Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned

by Annette Dashofy

  “You left Dillard at about eight-forty-five?”

  “Sounds about right. I was supposed to meet Smith at nine. I was a few minutes late, but there wasn’t anyone there. I waited until nine-thirty and then called the number he gave me. It was some photography studio up in Butler County. The guy who answered the phone thought I was nuts.”

  So far, Farabee’s story matched what Pete had already learned. “Then what?”

  “I was pissed. Like I really need to waste gas on a wild goose chase.” Farabee ran a hand across his mouth, took a couple of steps, and turned to pace back. “I called Lill on her cell. She was all excited. Happier than I’d heard her in a long time. She’d gotten the job.” Farabee’s expression changed from relived anger to agony. “She wanted to stay in town and do some shopping. Get herself some clothes for work and something for Maddie. We haven’t had any money for so long, we’ve been doing without.”

  Pete gave him a minute, watching him struggle with raw emotion.

  When Farabee continued, his voice was ragged. “I was so damned frustrated about everything, I told her not to spend money we didn’t have yet. But I needed some materials for a cabinet I was building. I asked her to pick up a few things for me and to come straight home.” He rubbed his forehead, covering his eyes for a moment. “If only I hadn’t been such a… If only I’d let her do her shopping. If only I’d been the one to go straight home. It would have been me in the house. It should have been me.”

  “You didn’t go straight home?”

  “No. I should have. But I was angry and knew I needed to cool down. I drove around a while.”

  “Did you stop anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  Realization spread across Farabee’s face. “You’re asking if I have an alibi?”

  Pete shrugged. “One wouldn’t hurt.”

  Farabee looked at Pete as if he had sprouted a second head. “You honestly think I’m responsible—that I had anything to do with—?” Shaking his head, Farabee stalked away, turned, and came back toward Pete with a clenched fist. “I loved my wife, Chief Adams.”

  “All marriages have rough spots.”

  “We would have gotten through this—” Farabee must have caught his slip and clamped his jaw shut.

  Pete pretended he hadn’t noticed, but he jotted a note to go back to Scenic Hilltop Estates and ask Farabee’s neighbors specifically about problems they might have been having. “Is there anyone who might have wanted to do harm to your wife?”

  “No,” Farabee snapped.

  “You didn’t give a lot of thought to that question.”

  Before Farabee had a chance to respond, the screen door on the side of the house slammed, and Zoe, dressed in her paramedic’s uniform, stormed out from what Pete knew was her kitchen. “Stop,” she said as she approached them. “Pete, are you interrogating him without a lawyer?”

  Damn it, Zoe. “I’m just getting some information for my investigation.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said doubtfully. She pointed a finger at Farabee. “Don’t answer any more questions without your lawyer.”

  “I don’t have a lawyer.”

  Zoe glared at Pete but directed her words at her new housemate. “I’ll give you the number for one.”

  Pete sighed and closed his notebook.

  “Where’s Maddie?” Farabee asked.

  “In my kitchen having a peanut butter sandwich.” Zoe hoisted a thumb toward the door she’d just come from.

  “I’m gonna check on her.” Farabee raised an eyebrow at Pete. “If we’re done here?”

  “We’re done,” Pete muttered.

  As soon as Farabee had disappeared into the house, Zoe planted her fists on her hips. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “I could ask you the same question. Why are you protecting him?”

  “I’m not protecting him. I’m protecting Maddie.”

  “And right now, that’s pretty much the same thing?”

  “I guess so. She’s just lost her mom. He’s all she has.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you he might be the reason that little girl’s lost her mom?”

  Zoe wavered. “Maybe at first. But not now.”

  “At first? You mean at the fire. When you questioned why he was acting like his wife was dead when we didn’t even have a body yet. When you were thinking like a cop,” he reminded her.

  “Before I had a chance to get to know him.”

  “Know him?” Pete didn’t like the sound of this at all. “You don’t know him. You feel sorry for the kid. But you don’t know Holt Farabee. You’ve invited a total stranger into your home. A man you met two days ago. A man who may have rigged his house to blow up, killing his wife.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Why? Because you don’t want to believe it?”

  “You trust in your gut all the time. Well, my gut says he didn’t have anything to do with the explosion.”

  “Your gut.” Pete wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her. “In other words you’re trusting your gut, evidence be damned.”

  “Evidence? What evidence?”

  Pete lowered his voice in case Farabee might be listening through the screen door. “The gas line into the dryer had been tampered with. Farabee has the handyman skills to do that. He has no alibi for the time prior to the explosion.” Zoe opened her mouth to protest, but Pete held up one hand, shushing her. “And I have a sneaking suspicion he and his wife weren’t as happily-ever-after as he’d like everyone to believe.”

  Zoe sputtered through several false starts at refuting Pete. Finally, she blew out an angry grunt. “None of that is evidence. A halfway decent defense attorney would laugh you out of court if that’s all you have.”

  “I’ve just gotten started.”

  “You’re only going after Holt because you don’t like him.”

  “And you do?”

  She pulled up short. Drew a breath. “Yeah. I do.”

  There it was. Zoe had held Pete at arm’s length for months—years. And yet within two days, she was sharing her house with Holt Farabee, trusting his word over Pete’s, and admitting she had feelings for the man. “All right.” Pete nodded. “You go ahead and trust your gut. After all, it’s done a fine job of guiding you with regards to men in the past.”

  And without waiting for her reaction, which he assumed would be a slap across his face, Pete stormed past her, heading for his vehicle.

  Zoe stood, trembling in the shade of the old locust tree. Chills wracked her body while hot, furious unshed tears burned her eyes. The problem with falling in love with her best friend was he knew about all her skeletons. And he knew which buttons to push to cut the deepest.

  She didn’t even realize she’d walked back to her kitchen door. She didn’t remember opening it, stepping inside, or letting it slam behind her. But she blinked and came back to her senses when she looked up and saw Maddie perched on the stool she kept in the corner at the far end of the long narrow room. Holt leaned against the counter next to his daughter, his forehead creased.

  “Are you okay?” He sounded as though he expected her to drop dead at any second.

  Maddie had stopped eating what was left of her sandwich and stared wide-eyed at Zoe. Did she look that bad?

  With a glance at her watch—crap—she said, “I’m late for my shift. There’s a Rolodex on my desk in the other room.” She waved in the general direction of her office. “Look under ‘I’ for Imperatore. Anthony Imperatore. He’s a lawyer and a good one. Give him a call.”

  “Zoe, I didn’t—” Holt shot a look at Maddie. “I didn’t do what Chief Adams clearly thinks I did.”

  “I know.” Did she? “All the more reason to call Mr. Imperat
ore and put a stop to this nonsense now rather than later.”

  “You’re right. Thanks.”

  “I really am late. Lock up when you’re done in here.” Zoe headed for the swinging door into her dining room/living room, but stopped next to Maddie and gave her ponytail a gentle tug. “I’m on duty until Monday morning. Tomorrow, you take your dad out to the barn and introduce him to George, okay?”

  The little girl brightened. “Okay. Can I show Dad how to brush him?”

  Zoe smiled. “You bet.”

  As she hit the door, swinging it open, Holt called out to her. “Zoe?”

  She turned to him.

  “Thanks.” He tipped his head toward Maddie. “For everything.”

  Zoe nodded and pressed on through the door. She grabbed her keys from the table and paused. Had she just traded her long-time friendship with Pete to protect a man she knew nothing about? Did she really trust her gut that much?

  Could Pete’s words have hurt this deeply if she didn’t somehow fear he might be right?

  Twelve

  Wayne Baronick showed up at the Vance Township Police Station a few minutes after five. Pete gathered the county detective and Officer Kevin Piacenza, who had Friday’s four-to-midnight shift, into the conference room to share and compare notes from the day.

  Pete settled into a chair at the end of the long table, his notebook and a cup of coffee in front of him. “Did you find out anything about the Farabees?”

  Baronick pulled his phone from a pocket. “You should be answering that question, since he’d moved to friendlier digs by the time I got to the motel.”

  Pete noticed the puzzled look on Kevin’s face, but his officer knew enough to keep his mouth shut. “Are you telling me you didn’t accomplish anything this afternoon?” Pete growled.

  Baronick chuckled. “You know me better than that.” He clicked his phone’s screen and read from his notes. “Holt and Lillian Farabee were married twelve years ago in Ashland, Kentucky. Her parents are both deceased. His mother and father are still living in that area. I tracked down their phone number and reached the old man, but he basically told me to get lost. Only not in that nice of terms. Said he hadn’t spoken to his son since shortly after the wedding. He’s never even seen his granddaughter and didn’t sound like he cared to, either.”

  “Nice guy,” Pete muttered.

  “Not from the sound of it. When I told him about his daughter-in-law’s death, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Nor did he care where his son and granddaughter were right now. He had no idea where they’d lived after they moved from Kentucky.” Baronick tapped the screen again. “I, however, found out anyway.”

  Pete had no doubt. Baronick might be as annoying as hell most of the time, but he was a go-getter.

  “Holt and Lillian Farabee moved from Ashland to Columbus, Ohio, which is where their only child was born. They bounced around to a half dozen locations in Ohio and Indiana, following big construction jobs, before moving to Monongahela County four years ago. He’s worked on a handful of building projects here and in Allegheny County, some big, some small.”

  “What about the wife?”

  Baronick scrolled through his notes. “She must have been a stay-at-home mom for a while because I couldn’t find any employment records on her until they moved here. She worked as a secretary for the Monongahela Technical Institute until two years ago when she got laid off. Since then, she’s had a few part time gigs at different shops in the mall. Nothing substantial or long-term. And I couldn’t find anything at all in the last seven months.”

  Pete tapped his pen on his notebook. “Check the Home Depot in Brunswick.”

  “Oh?” Baronick shifted in his chair. “Why?”

  “According to Farabee, his wife had a job interview there the morning of the explosion, and they’d hired her.”

  Baronick tapped out a note on his phone. “Learn anything else from him?”

  Pete briefed the detective and Kevin on his interview with the grieving husband—leaving out any reference to Zoe.

  “So he has no alibi for the time of the explosion,” Kevin said.

  Pete shrugged. “Even if he had met with someone, he was still the last person to leave the house. He had plenty of time to disconnect the dryer and open the valve after his wife left.”

  “And he had the know-how,” Baronick added. “Although it doesn’t necessarily take a skilled plumber or carpenter.”

  Scowling, Kevin rubbed his chin. “But why kill his wife?”

  Pete thought of Farabee’s slip-up. We would have gotten through this. “I have a feeling there was a lot of strain between them over money.”

  “But a lot of couples fight over money,” Kevin said. “They don’t generally kill each other, though.”

  “True.” But Farabee was hiding something, possibly flat-out lying, where his wife was concerned. Pete would bet his career on it. He was already betting his relationship with Zoe on it. “Dig around,” he said to both men. “I want to know what kind of marriage Holt and Lillian Farabee had and if anything had changed recently.” Pete aimed his pen at Baronick. “And see what you can find out about insurance.”

  The detective tapped out a note on his phone. “If Farabee had a nice-sized policy on the wife, it could solve all his money troubles.”

  “Check his homeowner’s policy, too.”

  “But they’d been evicted,” Kevin said. “Would the policy still be in effect?”

  Baronick rubbed his nose. “I’ll find out. What about the neighbor who lied about knowing they were occupying the house? Tierney?”

  “He wasn’t home yet. According to his work voicemail, he’ll be back at his desk on Monday. I’m going to keep checking at his house every time I go past.” Pete pointed at Kevin. “If you see anyone around when you’re on patrol, call me. And brief Seth when he comes on duty, too.”

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  The police radios on Pete’s and Kevin’s duty belts squawked. Kevin quickly turned the volume on his down so they wouldn’t be faced with stereo transmissions. “Vance Base, this is Mon Dispatch.”

  Nancy had left for the day, so Pete keyed his mic. “Dispatch, this is Vance Unit Thirty.”

  “Unit Thirty, respond to a traffic collision with injuries. Thirteen forty-eight Phillipsburg Road.”

  Good thing Nancy wasn’t there. “Ten-four, Dispatch. Units Thirty and Thirty-one responding.”

  Kevin was on his feet even before Pete. “Isn’t that…?”

  “Yeah,” Pete growled.

  Baronick remained seated. “Someone you know?”

  “I hope not. But we’re familiar with the address. It belongs to my secretary’s parents.” Pete followed Kevin out the door, calling back over his shoulder, “And there’s been an ongoing argument about hedges.”

  Hot water was a marvelous thing, even when the temperatures outside sizzled. Hair damp, but the rest of her clean and dressed in a fresh uniform, Zoe stepped out of the crew shower room at the Monongahela County EMS and nearly collided with her partner.

  “I was just about to knock and ask how long you were gonna be.” Earl Kolter crooked a finger at her. “We’re up.”

  She jogged after him, through the front office and into the garage, grabbing her ball cap from the peg on the wall. “What have we got?”

  Earl circled around to the driver’s side of Medic Two. “Traffic accident with injuries.”

  She leaped into the passenger seat, and Earl tossed her the note with the address so she could start filling out a run report. As the ambulance rocked out of the bay and onto Main Street, Zoe grabbed the mic. “Control, this is Medic Two. We’re en route to…” She checked the note. “…thirteen forty-eight Phillipsburg Road.”

  “Ten-four, Medic Two. Seventeen-twenty-three.�
��

  Zoe jotted the time—the military version of 5:23 p.m.—on the run report and started filling in the little information they had at this point.

  Earl flipped on the siren through town, easing around the cars that moved out of their way. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked over the wail.

  Zoe pretended to focus on the form on the clipboard. “What do you mean?”

  “Coming in late? That’s not like you. What’s up?”

  She fingered her damp curls. “The water heater at home is broken.”

  “I got that much. All the more reason to come in early.”

  “I intended to.”

  She and Earl had been partners for years. On the job, they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They’d developed a kind of communication shorthand, and working on a patient became a well-choreographed dance.

  Between calls, they shared an easy friendship born of having each other’s backs in the trenches. On slow nights, they were hard-to-beat euchre partners against the other crew members. Off duty, she attended his kids’ birthday parties. He was part of the poker gang, which also included Pete, Sylvia, Seth, and Yancy.

  Earl knew about her lousy romantic history, but was smart enough to not ask for details. When he fell quiet, she assumed he was going to let the matter of her tardiness drop.

  As they reached the edge of Phillipsburg, for a moment traffic cleared. He reached over and silenced the siren. “You want to talk about it?”

  So much for letting it drop. “Not really.”

  Even keeping her eyes on the report, she caught the glance he shot her. “Does it have anything to do with Pete?”

  She wanted to snap at him. Mind your own business. But getting snippy on the way to a call wasn’t exactly professional. Instead, she kept quiet.

  Earl whooped the siren as they approached Dillard. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  She thumbed through the copies of old reports stashed in a pocket on the aluminum clipboard’s lid for no reason other than avoidance.