Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned

by Annette Dashofy

  “And?”

  “He said he doesn’t see the neighbors coming and going because of his fence.”

  “But still...There are—were—six lousy houses. How can he not notice someone living in one of them?”

  “Good question. His reaction to hearing Lillian Farabee is missing and may have been home at the time seemed genuine enough. In fact, he took the news rather hard for someone who didn’t even know she’d been living a hundred yards or so from his front door.”

  “Really?” Zoe pondered a few scenarios. Scenic Hilltop Estates, meet Peyton Place. “What do you make of that?”

  “I’m not making anything of either Mr. Tierney’s poor neighborhood watch skills or his concern for Lillian Farabee. Yet. Believe me, I’m not letting any of it drop.”

  Zoe didn’t doubt it.

  “Speaking of not letting it drop…” Pete struck what Zoe thought of as his stance—right hand resting on his sidearm, left hand on his hip. “How about dinner Friday night?”

  She winced. “This is my weekend on duty.” The three Monongahela County EMS nightshift crews worked every third Friday night through Monday morning, which made building a social life difficult.

  “So you’re going to miss the poker game this week, too?”

  “Unfortunately.” Zoe noticed some increased activity at the explosion site. At the same time, another familiar figure moved away from the investigators and headed up the hill toward them. “Here comes Wayne.”

  Pete glanced over his shoulder. “All right. I know it’s short notice, but how about tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow? Thursday?” She ran a quick check of her mental calendar. But it never seemed to be the previous commitments that got in their way. “Okay. I’m pretty sure I’m free.”

  County Police Detective Wayne Baronick’s footsteps grew closer.

  “Good. I’ll pick you up at six,” Pete said.

  Before Zoe could reply, Baronick cut loose a piercing whistle. “Are you two having a picnic or do you want to know what I’ve come up with so far?”

  Pete offered a hand to help Zoe up. “You may be off duty, but apparently I’m not.”

  Baronick waited at the Scenic Hilltop Estates sign for them. Zoe took another long look at the bold lettering.

  Pete’s cell phone rang, and he dug it from his pocket.

  Baronick sidled over to Zoe. “You know,” the detective said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, “if you ever get tired of hanging out with that old buzzard, I’d be more than happy to show you the town.”

  “I already know the town.” She skimmed through the information about available lots and settled on the bottom two lines.

  Dave Evans

  Land Developer

  The guy from the barn.

  Pete put his phone away without answering it and glared at the detective. “What have you got?”

  “I tracked down the name of the lending institution holding the mortgage on the…” Baronick motioned toward the debris field. “On what used to be the Farabee house.”

  “And?”

  “MNB.”

  Zoe was about to excuse herself from the drudgery of cop talk, but Pete swearing loudly stopped her cold. “What?” she and Baronick asked in unison.

  Pete looked like a wolf scenting blood. “Monongahela National Bank. And guess who happens to work for them.”

  Four

  Pete had Bruce Yancy move one of the fire engines to clear a path for Stephen Tierney. But at the entrance to Scenic Hilltop Estates, Pete directed the fort dweller to stop his white Lexus and motioned for him to lower his window. A blast of frigid air conditioning smacked Pete in the face as he braced a forearm against the driver’s door.

  “What is it now?” Tierney fingered the built-in computer screen in his car’s dashboard, not bothering to meet Pete’s gaze. “I’m running late.”

  “You mentioned working for Monongahela National Bank. What’s your job there?”

  “I’m an Investment Group Manager. Why?”

  “Just filling in some blanks. Did you happen to know your bank holds the mortgage on the Farabee property?” Couldn’t really call it a house anymore.

  “Of course I know.” Tierney tapped the screen one more time and gave a self-satisfied nod, apparently pleased with his settings. “MNB holds the mortgage on everyone’s properties up here. Mine included.”

  “Thanks.” Pete stepped back and waved Tierney on. As Pete watched the Lexus cruise down the hill toward Route 15, he wondered what the hell an “Investment Group Manager” did to be able to afford a car like that. He added the question to his notebook. Along with a reminder to verify MNB’s involvement with the other homeowners on the hill.

  For the moment, the Phillipsburg and Mt. Prospect Township VFDs were packing their gear, leaving only Vance Township’s fire department to put out hotspots and help the gas company guys poke through the debris. The county fire investigator had arrived to oversee the investigation. One lone news truck remained and other than the stunned neighbors, most of the onlookers had drifted away. Pete left Kevin to work the scene alongside Baronick with the order, “Call me if they find anything.”

  By the time Pete returned to the station, his shift had technically ended. However, with the reports he had yet to write, he’d be lucky to get home by dark.

  Nancy looked up when he shuffled through the front door. “Are you all right?” She had that worried mother-hen look on her face, and Pete wondered if she’d learned it from Sylvia Bassi, his former long-time secretary.

  “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Nancy pointed at her computer. “I was watching some of the pictures of the explosion online. It sounded pretty awful.”

  “It was pretty awful.” He didn’t mention it would be a lot worse if and when they located a body. “Why don’t you go on home?”

  Her fingers curled into soft fists, hovered over the keyboard, with the look of someone hesitant to ask a question.

  “What is it?” he prompted.

  She relaxed her hands, letting them settle in her lap. “You were at my folks’ place earlier.”

  “I was.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  He didn’t think it necessary to point out he rarely got called to someone’s house when everything was okay.

  “Your father and brother-in-law had a little disagreement over hedges.”

  She lowered her head with a sigh. “Those two. Dad and Ryan used to get along. I’m not sure what changed between them, but it’s tearing Ashley apart.”

  “I gather whatever it is, it’s more than just the hedges.”

  “I wish I knew.” Nancy straightened. “Anyhow, I can stick around a while longer if you need me.”

  “Go. Have supper with your husband and kids.”

  She gave him a tired nod. “You have a couple of messages on your desk.” Grabbing her purse from the bottom drawer in the file cabinet, she ducked out the door.

  Pete shuffled down the hall to his office. A full, fresh pot of coffee sat on the stand in the corner. He poured a cup and flopped into his worn office chair. Taking a sip of the hot brew, he put on his reading glasses and picked up the stack of pink message notes. Most of them had to do with township business. Budgets. Too much overtime. He crumpled those and tossed them in the trash can. One, though, caught his attention. Call Chuck Delano.

  Pete dug his cell phone from his pocket and skimmed a finger over the screen. Missed Call. Chuck Delano. New voicemail.

  He’d been surprised to see the name from his past flash on the screen while he’d been standing on the hill with Zoe and Baronick. He hadn’t seen or talked to Chuck since Pete left the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police to take the position of Chief for Vance Township. He and Chuck had taught at the Training
Academy together. They’d worked out of Zone One together. They’d responded to the call of shots fired together. A drug deal gone bad left one kid dead in the street. Chuck had taken a bullet in the leg. And Pete had returned fire, stopping the threat and ending the life of the shooter. Only later did Pete learn the man wielding the gun was a mere boy of fifteen.

  Pete shook off the memory and keyed up the message.

  “Hey, Petey,” said the familiar gruff voice. “Are you sick of arresting cows and sheep yet? Call me, buddy boy. I’ve got a job offer you can’t refuse.”

  Zoe parked her twenty-plus year old Chevy pickup in her usual spot behind the farmhouse and sorted the mail she’d collected from the box at the bottom of the lane into two piles—hers and the Krolls’. Bills. Advertisements. More bills. Credit card applications. More bills. Lately, her landlords’ mail had been heavier than usual and mostly bills from the hospital, doctors, and rehab.

  She slid down from the driver’s seat and stood a moment, surveying the sloping hillside down to the house. The usually immaculately groomed farmyard was sorely in need of mowing. With Mr. Kroll out of commission, maintaining the lawn and the fields was yet another task that fell to her. With only so many hours in the day, she’d let the job slip low on the priority list. Even worse, the fields across the farm lane were waist-high in the delicate white blooms of Queen Anne’s Lace.

  Zoe definitely needed to find the time to fire up the tractor before Mr. Kroll came home. Otherwise he’d take one look at his farmland and have a stroke.

  She picked her way down the well-worn path to the back porch. Only total strangers used the front door. The enclosed porch spanned almost the entire rear of the circa 1850s house. The windows were flung open to catch traces of a late afternoon breeze.

  Zoe crossed the porch to the door on the far left and knocked. Minutes passed. Mrs. Kroll must not be home yet. Zoe was about to set their bundle of mail on the bench next to the door, when it swung open revealing a pale, haggard older woman.

  A weary smile crossed Mrs. Kroll’s face. “Zoe dear. I’m so glad you’re home. Come in. Please.”

  “I just wanted to drop off your mail. I know you’re tired—”

  Mrs. Kroll stepped back and motioned to Zoe. Tired or not, the woman wanted Zoe to come inside.

  “Alexander was in a hurry today,” Mrs. Kroll said, referring to her son. “He dropped me off and left. I didn’t realize there was a problem until after he’d gone.”

  “Problem?” Zoe held out the mail to her.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Kroll took the bundle, giving it a pained glance. “Thank you, dear.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  Zoe’s landlady turned and headed through the small kitchen into the anything-but-small dining room with Zoe trailing. Mrs. Kroll flipped a switch on the wall, but nothing happened. “Our electric is out.”

  “Did you call the power company?”

  Mrs. Kroll tossed the bundle of mail onto the table. “No. I called Mrs. Hardy down the road to see if she had already reported it, but they have power. Apparently we’re the only ones who don’t.” The woman’s voice had climbed into the shrill panic range.

  Zoe looked around. Sunshine poured through the large nine-over-nine paned windows, so lights weren’t needed yet. “Did you check the rest of the house? Maybe it’s just a breaker.”

  “Everything is out.” Mrs. Kroll flung her arms as if indicating the entire world. “Upstairs and down. I can only assume your half is out, too. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Okay, let me check my place first.” Zoe turned to backtrack out through the kitchen to the porch.

  Mrs. Kroll caught her arm. “Go this way. It’s shorter.”

  The older woman led Zoe into the center hall and to a door located under the main staircase.

  Zoe loved this old house. Technically, it didn’t boast any secret passageways—at least none hidden behind bookcases or accessed by revolving panels—but the door under the stairs came close. Courtesy of worn hinges, it dragged and scraped against the floor when opened. To the left, steps dropped away into the black abyss of the basement. Zoe fumbled for the chain to the light fixture and found it. But a quick tug confirmed Mrs. Kroll’s diagnosis. No electric. Straight ahead was another door. Zoe gingerly picked her way through the dark passage and walked face first into a spider web. She swiped at it, muttering and hoping the thing had been uninhabited. Shoving the other door open, she stepped into her combination living room, dining nook.

  Until that moment, it had never occurred to her neither of those doors had a lock. Not that she ever worried about Mr. or Mrs. Kroll “breaking” into her half of the house. They owned the place and had keys.

  Her two orange tabby cats, Merlin and Jade, scampered into the room at the sound of her footsteps. Both meowed a greeting which obviously translated to “feed me.”

  “In a minute,” she told them.

  A further check confirmed the entire house was without power.

  “Well?” Mrs. Kroll called through the passageway.

  “Nothing,” Zoe called back.

  “What should we do?” The poor woman sounded on the verge of tears. “I miss having Marvin here. He always takes care of these things.”

  “I’ll check the breaker box. Give me a minute.” Zoe headed through the swinging door into her kitchen, an addition to the original structure. It boasted white painted cabinets, original to the add-on, a massive walk-in pantry, and a vintage Hoosier cabinet. In the Hoosier’s drawer, she found what she needed. A flashlight. She clicked the switch. Good. At least the batteries weren’t dead. She retraced her steps to the passageway. And the wooden plank stairs to the pitch black cellar.

  “Be careful, dear,” Mrs. Kroll said.

  The first time Zoe had gone down to the basement, she’d thought about what a great setting it would make for a Halloween party. Mammoth fieldstone foundation, roughhewn beams overhead, uneven dirt floor, and dusty cobwebs everywhere. Minimal decorations would be needed. But with only a flashlight to guide her, she decided it would be an even better setting for a horror flick. Don’t go down to the basement. She snorted a laugh at her fears. Suck it up, you coward.

  Using the beam from the flashlight, Zoe picked her way along the planks, which had been laid on top of the uneven earthen floor. On one side, shelves built into the wall held home-canned peaches and green beans from Mr. Kroll’s orchard and Mrs. Kroll’s garden. From the layer of dust coating the jars, Zoe assumed the canning had been done many years ago, perhaps prior to her landlady’s leukemia battle. A room opened to the left.

  Zoe didn’t have to look. She knew it was the root cellar with a bin of potatoes. She continued through the dark into a large, open space and flashed the light on the oil furnace, silently hibernating during the hot, muggy summer months.

  Her destination was a second room, next to the root cellar. She had no idea what it had been used for originally, but it now housed two oil tanks, a water heater, and the electrical box. Light streamed between the shutter-like slats protecting a small window high in the foundation, making this space a little less ominous. A single bare bulb fixture with a string attached hung in the center of the room. She yanked the string once. Nothing.

  Zoe opened the metal door on the breaker box and studied the array of black switches inside. None appeared to have been tripped. She fingered the one larger breaker at the top. The main. She thumbed it all the way to the right, off, then flipped it back to the left.

  The bulb overhead came on. Mrs. Kroll’s whoop of joy floated down from upstairs. With a smile, Zoe shut the box, clicked off the light, and retraced her path to the stairs, now brightly lit.

  Mrs. Kroll greeted her like a warrior returning from the crusades. “Zoe, dear, you’re wonderful. Thank you so much. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

&nb
sp; Zoe waved her off. “No problem.”

  “You have no idea how much I appreciate your help.” Mrs. Kroll covered her face with her hands and choked out a sob.

  The landlady’s sudden tears threw Zoe off guard. She caught the woman by her bony shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “No,” she wailed.

  Zoe guided her into the dining room and eased her into a chair. “Can I get you something? A glass of water? Tea?”

  Mrs. Kroll fished a tissue from her pocket and pressed it to her nose. “Thank you, no. I’m okay. It’s just been a rough day.”

  Zoe’s mind flashed back to the explosion and fire—and the missing wife and mother. It hadn’t been a great day for quite a few people. She sunk into the chair next to Mrs. Kroll. “Is there anything I can do?”

  The woman sighed. “No. I don’t know. I miss having Marvin around. And the doctor says he’s not responding to treatment as quickly as they’d hoped.”

  This was news to Zoe, and her face must have registered it.

  “He’ll be fine.” Mrs. Kroll reached over and patted Zoe’s hand. “It’s just taking longer than expected. More time in rehab. Our insurance coverage is only picking up part of the charges. And they’re threatening to stop paying altogether. They say he’s only allowed so many days in a skilled nursing facility. Plus there was all the time he spent in the hospital. You wouldn’t believe how much those bills are.”

  Zoe could only imagine.

  “I don’t know where we’re going to find the money.” Mrs. Kroll folded her skinny arms on the table and rested her head on them.

  Zoe stared across the room and out the window at the green fields and the hillside covered in black specks she knew to be Angus cattle in the distance, the bucolic tranquility a stark contrast to the anguish radiating from poor, frail Mrs. Kroll.

  Music erupted from Zoe’s pocket. She dug out her phone, and a piece of paper came with it, fluttering to the floor. Franklin Marshall’s name lit the screen. The coroner. “Hey, Franklin. What’s up?”