Zoe folded her arms in front of her, never taking her eyes from Tom. “I’m glad I caught you before you left for the airport. There’s something I need to know.”
He turned slowly to meet her gaze, but his face remained unreadable. “And what’s that?”
Heat crept up Zoe’s neck. “Why didn’t you ever tell me Dad was asking questions about Denver and Vernon’s deaths before he died?”
An exasperated and unladylike noise came from Kimberly’s direction, but Zoe didn’t look away from her stepfather.
Tom lifted his chin ever so slightly. “Was he? I don’t recall.”
The heat spread to Zoe’s eyes. “You don’t recall? From what I’ve been told, he was asking everyone in town. Including Chief Froats.”
Kimberly choked. “Froats? You’ve been talking to that horse’s ass?”
Her mother swearing caught Zoe off guard. She turned from Tom. “I need answers, and you two haven’t been giving me any.”
Kimberly’s face reddened. “You do not need answers, my darling daughter. You need drama. You like to stir the pot just to upset me.”
“I do not.” Zoe hated the way her voice sounded like a whining teen. She swiped a hand across her eyes to stem the threatened flow of angry tears. She would not cry. Not now. “I do intend to find out what happened to my father—”
“You already know,” Tom interrupted.
She swung back on him. “Do I? Do any of us? There was no autopsy. The police investigation was laughable. Now we find out he was digging around in an old case that raised a lot of unanswered questions. And people involved in one or the other or both of these old cases are turning up dead.”
Tom didn’t as much as blink at her tirade. Instead, he quietly said, “We?”
Zoe paused, her mouth open. “Huh?”
“You said we found out Gary was digging. Who’s we?”
She swallowed. “Pete Adams. And me.”
“The police chief.” Tom said it as if the words tasted foul in his mouth.
The heat behind Zoe’s eyes threatened to boil over into tears again. She tried to swallow them. No way should she ever play poker against this man.
She lowered her voice. “He’s meeting with the DA right now to get a court order to have Dad’s body exhumed.”
“No!” Kimberly’s cry sounded like something that might come from a wild animal. “No. I will not have Gary disrespected like that. For God’s sake, Zoe, let him be at peace.”
Zoe spun to face her mother. “How can Dad be at peace if he was murdered and his killer’s still out there?”
Behind her, Tom’s chair squawked against the wooden floor. “Zoe—”
A soft rap at the door cut short whatever he was about to say. Jade bolted from her perch on the stacked luggage.
Zoe glanced at the door, then back at her parents.
Kimberly appeared on the verge of a stroke, her face crimson, her eyes wide. “Tom, we have to stop this. I won’t have Gary’s grave desecrated.” She tossed her napkin over her uneaten breakfast, stormed across the room and up the stairs.
Tom had climbed to his feet and towered over Zoe, his blue eyes dark as the storm clouds gathering outside the window. “I’m going to call our attorney. He’ll have this blocked. And then we’re leaving for the airport. I’d like to say it’s been nice spending time with you, but...”
Whoever was at the door knocked again, louder this time. Zoe glared at her stepdad, feeling very much like the rebellious teen she had once been. But at least she hadn’t let him see her cry.
She turned her back to him and crossed the room to answer the door.
Patsy Greene stood wide-eyed on the porch, and Zoe wondered how loud their discussion had been.
Zoe stepped back, motioning Patsy in.
“Mr. Jackson.” Patsy offered a shy smile.
“Patsy.” Tom’s expression softened. “I’m afraid Kimberly and I are going to miss your birthday party on Friday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to catch.” He shot a dark glance at Zoe and strode to the stairs.
As his heavy footsteps faded, Patsy made a pained face at Zoe. “Sorry. I interrupted something, didn’t I?”
“Yes.” Zoe closed the door. “And you have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
“Oh.” Patsy’s laugh was as uncomfortable as her expression. “I hate to bother you...”
“You’re not bothering me. What is it?”
“Well. I was going to clean stalls for you this morning.”
Zoe thought of the autopsy and looked at her mantle clock. Crap. She was going to be late for sure, and if she had to clean stalls, too? “Something’s come up and you can’t do it,” Zoe finished Patsy’s sentence for her.
“No, that’s not it. It’s...well...the manure spreader...”
Zoe slapped a palm to her forehead. “I was supposed to take it out and empty it.”
Patsy nodded apologetically. “It’s overflowing as is. I’d do it, but I don’t know how to drive Mr. Kroll’s tractor. I’m afraid I’d blow it up or something.”
Zoe heaved a sigh. “My fault. I completely forgot about it. Let’s go.” She glanced at the stairs. When her mother and stepfather had arrived less than a week ago, she’d have claimed her relationship with them was as bad as it could get.
She’d been painfully wrong.
Pete swore under his breath as he juggled his crutches and the heavy wood door between the DA’s outer office and the hallway. When he did manage to heave the oak slab open, he was met with a thud and a round of cursing.
Wayne Baronick caught the door and held it with one hand while pressing the other to his nose. “Chief Adams.” The detective’s voice carried a definite nasally twang. “It figures. Does breaking my nose on the DA’s door count as being injured in the line of duty?”
Pete snatched Baronick’s hand away from his face and studied the nose in question. No blood or other signs of injury. “Crybaby. It looks fine.” Pete nudged the detective out of the way and hobbled past him.
The detective made a show of looking behind Pete. “Where’s the rest of your posse?”
Posse? Oh. “Pop’s at home. Sylvia came over to watch him.”
“How’d you get here then?” Baronick glanced around a little too eagerly. “Zoe?”
“No.” The detective’s sudden interest in Zoe and her recent tendency to refer to him as Wayne irritated Pete. A lot. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I had one of my officers drive me.”
Baronick hoisted a thumb back toward the DA’s office and fell into step beside Pete, who headed for the elevator in the courthouse annex. “Is Fratini on board with the exhumation?”
The sterile building lacked both the history and the charm of the old courthouse and neglected to make up for it with working modern amenities. The down button failed to light even after Pete’s repeated jabbings. “Not at first. He didn’t think we had strong enough evidence linking Gary Chambers’ death to either the James Engle’s case or the Carl Loomis investigation.”
“But the letter from Engle named Chambers. And Loomis was driving the car that killed him—”
Pete leaned heavily on his crutches and silenced Baronick with a raised hand. “I explained all that. But the kicker was the botched case.” Pete smiled, remembering the gleam in the DA’s eyes. “No autopsy. Shoddy investigation all the way around. Do you know who the district attorney was twenty-seven years ago?”
Baronick scowled. “Is this a quiz?”
“A man by the name of Randall Taucher.”
The detective’s frown deepened as he clearly struggled to make sense of the name.
“You might be familiar with R.J. Taucher.”
The light of recognition clicked on in Baronick’s eyes. “Young hotshot
attorney over in the public defender’s office?”
“That’s the one. Randall Junior. And, according to our illustrious District Attorney, the boy is eager to take a run at his late, great father’s office.” The elevator door pinged open, and Pete hobbled in.
Baronick blocked the door from closing. “So Fratini figures showing the old man screwed up an old case might shine a bad light on the kid?”
Pete shrugged. “Politics. But if it gets me what I want, so be it.” He punched the button for the ground floor. It didn’t light either.
“Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you.” Baronick leaned against the elevator opening, keeping the doors from whishing shut.
“Oh?” This better be good. Pete wanted to get back to Zoe’s and talk to the landlady, hopefully before Tom and Kimberly Jackson left for the airport.
“The lab just called me with some results you might find interesting.”
Pete straightened, taking his weight off the crutches.
“The bullet they removed from Marvin Kroll?” A smug smile crept across Baronick’s face. “Was fired from the same gun as the bullet that killed Denver Miller.”
“That,” Pete said, “is very interesting.”
“There’s more. They managed to lift a pretty good print off that letter the crime unit guys found in James Engle’s house.”
The letter to Kimberly. “Did they get a match?”
“Not through AFIS.” Baronick was trying so hard to bite back a smile, Pete expected him to explode.
“But?” There was always a but.
“But they matched it to the prints found on that Coke can you picked up.”
The can Sylvia had pocketed on Monday. At Zoe’s house. Tom Jackson. Pete took a slow breath. He should be way more excited about matching two pieces of evidence and possibly nailing a killer. Instead, he ached, knowing he was about to destroy Zoe’s world.
Twenty-Three
Thunder growled as Zoe clicked on the lights in the massive pole barn. Outside, it was darker than dusk. She could only hope the storm would swing to their south so she could empty the manure spreader without getting drowned.
She eyed the Massey-Ferguson still parked in the middle of the indoor arena, the lone silent witness to Mr. Kroll’s shooting. The beast was his pride and joy. Old but sturdy and reliable, he would boast. A lot like the man himself. At least until three days ago.
“Seems almost sacrilege, doesn’t it?” Patsy used a manure fork to scoop a smattering of dirty bedding that had tumbled off the spreader and tossed the stuff back where it belonged.
“You mean touching Mr. Kroll’s toy?” Zoe managed a sad grin.
“Yeah.”
“We can’t leave it here like this. And a loaded manure spreader isn’t exactly the kind of monument to a person’s life anyone would want.”
Patsy winced. “Monument? You make it sound like he’s dead.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Zoe put one foot on the tractor’s hitch and reached up to the seat.
“Wait.” Patsy raised a hand.
“What?”
“You’re not gonna start it yet, are you?”
She wasn’t? “Uh. Yeah. Why?”
Patsy crossed her arms on top of the manure fork handle, resting her chin on her wrists. “I’ve watched Mr. Kroll start this baby at least a hundred times, and never once without checking the oil first.”
As much as Zoe did not want to attend Carl Loomis’ autopsy, she wanted to face Franklin Marshall’s wrath even less. Besides, it was going to pour any second. “I think he’d forgive me if I overlooked it this one time.”
“He always says the reason his farm machinery runs so good is because he always, always takes good care of his equipment. And checking the oil is one of the things he harps on the most.”
“You’re right.” Mr. Kroll was meticulous about the care and feeding of his beloved gadgets, big and small. With a resigned sigh, Zoe glanced around for a rag. “Do me a favor. Grab a roll of paper towels from the tack room.”
Patsy propped the manure fork against the spreader. “Sure thing.” She scuffed off across the arena.
The windows and doorway lit up with a flash of lightning. Zoe flinched at the boom that followed. Blinking, she noticed the metal toolbox bolted to the back of the tractor, below the seat. Of course. Mr. Kroll kept something in there for wiping down a dipstick.
Zoe clanked open the lid revealing a wadded oily gray rag. “Never mind,” she called after Patsy.
Grabbing the rag, Zoe tugged. But it was caught on the tools beneath. She gave another yank, freeing the cloth—along with a folded piece of paper that went scurrying across the arena floor, caught on a gust of wind from the open barn doors.
“Crap.” Zoe tossed the filthy rag onto the tractor’s fender before jogging after the elusive paper. She snatched it before the next breeze could send the thing to the opposite end of the building.
The paper turned out to be a dirt-smudged envelope. Maybe something important. A bill Mr. Kroll had intended to take into the house after he’d finished his work that day? Only he hadn’t counted on being hauled away in an ambulance.
Patsy shuffled to Zoe’s side for a closer look. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.” Zoe turned the envelope over, checking for a return address.
It took a moment to make sense of the awkward, nearly illegible scrawl. Another moment for the name scribbled in the upper left corner to register. James Engle
“It might be personal.” Patsy shook her head emphatically. “You better put it back.”
Ignoring Patsy’s complaints, Zoe thumbed open the flap and snatched out the letter. The handwritten words in that now-familiar scrawl swam together before her eyes, but without reading a thing, she knew she was looking at the motive for Mr. Kroll’s shooting.
Officer Nate Williamson was certainly big enough to qualify him as a linebacker. Yet for a personal vehicle, he drove a two-door Saturn Ion. Pete shoved the passenger seat as far back as it went and still couldn’t get comfortable with his bum foot. Maybe he really should consider making that appointment with the orthopedic guy.
A gust swayed the small car, and Nate clicked on the wipers as the first few fat rain drops splatted on the windshield. “How soon before they dig up the body?”
“Fratini will go before the judge today to get the court order. Could happen later this afternoon.” Pete glanced at the deepening black sky out the window. A jagged bolt of lightning transected the clouds. “Or tomorrow.”
“I wonder how Zoe’s gonna handle it.”
Pete had told Nate about the fingerprint and wasn’t sure if he meant that or the exhumation. Either way, the next couple of days were going to be rough for Zoe.
Pete pulled his cell phone from his pocket and rolled it over in his hand a few times. Should he call her and warn her about the prints? No. She was assisting with the Loomis autopsy this morning. He started to put the phone away, but thought better of it and punched in Kevin’s number.
He answered on the second ring. “Yeah, Chief?”
“Did you find out anything about Gary Chambers’ life insurance?”
“I did. I had to promise to let the gal at the agency go over my current policy with her, but she managed to dig up some old records.”
Pete grinned to himself. “Was she cute?”
There was a self-conscious pause. “Uh, well, I only talked to her on the phone, but, yeah. She sounded cute.”
“What’d you find out?”
“If you hoped to learn he had a million-dollar policy, I have to disappoint you. In fact, he had a pretty skimpy death benefit, even for the time. Two thousand dollars. His wife sure didn’t get rich when he died.”
“Damn.” A million-dollar payout was exactly what he�
�d been hoping for. On the other hand, bumping Zoe’s mom down a notch on the suspect list motive-wise wasn’t such a bad outcome. “Thanks, Kevin.”
Nate slowed the Saturn as they approached the bend before Zoe’s place. Even though the car’s clock read a little after eight-thirty on a summer morning, the storm-darkened sky made it look like closer to nine at night. Lightning momentarily brightened the landscape followed by a ground-shaking rumble of thunder. The raindrops were still fat and sparse, but Vance Township was only minutes, maybe seconds away from a gully-washer. Pete hoped he and his cast could make it inside before that happened.
With no vehicles coming the other way, Nate swung the small car wide to the left and made the near U-turn to the right, bouncing up the hill before the drive snaked toward the house.
Zoe’s two-tone brown Chevy pickup sat in its usual spot. What was it doing there? She was supposed to be in Brunswick at Loomis’ autopsy. Next to Zoe’s truck, Patsy Greene’s black Dodge Ram. The Krolls’ white Ford would be in the antiquated garage across the farm lane, but Tom and Kimberly Jackson’s rental car was noticeably absent. Damn.
In that moment, something he should have caught before leapt to his mind. He yanked his notebook from his pocket. It was already open to his last interview with Carl Loomis in preparation for asking Mrs. Kroll about her husband’s visit there. Pete didn’t even have to flip a page to find what he was looking for.
Loomis had reported seeing two cars at James Engle’s house a week ago. Kroll’s pickup was the second. The first had been a nondescript beige sedan.
The Jackson’s rental car had been a nondescript beige sedan.
“Damn.” Pete said it out loud this time.
Nate parked next to Zoe’s Chevy. “What?”
Pete opened the door and hoisted himself out of the Saturn with a grunt. “Call Kevin. Tell him to check the rental car places at the airport. Find out if Tom Jackson rented a beige sedan. Ford. Loomis never said the sedan was a Ford, only the SUV.” Pete could kick himself for not making the connection earlier. “Check for rentals last Tuesday or Wednesday.” Rain pelted his back. He started to close the car door then jerked it back open. “If he doesn’t find a rental in Tom Jackson’s name, check under Kimberly Jackson. Or Chambers. And tell Kevin to check the airlines to find out exactly when they flew into Pittsburgh.”
2 Lost Legacy Page 21