Frankie’s eyes bugged. “He does? He did?”
“Yep. And Russ will just have to bite me.”
“Good for you!”
Another thought struck Frankie, and she groaned. Dance? With her foot?
“You mean Maggie is going forward with the party? I thought I talked her out of it last night. Or at least persuaded her that the guy... um... the burned guy with the broken leg is in more need than I am.” Dammit! Her memory let her down again. She couldn’t remember the injured man’s name.
“It’s a nice gesture, you must admit.”
“I guess. Embarrassing, though.” Frankie was silent a moment, watching through the kitchen window as Shine followed Banner on a trip around the yard, both marking their territory.
“What does one wear to such a party? All I’ve got is jeans.”
“Maybe Victoria could lend you a dress,” Jesselyn offered on her sister’s behalf. “You’re about the same size.”
Frankie recoiled. “No dresses. I don’t wear dresses anymore.”
“You don’t?’ Jesselyn sounded puzzled.
“Most dresses don’t go well with sneakers or hiking boots.” Frankie tried for deadpan.
She heard her friend’s breath snag before Jesselyn said, “Oh, right. Gotcha. I’m sorry. I forgot your—” She started over. “Then jeans it is. And the royal blue top you bought is pretty enough for a party. Wear that.”
“Okay.” Frankie waited, certain Jess had more on her mind than what Frankie planned on wearing to a pity party.
She wasn’t mistaken because Jesselyn sniffed and said, “So, is there any progress in finding the ‘Hawkesford Murderer’?”
“Hawkesford Murderer?”
“That’s what the local rag is calling him in a headline blazoned across the front page. Nice, huh?”
“Not to notice.”
A second later, Jesselyn exploded. “What is Gabe Zantos doing, anyway? Sitting on his thumb? Hiding behind a billboard in his car with his eyes closed? Slinging mud at the wall to see what sticks?”
“No... I don’t know.” Wow. Frankie had been under the impression Jesselyn liked Gabe. She must really be upset.
“First, he gives Russ the third degree,” Jess went on in a semi-shout, “dragging him in from the field and causing all the neighbors to look at him with their eyes crossed. Then, when Russ turns out to have a definite alibi for when the duplex was wired, Gabe calls Matt in. Matt has plenty of people to give him an alibi for Howie’s murder, so that pretty much lets him off, but still. What’s up with that? And I think the cops are still looking at Russ. This is ridiculous!”
“I’m glad Russ has an alibi for the explosion and Matt for the other. Honestly, Jesselyn, I think the police are looking at a single person guilty of all events. If Russ—and Matt—is clear for one, it stands to reason he’s clear for everything.” But I don’t know that for a fact. Frankie took another sip of the wretched coffee, curiosity getting the better of her. “What is Russ’s alibi?”
“The fire marshal figured out the duplex was rigged at the time of the field fire, and Russ was the guy on the tractor plowing a firebreak.”
“Then he’s being hailed as a hero.” Frankie gave a sigh of relief on Jesselyn’s behalf. “People are going to remember that a lot longer than they will hearing Gabe had a talk with him. Plowing that firebreak took a lot of courage.”
“I know. And he was on the fire line for hours.” For a moment, Jesselyn warmed—a break between meltdowns. “So what does Gabe have to say? Who else is on his list of suspects? And what put them there? What’s the connection? C’mon, Frankie. Spill. You’ve gotta know what’s going on.”
“I don’t. Honestly. I’m a paramedic, not a cop. And they—” She meant Gabe, of course. “—don’t discuss cop stuff with me—with any of us fire department people. Not even after the station was targeted. I’m sorry.” Moreover, she wasn’t about to talk about anything with anybody without Gabe’s say so. He’d made that abundantly clear.
“Sorry, sorry. You’re living with the guy in charge, for Pete’s sake. Don’t you two talk?”
What was Jesselyn insinuating? Frankie frowned and came out whining. “I almost never see him, Jess. He’s been working non-stop at finding the murderer, and when he’s here, I’m not.”
Usually. A breakfast and a certain wake-up from a nightmare surfaced in her memory.
“Well, corner him and ask,” Jesselyn snapped, and hung up.
A lot of people had acquired a nasty habit of hanging up on her lately. She didn’t much care for it.
As though bent on proving her a liar, Gabe drove up within ten minutes of Frankie telling Jesselyn she never saw him. He backed into the driveway and got out of the SUV. Even from a vantage point at the window, Frankie thought he looked positively hollow, his shirt rumpled, and his jaw stubbled.
Not enough sleep and too much stress. The kind of face she’d seen soldiers wear after too long on duty in Afghanistan. Hell, she’d worn that look herself. Nothing she could do about his weariness, but she doubted he’d been eating either. Rushing to the refrigerator, she dragged items to the counter. Tomatoes and lettuce grown in Gabe’s own garden, bacon, cheese. Nothing like a nice thick BLT on rustic sourdough bread to fill a man up—and maybe soothe the savage beast.
Bacon sizzled in the microwave by the time he finished tossing the ball for Banner a half-dozen times. He stroked an ecstatically wiggling Shine and entered the house, his nose twitching as he caught the scent of bacon. Just like Banner and Shine’s as they crowded in behind him.
“Breakfast or lunch?” he asked.
“Both.” Frankie dealt bread onto the clean counter and sliced a huge purple-hued tomato, one being plenty for them both. “Are you a mayonnaise man or a salad dressing-er?”
His grin flashed. “A salad dressing-er, through and through.”
“Me, too.”
The microwave beeped. Frankie assembled several sandwiches under Gabe’s watchful eye. He leaned against the counter out of her way while the dogs gamboled under her feet.
“Dr. Kelly called yesterday evening,” she said. “She says you two talked. Did our ideas help?” Might as well ask flat out, she decided. Nothing to be gained by pussyfooting around.
“They did. Looks like you two have opened up a possible motive. I don’t think it’ll take long to trace where the list came from.”
Frankie looked up from her sandwich building. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Those names you recognized? They belong to elderly people who’ve recently passed on. Not—” he hastened to assure her as, eyes widening, she gave a little jump. “—because of foul play, but from disease and old age. From there, it’s pretty easy to track their caregivers. I’ve got someone on that now.”
“So this is about blackmail, like Dr. Kelly and I suggested?”
“Seems likely, underlaid by insurance fraud, Medicare being the most predominant. All too common nowadays.” He reached into the cupboard behind his head and got out a couple plates. “Those sandwiches look good.”
He wanted to change the subject.
Frankie took the plates, but not the hint. “Dr. Kelly said you got something else from the list. Another tip-off. Care to share?”
“Your Dr. Kelly is pretty sharp. No. I don’t think I do care to share. Not right now. But I can tell you this much. Our investigation is going to break wide open in the next few hours. Does that relieve your mind?”
“It does.”
Or it did until he added, “But until that happens, don’t go anywhere alone. And I want you to stay alert until I say different.”
Frankie groaned. “Oh, great. Give with one hand and take away with the other.”
“Just until the killer is actually arrested. Which will be soon. I’m sure of it.”
“So who—”
His hand rose in a stop motion. “Don’t ask. I can’t say, just yet. But I mean it, Frankie. You take care.”
He came across as dead serious, whi
ch did nothing to relieve her mind. “Bet on it.”
Appetite destroyed, she put lunch on the table, and they sat down, Frankie with a dog on each side of her chair.
Gabe shook his head at the sight of her sharing out tiny bits of bacon from her sandwich. “Have you found a place to live that’ll take Banner and Shine?”
Was Gabe hinting or what? He obviously wanted her and her menagerie out of the house and his life as soon as possible. And who could blame him? Guilt rolled over her like a heavy dark cloud. She oughta be searching for a house right this minute instead of sitting in her grandma’s—make that Gabe’s kitchen since he was the one paying the rent—eating lunch made from the food he’d paid for.
Stricken with embarrassment, she jumped up; her barely touched BLT forgotten. “Sorry. I’m on it. I’m sure I’ll find something soon.”
Gabe stared at her, his eyes dark. “I’m not trying to throw you out, Frankie. It was just a question. Part of a conversation.”
He’d read her reaction correctly.
“Sit down,” he said. “Eat your lunch.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Slowly, she sat. Beside her, Banner laid his head on her knee. Her hand came up to pet him. “You must be sick of us being here.”
“No, I’m not.” He crunched bacon. “It’s not like we’re living in each other’s pocket. When you’re on shift, I’m off. For the most part, anyway. It works out. Take your time.”
Frankie cocked her head. “You’re serious?”
He sent another of those dark looks like maybe he was fighting against an eye roll. “If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know. Got it?”
“Got it. Thank you,” she said, so overwhelmed by his consideration she could barely speak, let alone eat her lunch. “Thanks, Gabe.”
Later, as she stood at the sink washing their few dishes and he, having worked the last twenty-four hours straight, toddled off to bed, his generosity kept playing through her mind. She couldn’t help thinking altruism might not be his main focus, and there was one main reason why.
Even with her hands submerged in hot dishwater, a shiver of apprehension traveled up her spine.
Gabe doesn’t really think the murders are sewed up. He wanted her where he could keep an eye on her. Why else warn her to remain on alert? To stick with other people?
He probably thought another murder would look bad on his record.
And one thing more.
“I’m a doof,” she told Banner who lay on the kitchen rug with his head on his paws, watching her. “Yes, I am. Slow, slow, sloooow on the uptake.” She had an urge to pound her head on the edge of the counter, see if it would knock some sense into it.
Gabe might have another reason for having her in his home beyond just keeping her out of the line of fire. He might be using her as a lure to draw the murderer out of hiding.
A lure?
Or a sacrificial goat?
Would he really do something like that without telling her? She didn’t know him well enough to say. And what would she do if he did?
Maggie, waiting to get off shift, began talking the moment Frankie walked into the station at her habitual fifteen minutes until six. She hadn’t been kidding when she told Lew she was never late. That first interview already seemed far away.
“The party is all set, Ms. Guest of Honor,” Maggie announced, grinning. “I talked the local country music band into playing for the dance. High school kids, but they’re pretty good, especially Karl’s daughter who is the lead singer.”
The garage door rising on its track interrupted them as the ambulance returned from a run. Frankie drew breath to speak, frowning as Lew and Chris stepped out.
Maggie smoothly cut her off. “The community center agreed to rent the hall for half the regular fee, and some of the fire auxiliary people are baking cookies and making punch and coffee. Starts at eight o’clock on Friday night. We’re only going from eight until eleven since it’s the middle of harvest,” Maggie explained as if this were a fault, “but I figured what the heck. Even farmers need a little break at the end of the week. It’s going to be fun. We haven’t had a party since Lulu Wells’s one hundred year birthday celebration in April. There’ll be a good turn-out, you’ll see.”
If the force of Maggie’s will had anything to do with it, Frankie figured that was true. She held up a stilling hand as Lew and Chris came to join them.
“Do not call me the guest of honor,” Frankie said. “I refuse. The only way I’ll support this fundraiser is if the burn victim is the recipient. The only recipient.”
Maggie looked disappointed. “But we wanted to honor you, Frankie. Hawkesford’s own returning war veteran and all.”
Yeah. Wounded war veteran. Frankie’s skin actually quivered with resentment. “I am not a victim.” The denial came out a hiss, earning herself a sharp stare from Lew. Immediately regretting the attention, she softened her voice. “I mean it, Maggie. I have resources, you know. Truly, things may be tight until payday, but I’m not hurting. I don’t need charity. Mr. Burn Victim does.”
“He sure does,” Chris said, coming to her rescue. “Hayes doesn’t carry insurance on his guys, you know, and Larry Biggs hasn’t been working for him long.”
Maggie sagged, then she straightened and smiled. “I think you’re just being stubborn, but oh, well, I can live with it. At least we’re still having a party.”
“For a good cause,” Lew added. Half-turned from Maggie, he winked at Frankie.
Still disgruntled, she could only shake her head as she headed over to the lockers to stow her purse.
As usual, when he had a couple minutes before quitting time, Chris was already there, poking around at the back of his locker, clearing out before going home.
As she walked up, Frankie caught the flash of light on the blued barrel of a small semi-automatic weapon as he palmed it and stuck it in his pocket. Looked like Chris had begun carrying, too. She couldn’t blame him. Surreptitiously, she touched a toe to the slight bulge of her own pocket pistol hidden beneath her loose uniform trousers.
How many others here were going armed after the attack the other night? Aside from Karl, that was, who had an old six-shooter in his desk drawer? Who in their right mind ever would’ve thought such a thing necessary in Hawkesford, of all places?
Chapter 22
Wednesday night into Thursday turned into a boring graveyard shift. Frankie’s most strenuous effort consisted of talking to both Jesselyn and Susie Ray on the phone—one at a time, of course— and turning the pages of her book. Marc played games on a little old Nintendo-DS unit. Benton typed messages on his Facebook page from his laptop, keeping one eye on the dispatch monitor. Even he had only two calls between midnight and four o’clock, both of which he swiftly passed on to the State Police. Finally, just as dawn spread its first milky rays over the fields west of town, an EMS summons appeared on his board.
Benton hit their alert. Frankie, already watching the dispatcher, placed her bookmark between pages and jumped up. Only a couple seconds slower Marc dropped his game machine.
“I’m driving,” he yelled.
“I am,” Frankie replied.
They raced each other for the truck, Frankie, putting on a surprising turn of speed and amazing herself, gained the driver’s seat first.
She grinned at Marc, who laughed back.
“No fair. You took a short cut. I’ll get you next time.”
Settling onto the rock-hard seat, it occurred to Frankie she not only hadn’t stumbled with her foot in the hustle, she hadn’t even thought about it. Progress.
As the garage door opened, Benton’s voice came over the radio. “Destination—south of town on Leiderman Road, third farm on the left after the crossroad. Patient—Arne Birch, probable heart attack.”
Marc settled into the passenger seat. “Old fella’s on borrowed time. This isn’t his first rodeo.”
Frankie avoided waking the town to the sound
of the siren, although as they neared the farm, she flipped it on.
Marc reached to shut the noise off. “What the heck?”
Frankie stopped him. “No. Leave it on. Victims often find the sound reassuring, knowing help is on the way,” she explained. “It gives them a reason to hang on just a couple of minutes more.”
Marc blinked as he absorbed the fact. “Huh.”
Frankie smiled. For her part, she was relieved the location had come to her without conscious thought. No need to struggle remembering where to find the address. Yet another sign of progress.
Lights shone from the windows of a 1920s two-story farmhouse sadly in need of paint. A heavy-set woman in a faded bathrobe met them, hustling them and the gurney stacked with their equipment down a narrow, dark hall.
“This way.” Only a trace of panic showed in her raspy voice.
Frankie, following her, caught a strong smell of cigarette smoke. No wonder she rasped.
“Are you Mrs. Birch?” Something about the name struck her, an elusive memory, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it now.
The woman snorted. “How old do you think I am?”
Wisely, Frankie remained silent, rolling her eyes as she caught Marc’s wink.
“Well, I can tell you I ain’t that old,” the woman said over her shoulder. “My name’s Chloe Schimmer. I’m Arne’s caretaker. I live here with him.”
The little cavalcade ended up at the door of a grossly crowded bedroom. An oxygen tank stood beside the bed, a crank-up hospital type with the rental store’s sticker on the foot-rail. A sit-down portable potty sat mere inches from the bed. A wizened old man lay propped against some pillows staring toward them out of rheumy, faded blue eyes. One shaking hand clutched at his chest.
“When did you notice Mr. Birch having trouble?” Frankie motioned Marc around to the other side of the bed. It left the near side with the oxygen tank to her.
Mrs. Schimmer leaned anxiously against the foot of the bed. “I heard him thrashing around about fifteen minutes ago and came to see if he needed help. He said not, but his color is bad, and he’s having trouble breathing.”
Hometown Homicide Page 21