Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1)

by Debra Gaskill

  A knock sounded on Addison's door.

  “Come in.” Addison exhaled out the open window and placed the ashtray on the windowsill.

  “Addie, did you just fire Porter?” It was Marcus Henning, the city and county reporter.

  Addison nodded. “It's been a long time coming, Marcus. You know that.”

  “Still, Addie—”

  Addison waved a hand at him. “No excuses. Is everybody out there in the newsroom?”

  “Everybody except sports, but they don’t come in until four o’clock.”

  “This won’t affect them anyway. I'll be out in a minute. We've got to figure out who is going to cover cops until we get another reporter.”

  Marcus closed the door.

  Henning came to the Journal-Gazette when he was hired by the previous editor, Jess Hoffman from a newspaper in Missouri. Marcus was promoted to city reporter after he’d broken a big story on a local slumlord. Jess got beaten up in the newsroom as a result of what Marcus had uncovered, and Addison had been promoted during those dark days to fill his shoes.

  Marcus spent his days working the phones or walking the paint-flaked, musty walls of city hall and always had a story or two for the front page each day. If anybody could handle cops, it would be Marcus.

  Addison stepped back into the newsroom and motioned her staff around her.

  “As you know, John Porter is no longer employed at the Journal-Gazette," she began.

  "We know. You canned him." A young woman with purple hair and a nose ring spoke up. It was education reporter Elizabeth Day, who covered Jubilant Falls' schools and had been at the Golgotha College regents’ meeting two nights ago. She was pretty good at the soft stuff, with an insight into human behavior that Addison wished she'd had at twenty-five. But, despite her tough exterior, she also had a tendency to hide in the ladies’ room and cry when criticized. Still, when she needed to ask the hard questions, she could. She just didn’t want to go cover anything where she might see blood or body parts.

  "Not technically," Addison said. "He has accepted a job in the Florida Keys"—oohs and aahs went through the group—"and I gave him the opportunity to take his remaining vacation days, beginning immediately."

  "Porter's wife isn't going with him." Millie Johnson's words hung in the air, more an assumption of fact than a question. Nearly sixty-five and so crippled with arthritis she could barely make it up the stone steps to the newspaper’s front door, Millie typed everything from obituaries and PTA meeting announcements to engagements and wedding announcements. She had been here longer than most other reporters had even been alive and was an asset of the very first order—she knew everyone and their brother and, best of all, where all the political bodies were buried.

  Millie was the one to tell Addison McIntyre that a one-night dalliance between her police reporter and a Wal-Mart clerk was turning into something more.

  There was silence in the room as everyone turned to Addison.

  "No. She's not." Addison said shortly.

  "Man!" City editor Dennis Herrick pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "That takes big brass ones, especially when you've got five kids at home."

  "It's been coming for a long time, Dennis," Addison sighed. "Things haven't been fun at the Porter home for a while. But we're not here to talk about somebody’s potential divorce. We're here to talk about who will be covering cops until I can get somebody in here to fill the position. Marcus, what have you got going?"

  "I got a lot, Addie, but I'll do what I can."

  "What's on your plate?"

  "The county commissioners are close to awarding a large tax abatement in order to lure a major manufacturer to the old Traeburn Tractor plant —that could be major if it happens. They're still debating major changes to the zoning code and Mayor Yoder is always stirring something up on the city council."

  “Keep an eye on the court calendar then—if there’s any big trials coming I want those covered. You can pick up the police reports in the morning on your way in to work.”

  Addison pointed at Elizabeth.

  "Addie, you know I've got that missing money fiasco at Golgotha that I'll be on like white on rice. Graduations are coming up at the high schools, but if you need me, I'll try to do what I can," Elizabeth said. She wrinkled her nose. "But you know I hate covering cops."

  "Well then, how about you spend afternoons picking up the court documents for me? The births, deaths, property transfers, the municipal and common pleas court records, that sort of stuff. That was where Porter said he went most afternoons, but something tells me there's not that much legal action in Plummer County. Marcus, can you show her how it’s done? And when this Golgotha thing gets big, as it probably will, you pick up those records for her."

  Marcus and Elizabeth nodded.

  Addison looked at her photographer Pat Robinette, a tall, acerbic, pony-tailed man sitting next to Elizabeth. He was undoubtedly the best photographer Addison ever worked with, but like most camera jockeys, definitely not a writer.

  One thing about Porter, louse that he was, he had been able to use a camera pretty well and always managed to come up with good shots at accident scenes or fires.

  "You know I can’t write and I know you can't take pictures for shit," said Robinette. "I'll be there if you need me."

  "OK, then we'll end up covering it the best way we can, as always,” Addison nodded. “I’ll get the overnight stuff, the breaking stuff when I can, and carry the pager. And, yea, verily—”Addison made the sign of the cross in the direction of her city editor. “Dennis is in charge when I’m not around.”

  The decision was always the same. That’s the way it ended up at every small newspaper. It didn’t fall to who did it the best or the quickest, it fell to those who were left and who weren’t already carrying twice the workload at half the pay.

  “OK, thanks everybody.” She dismissed them with a quick thumbs up and walked back to her office, closing the door behind her.

  She’d covered the police beats before she’d been named managing editor and when there’d been other vacancies in the newsroom. In fact, Porter had taken her old job as police reporter when she’d been promoted to covering the city beat.

  Addison lit another cigarette and leaned back in her chair.

  “This will give me the chance to get out of the newsroom,” she said to the wisps of cigarette smoke trailing toward the open window. “I need to get out, to see a little unvarnished human misery, remind me of how lucky I am.”

  Next to her daughter Isabella, Addison McIntyre most loved covering police stories. As a female, it wasn’t easy getting a reporter’s job covering the cops back then, and the name Penny Addison on a byline just sounded too cute to be taken seriously. She’d married Duncan McIntyre right before graduating from Ohio State, so when she started sending out resumes, it was as Addison McIntyre and by God, it worked. She’d landed a job as a police reporter at another paper as Duncan, the only person in the university’s recent history to major in agriculture and minor in fine arts, juggled working at a nearby grain elevator and at his fledging graphics business.

  She’d loved the chase of a good cop story, the hunt for facts, and the clearly delineated characters that always seemed to populate her stories. There was the bad guy—the bank robber, the murderer, the guy who got drunk on Saturday nights and beat his wife. And there were the victims, people who went to church (or didn’t), who paid their taxes, and who didn’t ask for this brief horror to be visited on them. Addison McIntyre told their stories and in the process, made some cop or state trooper or Good Samaritan look even better.

  When Duncan and Addison came back to Jubilant Falls and Plummer County to take over the McIntyre family farm, Addison took a job as the Journal-Gazette police reporter and never looked back.

  She lit one more cigarette. Back to the beat. Maybe this time, she wouldn’t have to do it very long, but she couldn’t deny she still enjoyed it.

  Her private line rang.
It was Duncan.

  “Hey, sweetie. What’s up?” she asked, exhaling.

  “You need to meet me at the school. It’s Isabella. The principal said she assaulted her math teacher. She’s been suspended.”

  Chapter Three

  “I swear to God, I’d rather cover a good double fatal than raise one kid,” Addison said to herself, throwing her purse across the front seat of her blue Ford Taurus and sliding inside. She turned the ignition key, slammed the car into reverse, then into drive and headed toward Jubilant Falls High School, furious that her daughter would have done such a stupid thing.

  Maybe it’s because you’ve left all the really serious parenting responsibilities to Duncan, a still small voice told her. Addison’s anger melted away as a familiar guilt enveloped her.

  That bad habit began when Izzy was five and Duncan and Addison took over his parents Dermot and Audrey McIntyre’s farm.

  The space was a blessing for the growing family, but there were other blessings as well. Duncan moved his graphic design business, Henhouse Graphics, from a corner in their apartment dining room to the abandoned hen house, made new with a fresh coat of paint and electricity to power the computer, the lights and the large printer, between the clapboard farmhouse and the barn.

  He could spend time with the business, but even better he was always home. That made it easier for him to shoulder a lot of the parenting responsibility.

  Besides, Duncan had a calm and a firmness that worked well with children, as well as dairy cattle Addison reasoned at the time. It was an arrangement that worked well for all of them, Addison argued with herself. Besides, what guidelines did she have for being a mother?

  Threading her Taurus up Detroit Street toward the high school, Addison’s thoughts drifted back to Career Day in first grade, back when she was still called by her given name, Penny.

  It was one of several incidents where her daddy couldn’t make it—the demands of Ohio State Highway Patrol often kept Lt. Walt Addison from spending time with his daughter. That day, he had been called out on a crash between a semi hauling lumber and a Corvair that closed the highway outside of town. That was OK. Penny Addison knew what she was going to say.

  “Officer Addison couldn’t come today, but Penny is going to tell us what her daddy does,” the old-maid teacher announced. Penny stood up confidently, smoothing the ruffles of her blue dress and walked to the front of the classroom.

  Taking a deep breath, she spoke: “My Daddy’s a state trooper and my momma is a whore.”

  “Penny Addison!” the flustered teacher gasped. The kids around her giggled and the other parents who’d come sat wide-eyed in horror.

  She’d ended up in the principal’s office and when her daddy came to pick her up, the tall man in the belted gray uniform and the shiny knee-high boots wasn’t smiling. But he hadn’t been angry with her. Penny had spoken the truth. Ask anybody in town.

  Addison’s parents’ divorce had been final just a few months, but her mother June Addison left about a year before that, right after Addison's sixth birthday. Walt and his daughter moved into the apartment above his mother’s garage, in the near north side, what was now called Jubilant Fall’s ‘historic district.’

  After a while, June’s absence became less acute and little Penny Addison didn’t think anything about her family being just Daddy and Grandma.

  After June left town, Walt had risen quickly to post commander. Some people said that his rapid climb was an acknowledgement of what an embarrassment his wife had been. Ditching her meant that people could look at his accomplishments, not her messy entanglements. Others say it was amazing what a man could accomplish once he wasn’t bothered with putting out fires in his personal life all the time.

  Even thirty-odd years later, old timers in Jubilant Falls who'd come in contact with Addison’s mother were still licking their wounds. Addison knew that she herself still had similar lesions, even though they were wounds of neglect and not the result of direct, intentional strikes.

  Nobody would ever talk about why June left or why she did the things she did. Maybe if they had, she thought, I could have been spared a whole lot of grief. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes with her life or with her own daughter, Isabella, but how could she if she didn’t know what those mistakes were?

  Addison pulled into the school parking lot and cut off the Taurus’ engine along with the deep thoughts of her painful past. As she looked up, she saw Duncan talking with a police officer as he removed handcuffs from Isabella's wrists. She looked wild enraged, and out of control.

  When did my life get so complicated? she asked herself. Or has it always been this way?

  ***

  Two hours later, Addison pushed back from her dinner plate and sighed.

  The tension around the table had been as tough and as thick as the baked Swiss steak she had managed to botch for dinner. Still angry with Isabella, she’d just grabbed the meat from the freezer, tossed it in a casserole dish and covered it with half-congealed leftover gravy and a large can of mushroom pieces. It had cooked all right, but only on the edges—the center was as pink and as cold as a barn cat’s nose. Duncan pushed the cold meat around his plate, surreptitiously handing Tizzy their border collie bites when Addison wasn’t looking.

  The boxed au gratin potatoes didn’t turn out well either.

  “You didn’t mix these potatoes up.” Isabella let an unnaturally orange spoonful fall with a plop onto her plate.

  “Yes I did,” Addison lied. “That’s the crumb topping. Just eat.” She stopped. “No, wait, I’m sorry. Dinner is a disaster and we all know it. Why can’t I just admit that I was a lousy cook and a lousy mother and call it a day?”

  She leaned back in her chair and grabbed the cigarette pack and her lighter from the kitchen counter behind her. She tapped the pack against the side of her left hand until one cigarette worked its way out. In one smooth motion, she lifted it to her mouth.

  “I wish you wouldn’t smoke in the house.” Isabella said harshly.

  “And I wish you wouldn’t assault your math teacher and get thrown out of school,” Addison shot back. “I would watch my step if I were you, missy. Either eat your dinner or go to your room.”

  Isabella was released into Duncan’s custody, but the police officer warned them that the school was considering filing a delinquency assault charge. Her suspension was immediate and without appeal until the end of the school year, which was just two weeks away.

  “Thank you very much. May I be excused?” Without waiting for an answer, Isabella grabbed a banana from the counter and ran from the kitchen.

  Addison sighed and lit her cigarette.

  “It’s a damned good thing I didn’t have any more children—God knows the damage I’d do to them,” she said, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs. “This way, I just mess with one kid’s head.”

  “You’re not a bad mother because she did this, OK?” Duncan’s big calloused hand reached across the table and covered hers. “I’ll keep her busy for a few days. There’s fencing to mend and she can help me repair the old Allis-Chalmers. I’ll treat her like a drill sergeant would treat a new recruit. Kids push the limits sometimes and they need to be brought back to earth. That’s all this is.”

  “I don’t know, Dunk, I don’t know. I never would have dreamed of hitting a teacher, let alone that old battle-axe Worthington. I just wonder about if my mother had been around for me, maybe I’d have a little better guidance on how to handle this kind of stuff.”

  “From what you’ve told me, it’s a good thing she wasn’t. Your dad did a good job raising you—you know that.”

  Addison nodded and inhaled. “I guess so, but I’m so afraid of making any decisions at all some times, just because of her.”

  Suddenly, the hand-held police scanner she had inherited from Porter began to sing, an odd, flat electronic drone that vibrated the dishes on the kitchen table, cutting through the tension in the room. A disembodied female voice spoke: �
��Attention all units. Respond to Pop’s Carryout, 1174 College Street. Parents reported a 10-8, five year old female, no contact since 3:30 p.m. Unattended dog found outside the store. “ The voice repeated the message.

  “Oh my God.”

  Duncan raised his eyebrows, his fork of cold au gratin potatoes hanging in mid-air. “What is it?” he asked

  “It’s a 10-8. A missing juvenile.” She whistled low. “That’s the Thorn’s address. Jaylynn was right —Lyndzee Ruth has been abducted.”

  Chapter Four

  Police were stretching yellow crime scene tape from the front door of Pop’s Carryout to the gasoline pumps and back when Addison pulled up. Pat Robinette’s red MG was right behind her.

  “Whaddawe got here, boss?” Robinette asked as he pulled his Nikon off the seat beside him. Addison called him immediately after the scanner went off and told Pat to meet her at the carryout as fast as he could.

  “Radio traffic called it a 10-8, a missing juvenile." She didn’t share her conversation with Jaylynn Thorn the day before, that the girl’s father had made threats to abscond with the child when his wife threatened to leave him. When Addison got the chance, she’d tell the police herself.

  She pulled a reporter’s notebook and a pen from her purse, uncapping the pen with her teeth as the two of them elbowed their way through groups of students who stood whispering among themselves. She rolled her eyes at Pat as they pushed past another bunch of students standing with their heads down reverently and hands clasped as they prayed, exclaiming intermittently “Yes, Je-sus!” and “Bring her home, Lord!” Robinette hid his smirk with his hand.