St. Albans Fire

by Mayor, Archer

  “She all right?”

  Marie Cutts finally looked straight at him, her eyes narrow with anger. “Her brother was just burned to death. No, she’s not all right. Are you the idiot who’s supposed to catch who did this? God help us.”

  “Marie,” her husband cautioned.

  “I understand how you feel, Mrs. Cutts,” Joe began.

  “Oh, spare me,” she cut him off sharply. “And can the sympathy. You don’t know us from Adam’s off ox. This is your job, and if we’re lucky, your ambition will give us what we want, which is the son of a bitch who burned my son alive.”

  “Maybe you should check on Linda,” Cal suggested gently.

  “Check on her yourself,” came the quick reply. “This man wants answers. I’m going to give them to him.”

  Cutts looked at a loss, suddenly on the hooks of his own suggestion.

  “Go on,” she ordered him. “You’re wasting time.”

  Hesitantly, he rose to his feet, smiling awkwardly at Joe. “Maybe a good idea. She’s taken this pretty hard. I won’t be long.”

  His heart sinking, Joe conceded. “Take however long you need.”

  They both waited until Calvin had left the room.

  “What do you want to know?” Marie Cutts demanded.

  Joe took the direct route, hoping it might earn him some small amount of credit. “For one thing, I’d like to reconstruct the last hours of Bobby’s life—maybe find out why he was out there in the middle of the night.”

  “He went up to his room early, mooning about that tramp he was stuck on, and that’s the last we know.”

  “What made you aware the barn was on fire?”

  She made a sour face. “You think sixty cows and the barn they’re in burn without a sound? Mister, you haven’t lived till you’ve heard that.” She tapped her temple. “That’ll stick in my head till I die, ’cause somewhere in the middle of it, I’ll always think my son was calling for help, with no one to hear him. You don’t think that’s a mother’s nightmare, you’re stupider than I thought.”

  Gunther sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his placid demeanor hiding the anger he now showed in his voice. “Mrs. Cutts, if you want me to stuff the sympathy and act like someone who’s just punching the clock, fine. But do me a favor. You stuff the attitude. I don’t need a lesson in heartbreak from you, ’cause you know absolutely nothing about me.”

  Marie Cutts’s mouth opened in shock. For a long, measured moment, she said nothing. Joe waited, wondering how this version of a splash of cold water would work.

  Finally, she pursed her lips, frowned, looked down at her hands for a slow count of five, and then glanced up—serious, honest, and for the first time, vulnerable.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was the noise that woke us up. I called 911 as Jeff and my husband ran out, but it was already too late. We couldn’t even free the animals. It seemed like the fire was everywhere. And that sound…”

  Joe spoke softly. “Do you know of anyone, for any reason, who might have wished this on you?”

  Her hands clenched tighter in her lap, but her eyes remained on his. “So it was set?”

  He hedged. “We’re making that presumption so as not to miss anything.”

  She shook her head. “People are so crazy nowadays. What’s it take to push them over the edge? Not getting a parking place or not wanting to wait in line any longer? I don’t know. We do our work, we mind our own business. It’s not like in the city, where people get on each other’s nerves.” She suddenly waved at the view out the window, similar to the one he and Jeff had shared earlier. “Look. We can’t even see our neighbors. We might as well be living on the moon.”

  Joe let her calm down a few seconds before suggesting, “But you don’t live on the moon. You have neighbors, you belong to the dairy co-op, you interact with people in town. What’s the farm’s financial situation?”

  She sighed. “Like everybody else’s. You borrow money against the year’s production, and then you keep your fingers crossed you’ll have something to produce. We have good years and bad. I heard the average farmer’s income in the U.S. is like twenty thousand a year, net. That fits us, if nothing falls on our head. This last year wasn’t too bad. But we have debts, if that’s what you’re asking. Cal and Jeff work all summer baling other people’s hay, to tilt the balance a little, ’cause Cal’s got the equipment for it when most others don’t.”

  “And Jeff’s still set to take over when you and Cal retire?”

  She looked surprised. “Where did you… ?” Her voice then flattened, catching him off guard, and she turned away. “Oh, you were talking to him. Yes, that’s right.”

  He studied her staring at the blank TV again. Her tone had turned hostile, as when the topic of Jeff Padgett marrying Linda had come up.

  “You don’t seem very happy about it,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes didn’t move. “It’s not my farm.”

  Ouch, he thought, and pursued this new vein, taking an only slightly educated guess. “And it wasn’t going to be Bobby’s, either?”

  She cut him an angry look. “What’s your name again?”

  “Joe Gunther.”

  “Well, Mr. Joe Gunther, if you want me to clean up my attitude, then you can stay the hell out of our private business. Bobby’s death has nothing to do with who gets what in this family. You do not get a free pass to poke around, leastwise not from me.”

  Joe nodded. “Fair enough. You made it pretty clear you weren’t super fond of the girl Bobby was dating.”

  “Marianne Kotch is a slut; that’s why.”

  “How rocky could things get between them? I gather they had their ups and downs.”

  Marie Cutts looked scornful. “Jeff tell you that? He’s just jealous. Probably wishes Linda wore tight clothes and no bra, too.”

  “Is it true, though?”

  “They weren’t happy,” she conceded. “Marianne tried to dump him once. I don’t know how they were doing lately, but my guess is, she was putting him through hell. I warned him about her, but that’s all he needed to make a big deal out of it. I even caught her in the supermarket parking lot, not long ago, making out with some long-haired greasy guy in a car. She was all over him. I told Bobby, like it would make any difference. I swear that half his interest in that girl was just to spite me.”

  “You know who the greasy guy was?”

  “No. I mean, I’ve seen him around. He’s a St. Albans kid. No good.”

  “You have a name?”

  Her eyes narrowed again. “What is it with you? We’re talking about a teenage whore making out in the parking lot. Who cares? You think either one of them killed Bobby? They know how to do one thing, and it isn’t striking matches, unless it’s to light a joint.”

  Joe just watched her in silence.

  Losing the staring contest, she looked away again. “It was John Frantz’s boy. I don’t know his name. Frantz runs a feedstore in town. You can find out that way.”

  “How did Bobby react when you told him?”

  “I didn’t actually tell him who it was. He pretended like he knew anyhow. Said he and Marianne had already talked about it, but I could tell he was lying. I saw the hurt in his eyes.”

  “Would he have confronted this boy, do you think, had he known who he was?”

  “I wish he had,” she said hotly. “Bobby would have kicked his skinny ass.”

  “But he didn’t, as far as you know?”

  “No,” she admitted mournfully. “Bobby was too much like his father that way. Not much of a fighter.”

  As if on cue, Calvin Cutts appeared at the doorway, his expression telling Joe that he’d overheard—and that he was used to it. “Linda’s asleep, finally,” he said quietly, regaining his seat beside his wife. He reached out to take her hand again, but she moved it away.

  Gunther kept focused on Marie. “What about Barry Newhouse? Jeff told me Marianne dumped him and used Bobby to rub it in. Barry lives nearby, does
n’t he?”

  Marie turned on her husband, rather than answering. “Would you tell your fair-haired boy to mind his own business? He’s been shooting his mouth off with all sorts of crap about Bobby’s love life, none of which will have anything to do with the price of eggs in the end, assuming there is an end.”

  She stood up abruptly, her husband’s return clearly triggering the fury she’d been barely controlling so far. “My son was just killed,” she addressed Cal, “along with your entire herd. Everything we worked for, saved for, everything we sacrificed for, is a pile of ashes. And what are we doing? We’re letting a cop give us the third degree based on a bunch of gossip from Jeff Precious Padgett.”

  She’d been pacing the floor during this diatribe, and now came to a dead stop in the middle of the room, finally rendered motionless by her outrage. Her arms stiff by her sides, her fists clenched, she tilted her head back and yelled at the ceiling, “Goddamn you all,” before storming out the door, slamming it behind her. The two men stared at the door in silence before Calvin Cutts said in a soft voice, “This is hard on her.”

  Joe shifted his glance to him, aware that he was speaking of far more than their son’s death.

  “And maybe a bit on you, too?”

  “Yeah,” Cal said softly. “A bit.”

  Chapter 5

  “BOBBY DIDN’T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO OWN A FARM,” Calvin Cutts said sadly. “Marie could never accept that. And when I gave it to Jeff and Linda instead—or at least made it clear that they would inherit it—she saw it as my betraying her family tree.” He shook his head. “She’s never been able to get past that.”

  Gunther was confused by the reference to her family tree, also remembering that moments ago Marie had referred to Bobby as her son and the destroyed cows as Cal’s herd. “How were you betraying her family tree? Wasn’t Bobby both of yours?”

  “Oh, yes. But Jeff isn’t. That’s the rub. Marie’s father lost the farm she grew up on. She’s a woman of some pride and saw his failure as a stain on her family honor. That farm had been theirs for a lot longer than this place has been in my family. To this day, she claims the bank did the old man in, but he fell apart and hit the bottle. From the time Bobby was born, she always saw him taking over here as a kind of redemption: a son of hers setting the legacy right.”

  They were still in the Cuttses’ living room, the door closed since Marie’s violent departure.

  “And instead you gave it to a troubled kid off the street,” Joe mused.

  “Kind of, yeah,” Cutts admitted. “Actually, Jeff wasn’t such a stranger. I knew his folks before they split up and disappeared and left him behind. I always knew he was good at heart. He just needed a break.”

  “How did Bobby see his joining the family?” Joe asked.

  “He was okay with it,” Cal answered carefully. “I suppose there might’ve been some rivalry early on. But Jeff’s nine years older. It didn’t take them long to sort it out, and after that, they were like brothers. The way I see it, Bobby was actually kind of grateful. He was always better as a number two man—wasn’t comfortable running things. That’s what I meant before.”

  “Your wife must have been upset, seeing an outsider doing so well at her son’s expense.”

  Calvin hesitated before repeating, “My wife has a lot of pride.”

  Gunther wasn’t going to argue with what had obviously become a mantra of sorts. He changed directions slightly. “Sounds like Barry Newhouse has good reason to be pretty angry at Bobby. What do you think he’s capable of?”

  Cal echoed his son-in-law. “Not much besides drinking and wasting time.”

  “He wouldn’t want to get even?”

  Cutts paused, clearly rethinking his response, given Joe’s implication. “Ah,” he said. “He might. He’s had run-ins with the law before.” He dropped his gaze to the floor and let out a deep sigh. “My God,” he added softly, “what have we come to?”

  Gunther kept going, hoping to keep the man functional. “What can you tell me about John Frantz’s son?”

  Cal looked up, his eyebrows arched. “Rick? Good Lord. I don’t know. He’ll probably put his father into an early grave, but that may be as much John’s fault as Rick’s. John’s a little straitlaced. Why do you ask?”

  Joe kept his reply vague. “I heard he might be seeing Marianne, too. Would you call Rick a violent kid?”

  Cal pushed his lips out and reflected. “I honestly don’t know. All the black leather clothes and body piercing. The violent message is there, but I don’t know if he’s ever carried it out. He could certainly hold his own if it came to a fight, I guess.” He gave Joe a hapless look. “Sorry.”

  Joe rose to his feet and crossed to the window. Leaning against the cold glass, he asked, “I’m sorry to get more personal, but I need to know a couple of private things.”

  Still sitting on the couch, Cutts looked up at him open-faced. “Sure. Whatever you need.”

  “How were your finances before the fire?”

  Cal smiled wryly as he answered, “Blame the patient for the illness?”

  But Joe shook his head. “If by that you mean that I’m thinking insurance fraud, I don’t believe you’re a man who would sacrifice his animals, much less risk killing someone. I do have to ask, though. Not to mention that you may not be the only one to benefit from the loss of this farm.”

  Cutts sighed. “Finances were fine; at least normal. I own the farm free and clear, I have an equipment loan from the farm service agency with about thirteen thousand left on it, and I was about to take out ten thousand more to plant this coming season, as usual.” He paused before adding, “Now, though…”

  In the silence, Joe repeated the question he’d asked of Calvin’s wife: “Insurance?”

  “Some,” he answered wearily. “Not enough.” He stopped again, this time clearly arrested by some pressing thought, and then he placed both palms against his forehead. “God.”

  “What?” Joe asked.

  “Sugaring time’s almost here,” Cutts said, not looking up. “Bobby, Jeff, and I were going to set the taps next week.”

  Gunther knew what this meant from having helped his own father years ago. Maple sugaring—far from the quaint hobby that many vacationers assume it to be—is a serious moneymaker for many farmers. Having been told of the farm’s physical assets by Jonathon, Joe calculated that Calvin could probably place about two thousand tree taps, generate some five hundred gallons of syrup, and maybe gross $10,000 a year selling wholesale—hard cash. No small change to someone netting only twice that much every twelve months. What Calvin Cutts had just heard was the metaphorical final coffin nail being driven home, assuming he hadn’t already reached that point. Part of the rationale behind sugaring was that you could do it with available resources: free scrap wood to run the evaporator, free sap, and free manpower, since it tended to be a family business. With his son dead and his spirit broken, however, Cutts was unlikely to have the heart to manage a sugar run, no matter how much money it might generate.

  Joe wouldn’t pursue how this news struck him here and now; callous as it seemed, he had his own immediate needs to address. But he made a mental note to see what could be done about gathering this man’s sap for him, at the very least.

  “Cal,” he said quietly, “I hate to keep at this, but I need to know something else. Assuming Bobby had nothing to do with the fire—that he was just an innocent victim—can you think of any reason why someone might want to put you out of business?”

  Cutts looked up at him. Gunther wasn’t sure he didn’t have tears in his eyes. “Enough to destroy a man’s family? No.”

  “Let me put it another way, then,” Joe persisted. “Have you done anything at all in the last several years that might’ve pissed somebody off?”

  Calvin ran his hand through his hair. “Jesus, who hasn’t? For one thing, I’m a registered Democrat. That pisses my wife off right there.”

  “Something you did,” Joe suggested. “Maybe invo
lving a family member or a neighbor. A business deal.”

  Cutts sat back in his seat, suddenly staring at Gunther in wonder. “My God, you think it could’ve been?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Joe answered, not knowing where this was headed.

  “Christ,” the other man murmured. “Last year, Billy St. Cyr and I had another run-in, but it couldn’t have anything to do with all this. That’s just too crazy.”

  “Tell me about it anyway.”

  Cutts still looked incredulous. “It was stupid. He drained a small wetland into my cornfield, and I called him on it. Instead of damming the ditch he’d just dug, like I suggested, he called the local ag agent on something he thought I’d done. He claimed I’d planted illegally close to a streambed, which I hadn’t—he got the regulation wrong. Anyhow, he was fined for his violation almost as soon as the agent showed up. It was totally crazy. He should have kept his mouth shut. Instead, he ended up losing a bundle and blaming me.”

  “That was it?” Joe asked. “How big was the fine?”

  “Not huge, and Billy’s got the money. He’s doing well. He takes advantage of every subsidy, every handout, and every financial incentive that comes down the pike, plus he sells off overpriced parcels of land to flatlanders looking for a piece of God’s country. He’s not a bad farmer, truth be told, but he’s a little shy on scruples.”

  “He ever make an offer for your place?”

  “No. If anything, he wants to get out.”

  Gunther pulled on an earlobe, reviewing what he’d just heard. “You said this was another run-in. There were others?”

  Cutts waved his hand tiredly. “All the time. Something like twenty years ago I sold Billy a truck that seized two months after he bought it, probably because he didn’t change the oil. He said I knew it was a lemon and that I should buy it back. I refused, and that was the start of it. He’s hated me ever since.”

  “Has it escalated over time?” Joe asked.

  Calvin shook his head. “Nope. It’s always piddly stuff, and it always comes up when he’s got nothing better to do.”