by Pratt, Scott
“I know. I wonder if they have tanning beds here. Everybody’s so pale. They look like ghosts.”
Johnny turned left onto Buck Mountain Road. The windows were down to let the smell of gasoline escape; the breeze flowed across his face and arms. The night was warm. Only a couple of miles to go.
“Ready?” Johnny asked. “We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Carlo held up a lighter. “Am I breathing?”
“Wake up, girl! Something bad’s going on!”
Charlie came out of sleep to hear the roar of an engine passing by her bedroom window. She sprang out of bed and ran to the window, but all she could see was dust and taillights. She heard the tires screeching as they pulled out onto Buck Mountain Road and disappeared into the soupy blackness of the night.
“Come on!” Jasper was shouting. “We got fire!”
Charlie cleared the back door to see fingers of orange flame crawling up the walls of both the barn and Jasper’s shop. She sprinted toward the barn in her nightgown and bare feet. Gray smoke billowed toward the sky, the acrid smell of gasoline and burning wood attacked her. Light from the flames was flickering off the canopy behind the barn. She heard shrieking.
“Sadie! Oh my God, Sadie!”
Biscuit was running back and forth between the barn and the shop, barking ferociously. Jasper was about thirty feet ahead of Charlie. He’d hesitated at the barn door, but now he disappeared. Charlie barreled headlong through the door after him. The heat inside the barn was what Charlie imagined hell might feel like; the roar of the fire consuming oxygen and fuel sounded like a freight train.
Jasper was opening the door to Sadie’s stall, surrounded by flames. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. Charlie veered into the tack room, grabbed a blanket, a halter and a lead line, and sprinted to Sadie’s stall. The door was now open and Jasper was pushing her, but the terrified animal wouldn’t move.
“Take this!” Charlie yelled as she slipped the halter over Sadie’s ears. She held out the blanket. “Cover her eyes!”
Jasper began covering the horse’s eyes with the blanket while Charlie snapped the lead line onto the halter. Her skin was hot and painful. She felt as though she was being baked alive. A cross beam fell from the hayloft and showered them in sparks.
“Gotta go!” Jasper shouted. “Gotta go gotta go gotta go!”
Charlie pulled on the lead line and the horse responded. They hurried through the stall door and across the seemingly endless barn floor. The air outside the barn was gloriously cool. Charlie led Sadie toward the house and tied the lead line to a tree branch near the back porch. She turned back toward the barn and the shop, both raging infernos now. Jasper was standing twenty feet away with his back to her, his hands on his hips. Charlie walked up and stood next to him, and together, they watched two symbols of their heritage go up in flames. There was nothing either of them could do. The area was serviced by a volunteer fire department that was slow to react, and even if they’d called the minute they spotted the fire, it wouldn’t have done any good. The old wood planks used to construct the buildings, the dry straw and hay, the chemicals in Jasper’s shop, were all accelerants. The buildings were doomed the moment the fire started.
Charlie put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry, uncle. We’ll rebuild them.”
She looked at her uncle’s face, glowing in the light from the flames. His eyes were wet and angry. He dropped to his knees, spread his arms, and let out a feral wail that echoed off the nearby slopes.
“They’re gone!” Jasper cried. “Momma and Daddy and Rachel! They’re gone! Somebody’s gonna pay for this!”
Part III
Chapter 47
MORNING finally arrived, the volunteer firemen had finished drinking their coffee and left. Charlie had called them to make sure the fire didn’t spread to the house and to document the scene for the insurance claim she planned to file. She wasn’t at all optimistic about the reaction she would receive from the insurance company. She would tell them it was arson and they would immediately suspect her of setting the fire. They might pay the claim, they might not.
The barn and the shop were nothing but black, smoldering piles of ash. A couple of support poles stuck up out of the remains of the barn like burned bones. An arson investigator from the sheriff’s department had showed up a little after seven. His name was Timmons, a short, thin, middle-aged rooster of a man who walked around the ruins at least a dozen times and kept running his hand across his shiny, hairless scalp. He seemed to be itching to dive into the ashes, but they were still too hot.
“So ye say ye saw ‘em?” Timmons asked Charlie. They were standing about halfway between the house and the barn. Jasper and Biscuit were standing a few feet away.
“I saw their tail lights,” Charlie said.
“So ye didn’t see ‘em.”
“No, I guess not.”
“But ye saw their lights?”
“Yes.”
“So ye did see ‘em, I reckon. Ye just can’t identify ‘em.”
“Maybe you could get casts of their tire tracks,” Charlie said.
“I do fires. Don’t do tires. Hee-hee, that rhymes, don’t it? Maybe I’ll put it in a song. Timmons does fires but he don’t do tires, doo-dah, doo-dah, Timmons does fires but he don’t do tires, oh, doo-dah-day.”
“Is there someone else who might be able to come and get casts?”
“I’ll ask around when I get back,” Timmons said. “Barn fire’s all it is, though. Nobody hurt, livestock made it out. I don’t reckon they’ll be rollin’ out the big guns for this one.”
“That’s comforting.”
“So why you reckon they’d drive up like that?” Timmons asked.
“Probably because of the dog.”
“So it was somebody that knows ye?”
“I don’t know who it was.”
“Well, it was somebody that knows ye well enough to know ye got a big ol’ dog. Rolled in here near three in the mornin’, threw a couple of bottles full of gasoline at each building, then tore on outta here. The smell and the shards of glass near the edge of the ashes gimme a pretty good clue. One of the boys at the department said he thinks it was probably that Clyde Dalton feller that’s been stalking you.”
“I don’t think it was him.”
“That so? Why not?”
“I just don’t think it was him.”
“Who else, then? Who else you made mad lately?”
“I don’t know. I’m a lawyer. People get mad sometimes.”
“I know a bunch of lawyers. Not a one of them has had their barn burned. Tell you what, I’ll come back later and see if the ashes has cooled off enough for me to do a little sifting. Don’t think it’ll do much good, but maybe I’ll get lucky and find something I can use.”
“You ain’t sifting nothing,” Jasper said. He walked over and towered over Timmons, who looked at him curiously.
“What do ye mean? I can’t find no clues if I don’t sift.”
“You already said it was gasoline. I could’ve told you that as soon as you got here and saved myself having to listen to your foolishness.”
“But this is a crime scene. I got things I need to do.”
“This is private property and I’m telling you there ain’t going to be no sifting.”
“Insurance company’s gonna send an investigator if you file a claim.”
“And I’ll tell him the same as I’m telling you. This is my land, those are my ashes, and you or nobody else is going to touch them.”
“Well if you just don’t beat all.”
“I didn’t call you to come out here. One of them firemen must have done it. I don’t want no investigation and I don’t care about no insurance.”
Timmons seemed to shrink into himself like a turtle.
“I reckon I’m done then,” he said.
“I reckon so.”
“Joe Dillard is coming up,” Charlie sa
id to Jasper as they watched Timmons drive away. “I called him because I feel like I need some advice. I’d like you to be there when I talk to him, but I hope you’ll be a little more hospitable than you were to that investigator.”
Joe arrived thirty minutes later. After she showed him the damage, Charlie served him coffee at the kitchen table. Jasper joined them. He’d barely said a word since the fire. Charlie could see that he was deeply wounded by the loss of his shop, and, she imagined, by the loss of his “special” mannequins. He was angry, too. She could see it in the set of his jaw, the curve in his brow, the harshness in his eyes.
“You know the old saying, ‘Bad things happen to good people?’” Joe said as he lifted his cup to his lips. “You’re a prime example.”
“It’s gotten out of hand,” Charlie said. “You were right about the gold. It’s been nothing but a curse. As soon as I found it, bad things started happening. First Clyde Dalton came along and then Jack got shot. Now my father had been murdered and someone has burned our barn and tried to kill my horse. Zane Barnes wanted it so badly, and look what’s happened to him.”
“With him being gone, the land is yours now,” Joe said. “So is the gold. But it looks like someone else wants it. Maybe Barnes hired somebody and they turned on him.”
“What am I going to do?” Charlie said. “I wish I could find whoever it is that wants it so badly. I’d give it to him or them or whoever it is. I swear I would.”
“Maybe Clyde Dalton burned the barn,” Joe said. “I don’t know how he would be connected to Zane Barnes or why he would have killed him, but I guess stranger things have happened.”
“It wasn’t Dalton.” Jasper spoke for the first time. “Dalton’s gone.”
Joe set the cup down and turned to Jasper.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s gone. He ain’t gonna be coming around again.”
“You and I don’t know each other, Mr. Story,” Joe said. “But I want to be clear about something. I’m not your lawyer, so the things you say to me are not protected by the attorney-client privilege. I don’t intend to repeat anything that’s said here this morning, but in case something comes up in the future, you should be careful what you say.”
“I didn’t say anything I’d take back,” Jasper said. “I heard the man is gone, and I believe the person who told me. He didn’t set no fire last night.”
“Charlie, you asked me to come up here and talk. What is it you want to talk about?”
Charlie got up from the table and disappeared. When she returned, she was carrying something that was wrapped in a blanket. She plopped it down on the table, then disappeared again. She made four more trips.
“I want you to take these,” she said. “I brought them in from the barn and have been keeping them under my bed. I don’t want them in the house anymore.”
“Is that what I think it is?”
Charlie pulled back the blankets, revealing five gleaming bars of gold.
“These bars represent more than two-and-a-half million dollars,” she said. “Please take them.”
Joe leaned back and drew a deep breath. “You know I’d like to help you, Charlie, but what would I do with it?”
“Put your grandchildren through college. Give it to charity. I don’t care what you do with it. The sight of it sickens me now.”
“Put it back, Charlie. However you got it out of the cave, just do the opposite. Put it back and leave it there. Give yourself some time to sort everything out.”
Charlie sat down heavily in one of the chairs and covered her face with her hands.
“It isn’t over,” she said. “Whoever killed my father, whoever burned the barn wants the gold and they’ll be back. Even if I take the gold to the cave, they’ll be back. They think I’m the only person who knows where the gold is, and they’ll come for me. I’m going to wind up like Zane Barnes. It’s just a question of when.”
“I think you and your uncle should invest in some security measures, some motion detectors, some alarms, whatever,” Joe said. “Work out some kind of communication plan that allows you to check on each other regularly. Keep Jasper’s dog close by. Maybe you should get yourself a pistol, Charlie. Do you know how to use a gun?”
“I’m a country girl. Of course I know how to use a gun.”
“Do you have one?”
“I have two, but I’m not going to start carrying them around with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not a killer. I’m a stupid, greedy young woman who became obsessed with the idea of being rich and I put my own selfish interests ahead of everything else. And now I’m paying the price. The best thing for everyone right now would be for me to take one of those guns you just mentioned and blow my brains out with it.”
“You don’t mean that,” Joe said. “Listen, I’ve been where you are right now. I’ve blamed myself when bad things have happened, and there have been times I’ve wanted to just throw in the towel and quit. As a matter of fact, I have quit a couple of times. I’ve withdrawn, isolated myself in a little cocoon of self-pity and self-loathing. But I’ve learned to forgive myself when I make mistakes, and that’s something you should try to do. So maybe you became a little pre-occupied with this gold. Who wouldn’t? It’s a fortune and it was handed to you with what you thought were no strings attached. You couldn’t have foreseen the uproar it would cause. You couldn’t—”
“You warned me,” Charlie said. “You were the first person to use the phrase ‘blood money.’ You said bad things could happen, that people could get hurt. I should have listened to you.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Joe said.
“But what about now? What do I do now?”
“You keep your head on a swivel. You stay in close touch with me, with your uncle, with Jack. And you keep on going. That’s all you can really do, Charlie. You just have to keep on going.”
Chapter 48
JORDAN Scott’s trial was scheduled to begin in October, and despite everything that had happened, Joe had let it be known that he was still counting on Charlie to do a closing argument so compelling that the jury would find Jordan not guilty. Joe had been emailing her themes and phrases that he wanted her to use, but she’d been distracted and found it hard to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time.
Joe left mid-morning to go to the cancer center in Johnson City where his wife was getting treatment. He went twice a week, every week, and sat with Caroline while she received the intravenous drugs that were keeping her alive. Jack had gone over to his aunt’s diner to grab an early lunch before he went out and did an interview with a potential witness. Charlie was trying to concentrate on outlining her argument and looking over statements when she heard someone knocking on the front door of the office. It had remained locked since Clyde Dalton had shot up the place. Charlie got up and walked into the lobby. Standing outside the glass door were two unusual-looking young men.
“Can I help you?” Charlie yelled through the glass.
One of them was perhaps the largest human being Charlie had ever seen. He had black hair and eyes and muscles that rippled through the light jacket he was wearing. His hands were massive. The other one was smaller and also had dark features. He, too, was muscular, though nowhere near as muscular as the big one.
“We need a lawyer,” the smaller one said. “Got a little trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Charlie said.
“It’s a little embarrassing yelling through the door like this,” he said. “Mind opening up?”
Charlie was reluctant, but it was a potential client, so she unlocked the door. The small one introduced himself as Johnny and the big one said his name was Carlo. Charlie led them into Joe’s office because there were extra chairs in there. She took a seat behind Joe’s desk.
“What kind of trouble did you get into?” she said.
“I said it was a little trouble,” the one who called himself Johnny said. “But th
at isn’t really true. We got big trouble.”
“Do you have a warrant? Any paperwork?”
“No.”
“Okay… why don’t you just tell me what happened?”
“Somebody has something that belongs to us. We want it back.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you—”
“Did I tell you my last name? It’s Russo. That mean anything to you?”
A wave of fear, cold and remorseless, swept over Charlie. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t have screamed if she’d tried. Her legs were suddenly trembling. She looked at both of them, alternately, and realized she was looking directly into the face of death.
“How’s your horse, anyway?” His eyes bored into her. The big man got up, walked over and closed and locked the office door.
“This is how it’s gonna be,” Johnny Russo said. “You’re gonna tell us where the gold is. If you don’t, we’re gonna rain fire down on you like you ain’t never dreamed of. We’re gonna kill everything and everybody you know, starting with that lawyer who left a little while ago. That other guy that left just a minute ago? He a friend of yours? Dead. Your uncle? Bye, bye. We’ll crush his head in a vise the same way we did your old buddy Barnes, and we’ll make you watch. If that don’t do it, we’ll start cutting you up, piece by piece. Carlo here likes to inflict pain. The first thing he’ll do is cut your nipples off. After that, he’ll cut off one little piece at a time until you either tell us or you bleed to death.”
“I… I can’t.” Charlie’s voice was raspy. She could feel perspiration beneath her arms.
“You can and you will. Right now.”
“I can’t tell you where it is. It’s in a cave in the mountains. You’d never find it. I’d have to show you. I’d have to take you there.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
“How do I know you won’t just kill me after I show you?”