by Gayle Wilson
The guilt Cade had felt since the investigator had given his verdict increased. Although he’d tried to keep his doubts about Blythe’s story hidden, he was sure she’d known what he was thinking. And if she hadn’t, he still regretted thinking it.
He hung his hat on the hall tree, shrugging out of his jacket to loop it over the hook under it. He blew out a breath, dreading the coming confrontation.
So far Blythe had managed to keep herself together. He had a quick mental image of her chin lifting defiantly as she’d told him about the tapping on the window.
Her footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor of the hall. Cade raised his eyes to watch her walk toward him. She was wearing the same jeans she’d had on earlier. He hadn’t seen the dark red sweater because she’d been bundled up in a jacket, which had added bulk to her figure.
Despite the fact that it had been only a few days, she appeared to have lost weight since she’d come by his office looking for Hoyt. Stress from the noises she’d told him about? Or her daughter’s nightmares. Or arson.
Enough to kill anybody’s appetite.
“Sheriff Jackson? Delores said you wanted to see me.”
“Think your grandmother would mind if we used her parlor?”
“I think she’d be embarrassed I haven’t already invited you there.”
She led the way, indicating one of two wingback chairs that had been set before the fireplace. While he was wondering if he was likely to leave soot or dirt on the pale brocade, Blythe took a match from a box on the mantel to light the gas logs.
“I’ll get that.” As he spoke, he began to move in front of her, holding out his hand for the match.
Somehow they ended up trying to occupy the same space. She laid the match on his palm and then stepped back out of his way.
In the brief contact between them, he’d been aware of her with every sense he possessed. Her height. The brush of her shoulder against his. The fragrance of her skin, clean and light and far more tempting than the darker, stronger perfume his ex-wife had worn.
He turned on the gas and lit the logs. When he turned back around, she was watching him.
“Since you’re here, I take it the investigator confirmed there were no candles involved in what happened last night.”
“He found clear evidence of an accelerant.”
“What does that mean?”
“That the fire was definitely set. He believes someone broke out a window in the downstairs room on the far left of the house, threw whatever he was using in through the window and then set it alight. Although there didn’t appear to be a lot of furniture in the room, the blaze caught.”
“There were a lot of boxes in there. Things I hadn’t gotten a chance to unpack. I guess that’s one thing I can mark off my to-do list.” What had clearly been intended as some sort of gallows humor fell flat.
Cade ignored the comment even as he gave her marks for trying. “You usually keep the door to that room closed?”
“Since I wasn’t using it. Except for storage, I mean. It made the rest of the downstairs warmer.”
And it would be cheaper. He knew that she was working for Ray Lucky, but only part-time. Finances were probably tight.
“The inspector thinks that’s why you were able to get Maddie out before the whole thing went up.”
“Because I’d closed that door?” she asked with a disbelieving laugh. “Probably the first thing I’ve gotten right since I came home.”
There was nothing to say to that, either. Cade’s impression that she was ready to cut her losses and leave was even stronger than it had been this morning.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said when the silence stretched. “And for coming by to do it personally.”
“A couple of the deputies found tracks on the other side of those woods that back the Wright place. I don’t know that they’re connected to what happened last night, I sent them back to your place to see if there’s anything we missed this morning.”
“What kind of tracks? Footprints? You think he came through the woods?”
“It’s possible. They’re relatively narrow. There were tire tracks as well. An indication that someone had pulled off the road and parked almost directly behind your house.”
“And walked through the woods carrying…what? A can of gasoline?”
“Or kerosene. The report from the fire marshal’s office should give us more details.”
“And then he just stood in the trees and watched us try to escape the fire he’d set.”
Even if that had been a question, Cade couldn’t see any point in answering it. “I was hoping you might have thought of something else. Something you didn’t mention this morning. Had you seen anyone hanging around the house in the last few days? Or noticed a car parked nearby?”
“Neither. Actually, nothing unusual has happened outside the house at all.”
“You think he could have gotten inside? Sometime before last night?”
“I don’t think what was going on inside that house had anything to do with someone coming in from the outside.”
They were back to the haunting. Despite the fact that she had apparently been right about the figure in the woods, he was no more inclined to buy the supernatural business than he had been this morning. Since he wasn’t, there seemed little point in continuing this discussion.
“If you think of anything, would you call me?”
“Of course. And I’ll hear back from you regarding the fire marshal’s final report as well as any progress on those tracks?”
“You’ll be the first to know.” He stood, nodding to her. “Thanks for your time.”
“I’m not ungrateful. No matter how that might have sounded. It’s just that I’ve been trying to make sense of this for weeks and haven’t been able to. Now I’m trying to explain it to someone who clearly doesn’t want to hear it.”
The accusation was well deserved. Still, even if the Wrights were playing restless spirits in their old home, they hadn’t left tire tracks on Salter Road or thrown kerosene around the dining room.
“Anything else happened since you’ve been back that made you…I don’t know. Uncomfortable somehow?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Anybody in town look at you strangely? Seem overly interested in you or in Maddie? Anything that set off your personal weirdness alarm?”
“When you’re a thirty-one-year-old widow who’s come home again to raise her daughter, almost everyone’s reaction seems forced. People never know what to say. Or how to say it. Especially to Maddie. ‘I’m so sorry your father died. Or do you even remember him, dear?’ So…to answer your question, yeah, I found about half the people in this town to be strange.”
“Frightening strange?”
She shook her head. “The only things I’ve been afraid of since I’ve come back all took place inside the house where we were living. I can’t offer you a suspect, Sheriff Jackson. Or a motive, other than the fact that Ada Pringle, with the help of your receptionist, has been telling people I’m going to solve the Comstock case.”
“And you think that has something to do with the arson?”
They were still standing, facing one another. For the first time Blythe broke eye contact, looking down at her clasped hands. She still wore her wedding ring on the left, he noticed with a stab of something that felt ridiculously like jealousy.
She raised her eyes finally, meeting his. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot since last night. Sarah’s murderer has never been caught. Maybe he took Ada’s nonsense seriously.”
“And tried to make sure you didn’t catch him by burning the house down around you?” He hadn’t been able to prevent that trace of sarcasm, but she didn’t seem to resent it.
“There have been plenty of motives for murder that made no more sense than that. Besides—”
“Besides what?” he prodded.
“Sarah’s grandmother lived in that house. Maybe there is some connection.”
“Between what’s happening now and what happened then.”
“It’s been a long time. Twenty-five years. We don’t even know if the murderer is still alive.”
“Or if he’s dead.”
“Or if he’s dead,” he conceded. “If no one has identified him after all those years, do you think he’d be that concerned at the idea of a freelance writer trying to figure out a murder that has baffled law enforcement for a quarter of a century?”
“Haven’t you heard? According to Ada, I’m the next Mark Furman.” Her voice lost that mockery. “Maybe that isn’t what has him frightened. Maybe he’s figured out that law enforcement isn’t the only entity who wants him brought to justice. After all, what was going on in the Wright house is what made me start researching.”
Cade had been willing to cut her some slack after all she’d been through. And admittedly a lot of intelligent people believed in the spirits. He drew the line at the idea of her ghostly visitor trying to encourage her to seek out the killer.
“You think that tapping you heard is some kind of Morse code from the great beyond?”
“I think Sarah Comstock’s grandmother and grandfather lived in that house,” Blythe said, her voice patient. “It’s not beyond my belief system to think they might want the monster who brutalized and then murdered her to be caught.”
“I’ve never known a better law-enforcement officer than Hoyt Lee. Sarah’s murder was his case, and he did everything in his power to solve it. Seems to me if Eula and Buck wanted to give somebody hints as to the murderer, they would have started with him rather than you.”
Her eyes had widened at his bluntness. “I guess it’s all moot now anyway. If the Wrights were haunting that house, they’ve been displaced as surely as we have. So…thank you again for coming by, Sheriff Jackson.”
Clearly a dismissal. And he was more than ready to let this go. “I’ll call you about the tracks.”
“You do that. And if I hear any more tapping, I’ll see if I can figure out the message for you. In the meantime, I need to check on my daughter. I’m sure you know your way out.”
12
A s he closed the door of the Mitchell house behind him, Cade reviewed their conversation. He’d come over here with bad news, expecting Blythe to have a meltdown when he told her the fire had been set. Instead she’d seemed more concerned about the noises she’d heard while she’d lived there than about the fact someone had apparently tried to kill her and her daughter.
He stopped at the foot of the steps, his mind reiterating the thought. He believed that, he realized.
He might not buy the hocus-pocus about things that went bump in the night, but he didn’t believe what had happened last night was a simple case of arson. Someone had tried to murder Blythe Mitchell. As difficult as it might be to fathom, right now the only motive he had for that attempt was the story Ada Pringle had spread around town.
Had a killer who’d gone undetected for twenty-five years panicked because he’d heard some writer was doing a story on the case? It didn’t make sense. Not unless the murderer knew something he didn’t.
Obviously, Cade acknowledged bitterly. Like who the hell he was and why he’d killed an innocent little girl. Nobody, not even the redoubtable Hoyt Lee, had been able to figure that out.
But the ex-sheriff would remember everything there was to know about the crime. Before he sought the old man out for his take on all this, Cade had his own investigation to carry out.
There was a file on the Comstock murder a couple of inches thick. He had read it before, back when he’d first been elected, more out of curiosity than anything else. This time he’d be reading with an eye to any connection between those events of a quarter century ago and what was going on right now.
Blythe’s anger carried her almost to the kitchen before she began to feel ridiculous. It was one thing to wonder if the tapping at the window and Maddie’s nightmares could have a supernatural causes. It was something very different to tell the county sheriff that you suspected a murdered child’s grandparents were trying to steer you to her killer.
Even she didn’t believe that. She had allowed her exhaustion and her anger with Cade’s dismissal of her concerns to goad her into going too far. In the process, she’d lost all credibility with him.
It didn’t matter, she decided, trying to regain her composure before she had to face her family. Why should she give a rat’s ass what some country-bumpkin sheriff thought anyway?
Because he’s Cade Jackson. And because you still see him through the eyes of an impressionable adolescent.
“What did Cade have to say, dear? Seems that young man is quite taken with you.”
Despite how far from the truth that statement was, especially right now, Blythe managed a smile for Maddie, who was standing on tiptoe beside Ruth as the old woman mixed what appeared to be piecrust. Blythe could remember when she’d been a little girl watching those skillful fingers with the same fascination her daughter was displaying.
“What don’t you run upstairs and get our jackets, Maddie? I think we have time enough before dinner to go out back and swing. What do you think, Grandmamma?”
“I think you should probably have daylight out there until just about the time I take the corn bread out of the oven.”
“And you’ll push me?” The eagerness in the little girl’s eyes made Blythe realize how little time she’d spent with her daughter since they’d been here.
“As high as you want. Would you like that?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ruth corrected. “You remember what I told you about ladies and their manners.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Maddie echoed.
“Then run on upstairs and get our jackets.” Coats had been an immediate necessity, one she’d taken care of on the way to see Doc this morning.
Blythe waited until the child was out of earshot before she turned back to her grandmother, who was adding ice water to the dough, a careful tablespoonful at a time and then blending it in with an economy of motion.
“Cade Jackson certainly isn’t interested in me. And saying things like that in front of a four-year-old is just asking to have them repeated at the wrong time and to the wrong people.”
“What in the world would it matter if she repeated it?” Ruth asked without looking up. “You’re both single. Folks around here have been expecting Cade to set his sights on somebody since his wife walked out on him five years ago. Thought she was too fine to be married to a rural county sheriff. If ever a man deserved some happiness—”
“Maybe so, but he isn’t looking for it with me. This was an official visit. He came about the fire.”
“Well, what did he say?” The gnarled fingers paused, as Ruth looked up.
“That whoever they sent out from the state found signs of an accelerant.”
“A what?”
“Gasoline. Kerosene. Something to start the blaze.”
“Lord have mercy. Even with all the wickedness these days, you don’t expect something like that. Not in Crenshaw.”
Crenshaw. Where long before the current day’s wickedness a child only a few years older than Maddie had been murdered.
“So what’s he gonna do about it?”
“Who?” Her thoughts on Sarah’s murder, as they increasingly had been lately, Blythe hadn’t made the connection.
“Why, Cade. What does Cade aim to do about what happened?”
“They’re looking for prints. Tire tracks. He thinks they might have found some on the other side of the woods that run behind the house. I’m not sure Cade wants that to become common knowledge, though,” Blythe warned. “Just keep that to yourself until I check with him.”
“I can tell Delores, can’t I?”
Blythe suspected it would do little good to say no. “Just tell her not to spread it around.”
“We ain’t gossips in this house, young lady,” her grandmothe
r said, throwing a little flour on the dough that she’d now taken out of the bowl and shaped into a ball. “No need for all your warnings.”
“I’m ready.”
The announcement made them both turn. Maddie had donned her own jacket, and she held Blythe’s out to her.
“I know you’re not,” Blythe said softly, reaching out to touch Ruth’s hand. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Go on then. I’ll call you when supper’s ready.”
Knowing from experience that her grandmother’s pique would be short-lived, Blythe walked over to take her coat from her daughter. She slipped it on, and then put her hand on the back of Maddie’s head, guiding her toward the back door.
It felt even colder outside than it had this morning, a dank and dreary winter afternoon. Maddie seemed oblivious to the temperature, running happily toward the swing.
Blythe followed more slowly, unable to put the events of the day out of her mind, despite her determination to make the most of these moments with her daughter. By the time she reached the oak, Maddie had already crawled up into the tire, small, chapped fingers wrapped around the rope it hung from.
Blythe moved into position behind her, pushing the surprisingly heavy swing forward. She stepped back a foot or so, and then gave it a harder shove when it swung back to her.
Maddie leaned back, scuffed tennis shoes pointing toward the lowering sky. Somewhere, sometime since they’d moved down here, she’d learned how to propel the swing with just the movement of her body. Another milestone she’d missed, Blythe realized. Another thing someone else had taught her daughter.
Through the months of John’s sickness and death, poor Maddie had gotten the short end of the stick. She’d been clothed and fed and loved, of course, but the little things, the store of memories that mattered most to a child—
Maybe the psychologist had been wrong, Blythe thought as she pushed the swing again. Maybe those night terrors were Maddie’s way of demanding attention. An attention the little girl was more than entitled to.
“Did you have fun today with Miz Ruth and Delores?”
