The Second Lie

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I know, Grandpa, that’s why I’m here,” Sam said, playing along. “Now tell me about your day. How was dinner?”

  “Good. I burned the buns, but the roast made up for it.”

  Grandpa hadn’t burned buns in thirty years. Or cooked in two, other than making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for Kyle at random times. And they’d had ham for dinner.

  “Tell me about Gretel, Grandpa. About the time the two of you ran away to the fair…”

  Kyle stood there, listening as his grandfather talked about the love of his life, who’d died before Kyle was born. When it came to his late wife, the old man didn’t forget a single detail.

  His voice filled with strength—and his eyes with peace. Sam asked questions, actively engaging in stories she’d heard almost as many times as Kyle had, until the old man fell asleep.

  And then she headed back to the kitchen, standing there awkwardly.

  “I just came to…apologize…again for the way I came at you on Friday.” Her gaze scanned the kitchen. “I’m just tired, you know, and worried, and—”

  “Forget it, Sam.”

  She looked at him, then quickly glanced away. “I… You… I don’t want to lose you, Kyle.”

  “I’m guessing since you haven’t lost me by now, it’s probably not going to happen,” he said, wishing she’d just be Sam and mouth off to him about doing something stupid like buying dangerous chemicals, or berate herself for being paranoid, and then take him to bed.

  That’s what they both needed.

  “I…”

  “Let it go, Sam.” He needed her tonight. He’d had a call from the doctor Saturday morning. The blood pressure tests they’d done on his grandfather that past week hadn’t been good. Any exertion at all—even eating—raised his blood pressure to dangerous levels. And he was already on the highest dosage of medication.

  Nodding, she turned toward the door. “Okay, well, I just… I’m sorry.”

  She left. And didn’t glance back.

  Kyle was still pondering the ex-woman of his dreams Tuesday morning as he tackled the storage barn. Sam was acting as if she didn’t know him. Like he’d sprouted horns. All because he’d purchased some extra chemicals?

  Chemicals that could be used to make meth.

  Could Pierce be right? Was she really becoming irrational like her father? So afraid that if she didn’t rid the world of scum, her loved ones would be at risk.

  He’d known Sam’s father. Had liked him. He hadn’t seen any sign that the man was obsessive. But then he’d only been ten when Peter Jones had been killed. Still, from what Kyle had heard, most folks were shocked when Sam’s dad had gone off the deep end and gotten himself killed.

  Surely the same thing wasn’t happening with Sam.

  Kyle didn’t want to think so. But when he’d finally put his foot down, told her she had to chose between being a cop or his wife, she’d chosen to be a cop.

  And if she’d given him the same ultimatum—staying on the farm or being her husband?

  No, Kyle wasn’t going to spend another morning going around in circles with that one.

  Cleaning the barn was much easier.

  The house only got dusted or vacuumed when Sam grew sick of looking at the mess and cleaned it herself or if he called a woman from town to do it. But Kyle did his best to keep up with the barn.

  The fact that he’d had to climb over the small tractor, snow blade and the tiller, then step over some shovels, a half-used bag of mulch and the dump trailer just to get to the small insecticide sprayer he was looking for, told him it was time to reorganize.

  A good hour later he’d cleaned and refilled the horse feed and seeding bins. Spare bags of both feed and seed were neatly stacked, extra horse tack and medicines were all in their proper cabinets and he had a small path cleared through the rest of his mess.

  Which was more than he could say about the situation with Sam. He didn’t want to marry the woman. They’d been down that road. But he couldn’t imagine life without her.

  He decided to tackle the chemicals next. When he went to hoist the fifty-five-gallon carbon steel tank of methanol so that he could sweep the cement slab it rested on, Kyle almost fell backward with the force of his own strength.

  He’d used enough force to lift fifty-five pounds, but the tank felt like ten.

  With a frown, and an unusual sense of foreboding, Kyle lifted the tank again, rocking it slightly back and forth.

  He’d noticed the tank was a little lighter the last time he’d checked, and he’d put it down to evaporation. But forty gallons of gas did not evaporate from a sealed tank that quickly.

  What the hell was going on?

  Was he mistaken? Had he used more gas than he’d thought? Purchased less?

  Shaking his head, Kyle set down the tank and headed for his office—what used to be the formal dining room in the house his grandfather had built for his Gretel seventy years before. He knew he wasn’t mistaken. Sam had just thrown the sales figures at him on Friday. Not something he was likely to forget.

  Checking both his purchasing accounts and the record of use he meticulously kept for all of the hazardous, seed, feed and medicinal products on his property, he verified what he already knew. He’d stored that last fifty-five-gallon tank of methanol on the cement slab poured specifically for that purpose. And he hadn’t touched the tank since.

  Call Sam.

  Kyle reached for the phone and set it back down as the full implications of that Friday morning visit slammed into him.

  Sam believed meth was being made in large quantities in the area.

  Kyle had purchased a larger quantity than usual of two of the key ingredients.

  And now he was missing a substantial amount of one of them.

  How would that look to a woman obsessed with finding this lab, even though her colleagues weren’t so sure it existed? Chuck Sewell was the best cop around next to Sam and equally concerned about the county’s drug problem. But according to Sam, Chuck believed there was a huge increase in the amount of the drug being imported.

  One thing was for sure. Right now, especially after Sunday’s visit, Kyle didn’t trust Sam to believe him when he told her that he had no idea what had happened to the gas. Or to help him. He didn’t trust his best friend to have his back.

  Still, methanol was a dangerous chemical. Improper exposure to the gas could cause dizziness. Nausea. Nervous system disorders. Eventual death.

  And he had forty gallons of the stuff unaccounted for.

  Back out in the barn with his inventory list, surrounded by his “toys,” as Sam had once called his equipment and tools, Kyle calmed down a bit. Methanol was dangerous, but only if mishandled. If the extra gas were anywhere around him he’d have begun to react to its presence within hours.

  If nothing else, his nostrils would have bothered him.

  And if someone had taken it? In the first place, it wouldn’t have been all that easy to get it off his property. And in the second place, the whole idea was ludicrous.

  He wouldn’t even have considered theft if Sam hadn’t planted the seed of suspicion in his head. Methanol wasn’t exorbitantly expensive. But had someone needed it for a valid and good reason and couldn’t afford it?

  Or was the thief involved in an illegal superlab?

  What if Sam was right? What if the missing methanol was tied in some way to a dangerous drug operation?

  He had to alert the authorities.

  He couldn’t be convicted for something he hadn’t done. Hell, he had no idea how to make meth. Had never even seen the stuff. Even if Sam was nuts enough to arrest him, he’d be able to prove his innocence.

  And his corn was going to be ready to harvest by the weekend. Which was the other reason he was in the barn that morning—making his way to the combine to make certain that the belts were tight and to adjust and oil the roller chains.

  This harvest was critical if he had any hope of becoming financially solvent. He had no family to fal
l back on. No brothers or parents or in-laws.

  He had a grandfather who was dying.

  And if he didn’t make a profit, they might not even have their home.

  The corn had tested at twenty-two and a half percent moisture content the day before. At an average loss of three-quarters of a percent per day, and a minimum kernel damage at nineteen percent moisture, he’d have to be out in the field by Saturday.

  He already had a couple of guys set up to help him.

  Waiting any longer than Saturday and he’d be looking at an ear droppage of ten to twenty bushels per acre, a potential loss he couldn’t afford.

  And that was it. There was no way he could afford to be in jail—even for a day—while they proved that Sam had overreacted.

  Besides, how could someone have accessed his land and his barn without him knowing it? Zodiac wouldn’t allow it. And the storage barn was kept locked.

  Kneeling down at the edge of the large cement slab, Kyle glanced over the rest of the chemicals stored there. Insecticide. Pesticide. All on pallets. All in solid containers, no rust or potential leak sites. Though it took time he didn’t have, he checked each one against the sheet he’d brought out with him. Nothing else was missing.

  He studied the fifty-five-gallon tank as if it could give him an accounting of the missing gas.

  And then he noticed it. The cap was firmly closed, but the rubberized seal around the hose insertion area didn’t look even. On closer inspection, Kyle started to breathe a little easier. It appeared as though something had been gnawing on the cap. The back side was whittled away. Which meant that the methanol had been exposed to air. For months.

  Air facilitated evaporation.

  He should have noticed the damaged seal straight off. Should have checked for it. Would have checked if Sam hadn’t made him so damned paranoid.

  He’d been fretting over jail time just because he’d never before heard of a varmint breaking a seal on a methanol tank.

  But he had a bigger problem. A much bigger problem. The past hour had made it abundantly clear to him that Sam had destroyed the trust between them, something that not even their broken engagement or his marriage had done. And trust, once broken, couldn’t be fixed.

  Watching Maggie Winston any chance she got outside of her regular duties over the next week took time away from Sam’s hunt for evidence of a meth lab. But it didn’t take her mind off the problem. Or Kyle. Sitting alone in her cruiser, or the Mustang, gave her too much time to think.

  She was going to have to talk to him. Sherry Mahon had been part of their lives for fifteen years, and Sam hadn’t even known it. Now she did.

  What if Kyle had had a child with the woman? And abandoned it?

  They needed to talk.

  Chandler had built a new high school facility since Kyle, Kelly and she had graduated. The property, along with an initial building fund, had been donated, and the town had resoundingly passed a tax levy. The new facility—just outside city limits—boasted a state-of-the-art sports facility, football field and computer lab.

  Sam volunteered herself for the high school dismissal speed-control detail that the county ran every single day. That way, she could watch for Maggie. And avoid talking to Kyle.

  Catch a speeder, save a life, had become the county’s most important focus of late as a result of multiple teenage deaths due to excessive speed the previous year. The program was valid. Worthwhile.

  And, like everything else, had become about making money. The more speeders they caught, the more bills they could pay and the more services they could offer.

  Of course, the more speeders they caught, the busier the courts were. Running courts cost money, too.

  As did issuing warrants and tracking down those offenders who didn’t bother to show up to the justice party in their honor.

  It hadn’t been difficult for Sam to land the duty that week. It was one of a cop’s most boring assignments, largely consisting of sitting in a pull-off on a country road and monitoring the equipment on her dash.

  On occasion, she would wave at someone she knew as they passed.

  She got to admire the stalks of corn that prevented her from seeing much beyond the road. And imagine the fall colors that October would soon be bringing.

  She’d listen to the drone of the police radio, the most dangerous news the broadcast of a possible theft at the local budget department store.

  And she drove herself crazy trying to find a lead in her hunt for the superlab. She was missing something.

  Her thoughts were interrupted as she noticed for the third time that week the same car that had picked Maggie up when she’d gone to David’s to see about a babysit ting job.

  All three times, Maggie had been in the passenger seat.

  On Monday, Sam hadn’t thought much about it. The girls were friends. Maggie didn’t have her license yet. Glenna most likely gave her a ride home after school. Routine.

  But they’d headed away from Maggie’s trailer park.

  Probably had an afternoon babysitting job.

  Or a rendezvous with an adult male?

  Jumping to conclusions was a sign of bad police work. And could get people killed.

  On Tuesday, Sam had seen Maggie in the car again. On a different road. She’d decided to follow the girls.

  The friend had dropped Maggie at the newspaper office, then drove off.

  A few minutes later, Maggie had come out with a bike and a load of papers. Sam followed her for a few minutes, but she was just delivering papers.

  On Thursday, when they drove off in yet another direction, Sam followed the girls again. And when they crossed the county line, so did she, careful to stay far enough back that if they noticed her, they wouldn’t feel threatened.

  They ended up at the Tri-County Sports and Tennis Complex. Not so unusual for an after-school activity. Keeping kids off the streets had been one of the big selling points of the complex when it had come up for a tax vote.

  But Kelly had specifically said that Maggie had quit cheerleading and was not involved in sports.

  Maybe she’d meant high school sports. But there was no way Lori Winston could afford tennis lessons for Maggie.

  Driving slowly, Sam stopped across from the complex when the girls pulled into a parking spot.

  Maggie got out alone and went into a small wooden building. When she came back out, she was carrying two tennis rackets and a small duffel with an emblem of a tennis ball on the side.

  Sam recognized the duffel. She and Chuck had played tennis at the complex a time or two. Rented balls were kept in those duffels.

  Another dead end. And this time in a county vehicle. On county time. Across the county line. She had to stop her surveillance of Maggie Winston. At least, to this extent.

  She’d found nothing on the girl’s mother, either. Lori was something of a deadbeat—spent a little too much time at the local bar. No warrants. No record. Long time on the job. No obvious influx of cash.

  Putting the cruiser in Reverse, Sam turned to back up and caught a glimpse of Maggie out of the corner of her eye. The girl was heading to the tennis courts while her friend drove away.

  Another kid, male, approximately sixteen years of age, had just exited the equipment building with a similar duffel. He went out to the courts, as well.

  Sam watched as a couple of other teenagers arrived, went in for balls and walked toward the courts.

  None of them were wearing tennis clothes—just denim shorts and T-shirts and tennis shoes.

  And as she watched, she noticed that none of them could play tennis worth a damn, either.

  They paired off. Volleyed balls back and forth. There was no coach. No organization. Just a bunch of balls flying around.

  And a bunch of kids staying off the streets.

  10

  With Zodiac in the passenger seat beside him, Kyle drove the old black truck that he’d had since before his divorce to a meeting of the local corn growers association. Generally he sat at
the back of the room, nodded politely to his nearest neighbors, chatted with Bob Branson’s sons-in-law if any of them were present and voted.

  The small community association played a significant part in Ohio’s political system, lobbying for the rights of farm growers. From getting locally grown produce included as part of a federally funded food-assistance project to applying for drought aid, the association had become a powerful force.

  Kyle had already done a stint as president of the local organization—winning the election by a landslide, mostly because he’d been the only one running. He expected to be called on to run again. There was no statute of limitations on terms served in their group. And if they called, he’d accept, though the position was time-consuming.

  Today, however, his goals weren’t far-reaching. They didn’t extend as far as the community, or even the men in the room.

  He wanted to be certain that he didn’t have a chemical problem on his farm.

  He paid attention to the business at hand, which concerned a vote that was coming up on the November ballot that the farmers of Ohio did not support.

  He’d sent out flyers and had done his stint at the county fair that summer to add his support to the farmers.

  Now it was a matter of waiting for the lobbyists to do their last-minute campaign blast.

  Updates were delivered at the meeting. New business discussed. Old business discussed. The treasurer, Kyle’s nearest neighbor, James Turner, gave his report. They’d earned enough during their ice cream fundraiser at the fair to see them through another year. An impressive feat considering the cost of lobbyists in a failing economy.

  And then the floor was opened.

  And Kyle stood.

  “All of you know me. Most of you well enough to be certain that I am an honest man.”

  People turned around to face him. Heads nodded. And with that encouragement, Kyle continued.

  “I discovered some chemical missing from my barn a couple of days ago,” he said.

  The room fell silent, the mood suddenly grim. Farmers were aware of their vulnerability to theft and took reports of it seriously. For most, farming was not a get-rich life, and theft, if it was severe enough, could ruin a man quicker than bad weather or insect infestation.