Private Justice

by Terri Blackstock

  He drove to Craig’s house and found Vern and Chad already there. “He’s not home,” Vern said. “We’re gonna have to bust in.”

  Stan thought that over. “No. Let me go back to the fire station one more time. I’ll wake everybody up and see if anybody knows where he went. Meanwhile, you two go to the Eastside station and do the same thing.”

  They headed out in separate directions, and Stan prayed that they would find him. Maybe by now Craig was back at the station. Maybe he had sacked out there, and didn’t have a clue that people were searching for him.

  Stan cruised past the Midtown station; reporters still clustered around the door. He parked a block down the street, then cut through the yards until he reached the back door of the station.

  The door was unlocked, so he went in and saw Nick and George Broussard sitting at the kitchen table. “Hey, guys.”

  They both sprang up when they saw him. “Stan, what’s this about Dan getting arrested?” Nick asked. “I told you guys—he cut his hand on glass. I still have the broken glass in the wastebasket to prove it.”

  Stan didn’t want to talk about it. “Look, can you tell me if you’ve seen Craig Barnes? Has he been here?”

  “I haven’t seen him,” George said. “Stan, Dan would never have hurt Martha. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  Stan went through the kitchen and into the back room, where three other guys slept. He turned on the light. “Wake up, guys. Come on, get up. I need to talk to you.”

  One by one, they woke up—Cale, Slater, Lex.

  “What is it, Stan?” Cale asked, sitting on the edge of his bed and squinting into the light. “Has something else happened?”

  “They’ve arrested Dan,” George said. “Ain’t that the most ridiculous thing you ever heard?”

  “Dan?” Cale asked, standing up. “Is that for real?”

  Stan wanted to evade as many of the questions as he could. He’d only come to find out one thing. “Look, I need your help. We’re trying to locate Craig Barnes. Did he say anything to any of you about where he would be tonight?”

  “Not me,” Cale said.

  He asked each of them individually, and all said no.

  “How long since any of you has seen him?” Stan asked.

  “I haven’t seen him since supper,” Nick said wearily. “Stan, why are you looking for him?”

  “I just need to ask him some questions.”

  “About Dan?” Nick asked.

  “No. Are you sure none of you has seen him since supper?”

  “Absolutely,” Cale said.

  “Well, do you know of any place he might be? A favorite hangout, or maybe a woman—”

  All of the men shook their heads. Did they really not know, or were they just covering for him?

  “Look, guys, we’re on the same side here. Are you being straight with me?”

  “The same side?” George asked. “When you’ve already locked up one of us?”

  “I’d give anything to prove Dan didn’t do it,” Stan said. “I don’t like my job much right now, but I’m sworn to do it. All I’m trying to do is keep any more of our townspeople from getting murdered, and you can help me or you can stand in my way!”

  “Stan, we don’t know where Craig is,” Cale said quietly. “But if we see him, we’ll tell him you want to talk to him.”

  “Does Dan have a lawyer?” Nick asked as Stan headed to the back door.

  “Yes, Nick. He has Jill.” Unwilling to answer any more questions, he headed back out to his car.

  Vern and Chad came up empty, too, and radioed Stan that they would meet him back at Craig Barnes’s house. They were waiting there for him when he pulled up to the curb.

  “He’s still not answerin’,” Chad said. “Time to break in?”

  Stan thought for a moment. Barnes wasn’t one to take it lightly if they did any damage to his house. If they broke the lock and splintered the door, they’d better be dead sure he was the killer. If he just had a key….

  A dim memory came to him of another key. The key Craig claimed he’d gotten under Mark and Allie’s mat, the night he’d broken in.

  “Just a minute, guys,” Stan said, getting back into his car and grabbing his cell phone. He dialed the number of the police station and told them to get Mark to the phone.

  Mark’s voice was strained and hoarse as he answered. “Yeah, Stan. What is it?”

  “I need to ask you something. Do you and Allie keep a house key hidden?”

  “No, why?”

  He wasn’t surprised. “Not even under the doormat?”

  “Especially not under the doormat. That’s the first place anyone would look. Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” Stan clicked off the phone and sat staring for a moment. Craig had lied. He’d already had the key. Did he have the Broussards’, the Larkins’, and the Fords’ keys, too?

  Despite the chill breeze, he was beginning to sweat as he got out of the car. “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Vern got a crowbar from his patrol car and Stan broke the inner edge and splintered it until the door opened. Guns drawn, they went cautiously inside.

  Stan turned all the lights on, and began to search the premises—for what, he wasn’t sure. The house was clean, everything in its place, and it smelled of strawberries or apricots…A woman’s picture—the only picture in the living room—sat on a table beside the recliner.

  “Hey, that’s Amanda Marigrove!” Chad exclaimed, bending over to get a closer look. “She died last year when her house burned down.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Vern said. “Pretty lady. Kind of quiet. Why would he have her picture?”

  “Good question,” Stan said.

  “Wasn’t she married?” Vern asked.

  “Yes. Her husband worked offshore on an oil rig. He died a few months ago, though. He had moved to Gulfport. I heard he was in a bad car wreck.”

  Vern shot Stan a look. “Do you think she had a thing going with Craig?”

  Stan shook his head. “No telling.” He stood frozen for a moment, remembering the tragic circumstances of her death. Her house had caught fire in the middle of the night, and it was blazing out through the roof by the time a neighbor had reported it. The firefighters were told no one was home—the husband was out of town, and the neighbor thought Amanda was visiting her mother in Gulfport. Still, they had tried to search the house where it was possible, but by the time they had found Amanda, it had been too late.

  The firemen at the scene had taken it hard, and Craig Barnes, who had not gotten there until after the body was found, had been outraged. But no one had suspected that his feelings were any more significant than those of the other firemen who grieved their failure. It was his department, after all, and everyone assumed he had taken the brunt of the guilt.

  Could it be that, instead, he was grieving the death of his lover, and biding his time until he could take vengeance on the men who should have saved her?

  Chad and Vern were checking out the other rooms now, and Stan went into the hall. There was a door there, and he nodded to the others to back him up as he opened it.

  He swung the door open, and they saw a set of stairs leading up to the attic. The scent of strawberries seemed more pungent there.

  Stan slid his hand on the wall until he found a light switch. When he flicked it on, a dim yellow bulb lit up the room above their heads, enough to see to climb the stairs.

  Stan went first, his gun in one hand as he used his other hand to steady himself on the shaky banister. The smell of strawberries was getting stronger, and a strange sense of foreboding fell over him. He reached the top of the stairs and froze.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Vern and Chad came up behind him, and they all froze, gaping at the scene: a shrine, built of tables and shelves, with a kneeling bench in front of it, and scented candles of all shapes and sizes surrounding the large portrait of Amanda Marigrove in the middle.

  “Weird,” Vern whispered.
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br />   Stan stared at the altar as a million fragments of the same puzzle whirled through his mind.

  “He was prayin’ to Mary. Sayin’, ‘I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so sorry…’”

  Could it be that he wasn’t praying to the Virgin Mary, but to someone else? Amanda Marigrove? Had he called her Mari?

  A chill swept over him as he saw an ashtray full of keys, and a clipboard with a list on the altar. His heart hammered as he walked toward it. “It’s a list,” he said. “A list of women.” He looked up at the other two men. “Fire wives.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  With gloved hands, Stan picked up the clipboard, and he saw the list with women’s names marked through. Martha and Jamie and Francis were all marked out. Susan was marked through with a question mark beside her name. And Allie was last on the list. “What do you bet these keys are to their houses? He probably had them copied while the firefighters slept at the station.”

  “It’s him,” Chad said without a doubt. “Craig Barnes is the killer.”

  Vern bolted down the stairs. “I’ll call an APB on him. If we can get everybody on it, we’ll find him before daylight.”

  Chapter Sixty

  A hospital was a luxury Craig Barnes could not afford. But it didn’t matter much anyway. Yes, the pain was great, and the blood loss had been significant. He was finding it hard to operate that right arm, and since he was right-handed, that presented a dilemma when he tried to drive.

  He turned down rural roads and saw old man Radcliff’s farmhouse sitting out in the middle of its acreage. The old man was half deaf, decrepit, and lived alone. As he drove past the house, Craig hoped he was a heavy sleeper as well. There was the big barn in the back, just as he remembered.

  He left his car idling as he got out and opened the wide door on the side of the barn. The door was big enough to drive a tractor through—but the mayor had forced the old man to sell off his tractor after one too many accidents that had come close to killing him or others. Craig drove his car in, cut off the engine, and closed the door behind him.

  Breathing more calmly in the safety of the barn, he unbuttoned his uniform shirt, peeled it off, and carefully removed the towels he had pressed over the wound, front and back, to stop the bleeding. The towels were soaked, and still he bled.

  He was getting dizzy. Quickly, he reached into the glove compartment for the bottle of iodine he had borrowed from a rescue unit. He’d found the unit parked in the Delchamps parking lot a few hours ago and had simply driven up beside it and asked the attendants for some iodine. Because he was their boss, they had simply handed it over, no questions asked.

  By now, Jim Shoemaker and his crew probably knew that Mark had shot someone. Too bad he’d left Mark alive to describe what he’d been wearing. It would lead them to him. He’d known that he would be caught eventually; he had long since adjusted to that idea. But now time was running out, and he wasn’t finished. They would catch him and lock him up, and Susan Ford and Allie Branning would continue to live, and Mark and Ray would never know the pain that George or Cale or Marty had experienced—the pain that he, himself, had experienced over a year ago. They had to know. They had to understand the pain.

  He poured the iodine over his wound, front and back, and screamed at the intensity of the pain.

  It was a while before the pain from the antiseptic eased, leaving only the raw pulsating agony that had come with him from New Orleans. He wished he had some clean towels. He opened the car door and stumbled out. There was a bale of hay against one wall, and he staggered to it. He had to lie down. If he could just rest for a few minutes, he’d get a second wind. He could then go after Allie, and finish off Susan—and then they could catch him, because it wouldn’t matter anymore.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The safe house where Jim Shoemaker put Mark and Allie at 2:30 A.M. was guarded by four police officers. It was a small house that had once been owned by Patricia Castor, the mayor. She had long ago vacated it for a bigger place more in keeping with her image of authority and power. Though she’d tried to sell it, the furnished house had been vacant for some time, and Stan had gotten her to loan it to the department.

  Mark was waning as Allie walked him in, and she realized that the things he’d been through tonight would have worn out a healthy person. In Mark’s condition, it had to be agony. He complained of a headache, and walked with a limp. She was sure his burns were causing a lot of pain.

  The house was dusty, but Allie told herself she’d take care of that later. Her first priority was to get Mark to bed.

  That didn’t take much persuading. As soon as he was horizontal, his eyes closed. In no time, he sank into a deep sleep.

  Allie was tired, too. Climbing in beside him, she was soon asleep herself.

  Less than an hour later, a killer headache woke Mark. He opened his eyes and found his wife beside him, her finger touching her lips again. The sight of her filled him with warmth, and he ached to reach over and pull her against him. But she needed her sleep.

  He got up, feeling as sore as a man who’d been beaten. The blistered skin on his legs stung, the pain competing with his headache. He wished he had taken a pain pill. Then again, it was better that he hadn’t. He needed a clear head in case anything happened. He padded into the kitchen and opened the back door. “Hey, R.J.,” he said.

  His old friend looked up at him, smiling. “Hey, Mark. You get enough sleep?”

  “I think so,” Mark said. “Listen, heard anything from Stan? Are they still holding Dan?”

  R.J. looked as though he didn’t want to disclose the information. “I think so. But they’re lookin’ for somebody else now.”

  “Who?” Mark asked. “Marty or Craig?”

  The cop hesitated. “I think you’d better call Stan for information, Mark. I’m really not authorized to disclose it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But is the phone working in here?”

  R.J. nodded. “The mayor never had it cut off.”

  Mark went back in and dialed Stan’s number.

  “Stan Shepherd.” His voice was fatigued and gravelly, and Mark knew it had been a long time since he’d slept.

  “Stan, what’s the latest?”

  “Who is this?” Stan asked.

  “Me, Mark. I heard you were after someone besides Dan.”

  Stan was quiet for a moment. “Mark, we’re still holding Dan. But we have strong reason to believe that Craig Barnes is the killer.”

  “No way.”

  “’Fraid so. And since we put the APB out on him, we’ve heard from two paramedics who said he came by their rescue unit and borrowed some iodine last night.”

  Mark let that sink in. “Was he bleeding?”

  “They couldn’t see. He didn’t get out of the car at all, and it was night. He just pulled up to their window and asked them for it.”

  “Still…Craig Barnes? Why, Stan? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “There was something interesting in his attic, Mark. A shrine set up to Amanda Marigrove—remember her?”

  Mark thought for a moment. “Yeah. The woman who died in the fire last year. He didn’t even know her, did he?”

  “Must have. He had a shrine to her, complete with candles and a kneeling bench, and a list of some of the fire wives with lines crossed through the ones who’ve been killed.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Wish I were. Mark, tell me something. Do you remember much about the fire Amanda Marigrove died in?”

  Mark struggled to think back to that night, but it was so long ago that the memory was blurry. “I remember that the neighbor told us he had seen her leave, that she wasn’t home. We still searched the rooms, but some of them were so engulfed that we couldn’t get all the way in. If we’d had reason to think she was there, we might have tried harder to get to her. But I think she was dead before we ever got there.”

  “What was Craig like that night?”

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Cr
aig had shown up late after hearing of the fire on his scanner. He had been rabid when they’d told him about Amanda. “Oh, he was furious. Ranting and raving that we’d dropped the ball, that we’d let a woman die…real emotional. He disappeared and didn’t come back to work for several days. We didn’t know what was going on with him, except that he was so angry at us for letting it happen. Believe me, we felt plenty of guilt, but I don’t think there was anything we could have done. The house was so far gone when we got there.”

  “Apparently, he was obsessed with her,” Stan said. “Tell me something, Mark. Who was on the shift that went to the fire that night?”

  Mark thought. “Well, I guess that’s obvious, isn’t it? Me, Ray, George, Cale, and Marty. And Barnes has targeted all of our wives.”

  “Guess we’ve got our motive. That’s why the fire. He wants you to know what it’s like to have the woman you love burned in a fire. Only it was hard to keep them there unless he shot them first. He’s getting desperate to get Allie,” Stan said. “The thing at the airport proves that. Just seeing her dead would have been enough, and even if he’d gotten caught it would have been worth it to him.”

  The realization washed like a black tide over Mark. Dizzy, he felt for the chair behind him and sat down. “Find him, Stan.”

  “That’s not so easy. We have an APB out on him, and chances are, he’s listening to his scanner to find out what we know. We’re having to be real careful. But you’re safe, Mark. He’s not going to get past the guards we’ve posted there.”

  Mark realized he was drenched with sweat, and his hand trembled as he clutched the phone. “Stan, go out and find him. Don’t let another minute go to waste. Come up with a plan. Draw him out somehow. I don’t care how you do it, but keep him from finishing the job.”

  When Mark hung up the phone, his head was throbbing harder. He went back to the bedroom door, opened it quietly, and looked in on his wife. She still slept peacefully.