Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4)

by Debra Gaskill

  “So it looks like Izzy’s happy with her new car,” I said, laying my paperback in my lap.

  “Yes, I think so.” Duncan leaned back onto a wall of pillows propped behind his head, and with the remote, turned on the TV atop his dresser. “It looks good mechanically and I think she’s going to enjoy it for a long time.”

  We were silent as the ten o’clock newscast’s opening theme song played and the program began.

  Truth be told, it wasn’t until after those first few news stories that I could really relax and think about something else other than the Journal-Gazette, knowing that no one else had beaten me to a story.

  The opening segment was a young male reporter standing in front of yellow crime scene tape. There were police cruisers and a fire truck barely visible in the back of the dark shot.

  “Police are investigating what they are calling a hate crime, after someone set fire to a car parked at a local volunteer’s home,” he began.

  “Duncan! Turn that up!” I pointed at the screen as the camera panned to the burned-out frame of a small car.

  “The owner of this car is an African American, who declined to appear on camera, but he is a volunteer at a local community center,” the reporter droned on, staring into the camera. “He told police that he had a confrontation with a young white man last week at a local mall when he and two teen agers, members of the community center’s Black History Club, were selling candy as part of a fund-raising effort.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Graham Kinnon told me that Gary McGinnis suspects the guy that hit you—Doyle McMaster—of being involved in hate crimes. You think he could be behind this car fire?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Duncan said.

  “This is the third such incident to occur here in Collitstown and police believe they are connected.” The camera panned from the reporter, back to the burned-out car and the police cruisers. “They have a description of the man, but are not releasing that information.”

  “Holy shit,” I said, sinking back into my pillow.

  “It’s not a story until they charge him—if they charge him—so don’t worry,” Duncan said, patting my leg.

  I nodded and sighed with relief after a few more stories played, all no consequence to Plummer County: a downtown crash between a Collitstown city bus and a motorcyclist, the opening of a new restaurant in a county further north.

  My ears perked up as the scanner on my dresser crackled. A county ambulance was being dispatched for a frantic mother’s call on a baby with a high fever—a family’s crisis, but not a news story. I relaxed and turned back to Duncan, comfortable now that no one had beaten me on a story. I could worry about other things, family things.

  “It’s not going to be long before Izzy is done with college,” I said.

  “Yup.” Duncan nodded, staring at the television, one arm slung behind his head.

  “Have you guys talked at all about what she plans to do?” I asked. Since our daughter had been born, Duncan shouldered the majority of the parenting responsibilities. It made sense for our situation—he was certainly at home more than I was; my job brought the insurance benefits and cash into the family equation.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty about it.

  More than once, I’d left Duncan with Isabella, whether she was a squalling baby or sullen teen, to go chase a story. Sometimes, I did it intentionally, when I felt I’d reached the end of my very limited parenting abilities. He’d been the one who found her when she’d tried to commit suicide in high school. It was the only time in years I’d taken time off from work.

  Duncan shifted against the pillows, but kept looking at the television. “She’s talked about doing more with Henhouse Graphics, building that up unto a full-time operation,” he said.

  Henhouse Graphics was Duncan’s part-time business that he ran during the year after the crops came in and farming slowed down. He ran it exactly from where it sounded like—the old henhouse beside the barn. He took only the occasional job: yard signs and buttons during local political campaigns, logo designs or the occasional sign.

  “Does she want to live here after college?”

  “I think so. I don’t have a problem with that, do you?” He glanced over at me. “We could sure use the help.”

  “No, not at all.” I put the paperback on the nightstand beside me and turned on my side toward him. “I know this sounds weird, but what about the farm? Has she ever asked about running the farm?”

  Duncan looked away from the television. “When did you start worrying about passing on the farm?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Just seeing Katya and Jerome here on Sunday, knowing they live in the Jensen’s old place—it’s been kind of eating at me that Larry and Denise had to give up that farm, even though it happened a couple years ago.”

  He patted my thigh. “We haven’t ever really talked about passing on the farm. I wasn’t really sure she was ready for that conversation.”

  “Are you going to bring it up?”

  “Sure.”

  “When?”

  “Not before she graduates from college. Would you want to be young and confident, with the whole world ahead of you, and have your dad hand you a bucket and ask if you want to help bail water out of the Titanic?”

  “Is it that bad, really?”

  “Selling a couple heifers would get us a little bit ahead, but that puts me in a position where I’ve got to hope next year’s calves aren’t all male and that there will be a female in there that will produce decent amounts of milk down the road. I mean, our bull is good, he passes on great traits, but there’s always the chance when we need it most, he won’t. Money’s tight, but it’s always tight.”

  Duncan sighed as he rearranged the summer quilt around himself.

  “You haven’t had a raise in years, and everything I do depends on milk or grain prices,” he continued. “There are days I think about getting out of the dairy business and just going into grain production. We’re one of the few dairy farms left in the county.”

  I nodded. “Do you want to keep the farm in the family?”

  This time Duncan was silent for a moment. He had two brothers and four sisters, all of whom shared the three upstairs bedrooms in their childhoods and then ran as fast and as far away from Plummer County as they could after graduation. Duncan had been the only one who wanted to keep the farm.

  “Yes, of course I do, but if Izzy doesn’t want it, we need to talk to my brothers and sisters about it,” he said. “Right now, let’s not worry about it.”

  He reached across me and pulled the string on my bedside lamp, leaving the room bathed in the television’s blue light. He drew me into his arms.

  “Are we doing OK—you and me?” I asked softly, settling comfortably against his chest. “With my job and all the stress you’ve been under, I know this sounds strange, but, sometimes I wonder if I still make you happy.”

  “Always.” Duncan kissed my forehead, then my cheeks, then my lips. “Always.”

  I reached over and took the remote from his side of the bed and clicked the TV off. Duncan raised a devilish eyebrow and smiled as the darkness enveloped us.

  ***

  Her screams woke me before I heard the pounding on the door.

  “Help me! Help me! Help me!”

  Duncan and I jumped from the bed, slipping into our clothes as we dashed through the hall and downstairs to the kitchen, where the old clock above the sink read two-thirty five.

  It was Katya, standing barefoot on the stoop outside the kitchen door, breathing heavily, sticks and leaves caught in her loose black curls. Her arms and bare feet were scratched bloody; one pants leg was torn.

  “Help me! Help me, please!” She threw herself into Duncan’s arms as I opened the door.

  Together, we guided her to the kitchen chairs and sat her down. I filled a glass with tap water and set it in front of her.

  “Katya, what’s going on?” I aske
d.

  “It is Jerome! They’ve killed him!”

  “What? Who?” Duncan asked. “Doyle McMaster? The guy he got into a fight with at the feed store?”

  “No, not him—someone else.”

  “That’s it. I’m calling the cops,” I said, my hand on the kitchen wall phone.

  “No, no, no—” Katya took a gulp of the water. “Don’t call police. We need to call someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Witness protection. U.S. marshals.”

  “Witness protection?” Duncan and I asked simultaneously.

  I let go of the phone and sat down beside her. “Katya, if there’s been a murder, we have to call the police.”

  “How do you know Jerome is dead?” Duncan asked sharply. “Did you see the body?”

  “He’s dead! I know, I just know!” Katya began to wail hysterically.

  “I’ll be right back. We need to get over there.” Duncan slipped out of the kitchen.

  “No! No! No!” Katya cried out. “We can’t go back there — Luka, one of Kolya’s thugs, he is at farm waiting for me!”

  I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Calm down, Katya! Who is Luka? Who is Kolya?”

  “Please, you must forgive me. Everything I tell you in story about farm, it is lie. Everything Jerome tells you, it is lie.”

  Before I could answer, Duncan came downstairs, his father’s old double-barreled shotgun in one hand, a pair of my summer flip-flops in the other.

  “Here,” he said, handing Katya the shoes. “Put these on. They will at least protect your feet. You can tell Penny your story in the car—let’s get over there. We can call the sheriff on the way.”

  “What about milking?” I looked over at Duncan.

  “You want to stay here and milk those heifers while a man could be dying? They’ll wait. C’mon—let’s get going,” he said.

  I grabbed a flashlight, a reporter’s notebook and a pen from the kitchen counter. We piled into the Taurus and Duncan turned the ignition, bringing it to life. Gravel spit from beneath the wheels as we roared down the drive. I sat in the back seat, the shotgun upright beside me like another passenger.

  Flipping open the notebook, I leaned between the front seats as Duncan drove.

  “Tell me the truth Katya. Tell me your story.”

  “I am not from Chicago. I am not art instructor. I have never been to Cleveland and Jerome, he is not from, how you say? Ashtabula? I am wife of Russian mobster from Brighton Beach.”

  “In Brooklyn? New York?” I asked as I scribbled.

  “Yes. Jerome, he is—“ Katya stifled a sob. “—was a U.S. Marshal, assigned to protect me until the trial of my husband, Kolya. I turn him in because he runs gang, he is using homeless people to commit fraud.”

  “How does he do that?”

  “Kolya owns medical clinics. His doctors write prescriptions for the patients Kolya men bring in every day.” Katya calmed down as she told her story. “Kolya has people like Luka round up homeless people in vans and take to clinic in New Jersey. The doctor gives them free exam then writes prescription for drugs.”

  “What kind?”

  “Ox-ox…” Katya’s thick accent made her stumble over the word.

  “Oxycontin?”

  “Yes. The people, they are addicted to these pills. They get the prescriptions filled and clinic bills Medicaid. The money comes into clinic and doctor sends it to Kolya.”

  Medicaid fraud, I thought as I wrote. I’d seen some national wire stories about how the state of New Jersey was seeing a sharp increase in painkiller abuse and how the Russia mafia was connected, but I’d never printed those stories in the Journal-Gazette. They seemed too far away, too foreign for my readers to care about.

  The articles described a scenario exactly as Katya described: mob-owned clinics run by dirty doctors who wrote prescriptions for up to thirty patients a day, most always for the highly addictive painkillers like Oxycontin or Oxycodone. The mobsters didn’t care if the clinics’ patients took the drugs themselves, or sold them to other addicts.

  But the flood of drugs caused an explosion, according to New Jersey officials, in prescription drug overdoses and deaths. That didn’t matter—it was the easy money from Medicaid they were interested in. Efforts were underway to shut the clinics down, but as one clinic was closed, others often popped up.

  “Where is Kolya?” I asked.

  “In prison, waiting for trial. But that doesn’t mean he can’t tell the men in his gang to do something.”

  “And you turned him in?”

  “One of the homeless men, he got off the pills and threatened to expose Kolya and his clinics to police,” Katya’s voice dropped. “So one day, Kolya tells me to go shopping, hands me wad of money. I never really knew what Kolya did. I was young and stupid and enjoyed his money.

  “‘Go get yourself something pretty. Don’t come back until dinnertime,’ he tells me. But I didn’t listen—or this man just wouldn’t die. I came home early and heard screams from the basement. Kolya was torturing the man downstairs. I saw Kolya kill him — the same way Luka killed Jerome, I know! I know!” She began to cry again.

  “One more question, Katya.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is Bolodenka your real name?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “I have to tell you, Katya, I’ve been looking into what you told me for the article.” I stopped writing and laid my hand on her shoulder. “I knew what you told me wasn’t true.”

  “I had to. You understand? I had to tell those lies.”

  I patted her shoulder from the back seat as Duncan pulled into the drive.

  “There’s no one here!” Katya said. “I heard sirens as I ran from house. I thought marshals were coming to save me, but I was too scared to stop running.”

  “Looks like Luka has disappeared,” Duncan said, shoving the gearshift into park and stepping out of the car.

  “Be careful—there’s three buildings. They could be hiding on the property. The barn is big enough to pull an SUV into,” I said, handing him the flashlight as Katya and I got out. I pulled my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans, as I held the shotgun in my other hand. “I’m calling the sheriff. If Luka is here, we’re going to need more than just this shotgun.”

  One of the advantages of growing up in Plummer County was learning how to use a gun. As the daughter of a state trooper, I’d been taught early. As a farm wife, I’d shot my fair share of coyotes over the years when they’d made it into the pasture during calving season. If someone came out of the barn, I had no qualms about firing back, but the shotgun wouldn’t be any match for more than one weapon, if these guys were still on the property.

  My other advantage? As the editor of the paper, I had the private numbers of the entire county’s movers and shakers—and Sheriff Judson Roarke was one of those numbers. We didn’t talk often, but I was impressed with the way he’d turned the Plummer County Sheriff’s Office into a first-rate law enforcement organization.

  He picked up on the third ring.

  “Hi Jud. It’s me, Penny McIntyre from the Journal-Gazette.”

  “Hello.” Judson was remarkably alert for someone, I assumed, I’d just awakened from a sound sleep. “I know you well enough to know that this isn’t a courtesy call. What’s up?”

  “We may have a murder,” I said. “On Lunatic Fringe Farm.”

  “Do you know who the victim is?”

  “Jerome Johnson, the farm manager for Ekaterina Bolodenka.” I wasn’t going to go into all the details right now. “The place where those goats were tortured and killed.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “There’s a possibility the suspect may still be on the property. You might want to bring all the firepower you’ve got.”

  “Got it.”

  There was a scream as I disconnected. I turned to see Duncan restraining Katya as she tried to run toward the farmhouse porch, where the body of Jerome Johnson lay in a pool of his
own blood and brains.

  Chapter 21 Graham

  I shot out of bed as the scanner on my dresser crackled to life: “All units, possible homicide at 68734 Youngstown Road. Proceed no lights, no sirens, suspects possibly still on property. Contact complainant, a Mrs. McIntyre, on scene with property owner, who speaks limited English.”

  I slumped back down on the mattress, realizing, for once, I couldn’t cover this story. I was supposed to be in Indianapolis. I knew the property owner who the dispatcher was referencing had to be Katya Bolodenka. And what was Addison already doing there? Listening as each sheriff’s deputy responded, one by one, I stood and paced the bedroom.

  If someone was dead on that farm, could it be Jerome Johnson? Or was it Doyle McMaster? Had he intentionally provoked a confrontation with Jerome, or had Jerome caught him trying to kill another farm animal? Was it Benny Kinnon? Was he the type to get his hands dirty? If so, had he found himself at the end of Jerome Johnson’s gun?

  My pacing expanded into the living room. I wanted to grab my camera and a notebook, head out to the scene and dig into the story, but I couldn’t. As far as Addison knew, I was in Indianapolis, with my stepfather and his fake heart attack.

  “Unit one on scene.” Judson Roarke’s voice came across the scanner. “Dispatch, I need you to 10-79 Dr. Bovir. I have a visual on one victim, a black male, mid-thirties.”

  I stopped pacing and sighed. Dr. Bovir was the Plummer County coroner. So Jerome Johnson was dead, three days after Doyle McMaster punched him. If McMaster had anything to do with this, then Benny Kinnon also had to be involved. Roarke would want me to find that out.

  “Dispatch, this is unit one—” Roarke began again. A man’s angry voice drowned out his words: “Hey, that’s my wife!” The radio cut off. There was silence for a full two minutes before Roarke returned to the radio. His tone was caustic. “Dispatch, we have a second agency on scene. All radio traffic on Channel Two.”

  Channel Two was the interoperability channel, the one they used when communicating with multiple agencies, particularly state and federal ones. Why would those agencies show up at a county homicide? That didn’t make sense. Maybe it was just the state investigative agency, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, or BCI as they were called. They had more sophisticated tools and a bigger staff for investigations and it wasn’t too uncommon for them to be called in.