly. “The fire happened a few days before Danica claims her real aunt disappeared, and Sherry was involved in the investigation. I just want to look at everything from the beginning.”

  “Is that right.” The sheriff’s sudden smile was disconcerting. “Well, Mr. Wyland, you can look at all the reports you want.”

  “I can?”

  “Sure. I’ll take you down to the records room myself,” he said. “Just as soon as you show me your current, active badge.”

  “My badge,” he repeated.

  “Of course. Us folks in law enforcement, we’re always glad to help each other out. You know how it goes, being a big-shot CIA agent and all.” He paused and stared at him. “Oh, wait. You’re not.”

  “Sheriff—”

  “Don’t try that phone-call garbage again with me, boy,” he said. “You’re either a badge or you’re not. You want reports, you come back with an active badge.” He stood and folded his arms. “Otherwise, don’t come back. Is that subtle enough for you?”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  Jude left the office without another word. He’d put himself on a diet of battery acid and broken glass before he rejoined the CIA, especially just to be able to flash a badge at a sheriff with ruffled feathers. But there might be another way to get legally qualified to see police records. Badge and all.

  Before he did that, he wanted to make sure there was a reason to go through the trouble.

  Chapter 6

  This wasn’t the reason he’d planned to come to Victory Falls. His reason was in the hospital on the northwest side of town, receiving the best care the U.S. Navy could buy. At least he wouldn’t have to talk himself out of going there today, since he had this handy excuse.

  Jude parked his decidedly civilian Camry in the side lot of the county building. He’d looked the place up before he came — in addition to the department he wanted, the building housed the property tax department, a satellite office for Social Services, and the offices of the county Board of Supervisors, which included the Victory Falls town mayor. In other words, a lot of local government packed into a two-story building.

  Even if he had a badge to flash around in here, it wouldn’t get him very far. Town politicians were even more tight-lipped with outsiders than town law enforcement. But he had a few tricks up his sleeve.

  He’d learned a thing or two about spying and infiltration in the past nine years.

  The Department of Building Development was on the second floor, at the end of the main corridor off the central staircase. It was a ‘historic building,’ which meant there was no elevator. He walked right in the front doors, took the stairs with no hesitation, and strode to the end of the second-floor hall, waving or nodding at anyone he passed. Acting like he belonged there.

  When he entered the department, it was with a smile and a cheerful hail for the wiry fifty-something man behind the desk to the left, the only person in evidence. Building Development consisted of a large main room with open cubicles and several private offices in the back. “Good morning, sir,” Jude said, pushing the Virginia drawl he’d grown up with into the boom of his voice. “I believe I need to see a Miss Sherry Price.”

  The man at the desk smiled, more or less. “Good morning to you,” he said. “Er. Can I help you with something?”

  “Well, now, I’ve got to speak to the head of your department. That is Miss Price, isn’t it?” Jude grinned and made a point of looking around. “Where’s she at?”

  “You’d have to make an appointment to see Ms. Price, Mr. …?”

  “Oliver. Vince Oliver.” Jude held a hand out and gave the man a hearty used-car-salesman shake when he took it. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking, sir?”

  The man blinked. “Scott Zelnay.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir. Right pleased.” He kept shaking longer than necessary, and then leaned in with a conspiratorial smile. “Just between you and me, Mr. Zelnay, it’s been a long drive here this morning and I’ve got to haul ass back to Richmond for a lunch this afternoon,” he said. “I’d sure like to speak with Miss Price for a hot second before I go.”

  “Well, I…” The man reached for his desk phone, but changed his mind with a sigh and pointed toward the back. “Her office is the center door,” he said. “Go on back and knock.”

  “Much obliged, sir. I’ll just be a shake.”

  Jude hadn’t even gotten past Scott Zelnay’s desk when the door in question opened and Sherry Price stepped out. The alleged Sherry Price, according to Danica. The woman spotted him instantly, and a look of vague contempt washed over her features as she started across the room with a stack of folders in her hand.

  It was an expression he’d never seen on Sherry’s face. But then, he really hadn’t seen much of her, and his only personal encounters had been at least fifteen years ago.

  She looked like the woman in the Facebook photos had gone through some kind of corporate scrubbing program to wash away every trace of personality and mold her into an office drone. Which was still the most likely explanation — for whatever reason, she’d become as passionate about code enforcement as she used to be about Halloween and high school art projects.

  But that didn’t make the change in her any less dramatic, or chilling.

  The woman stopped in front of him, where he was blocking the way past Scott’s desk. “Excuse me,” she said, and the voice was Sherry Price emerging from the depths of an Arctic cave.

  Jude held his grou
nd. “Miss Price? You’re just the woman I’ve come to see,” he said, extending a hand. “Vince Oliver, with Oliver Investments out of Richmond.”

  Her gaze slid from his face to his hand, and her upper lip curled slightly. She didn’t take it. “I’m very busy, Mr. Oliver,” she said. “Make an appointment with my assistant.”

  “Well now, ma’am, I’m a bit pressed for time. It’ll only take a second.”

  She pushed past him and promptly ignored his existence as she dropped the folders on Scott’s desk. “Deliver these to Mr. Quinton’s office,” she said. “He’s waiting on them for the east side developments. And give Mr. Oliver an appointment.” She turned back to Jude, gave him a searing look and added, “Make it next month sometime. I’m booked until then.”

  With that, she pivoted and heel-clicked her way through the main entrance.

  “Er. Sorry about that,” Scott said, reaching for a thick ledger off to the side of the desk. “Let me just see about the soonest appointment we have available.”

  Jude waved him off with a grin that was considerably less cheerful. “Not to worry, sir,” he said. “I’ll make alternate arrangements. Thanks for your assistance.”

  “All right.” The man almost looked relieved as he moved his hand away from the ledger. “Y’all have a safe drive back to Richmond.”

  “Count on it.” After the unsettling encounter with Sherry, his plans now officially included a trip to Richmond — to pick up that badge the sheriff insisted he get.

  Right after he swung through the east side to scope out the ‘developments’ she’d mentioned.

  Chapter 7

  So this was a ‘rapidly developing, up-and-coming suburb community.’

  When Jude was in high school, the east side of Victory Falls was a handful of old, non-operational farms and a lot of untended fields and scrubland. Now it was several blocks of tract housing and tenements, blanketed with the air of abandonment. Looked like every other place had a For Sale sign up in the yard.