Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4)

by Debra Gaskill

  ***

  Gary McGinnis was just starting his second cup of coffee when I slipped into his booth at Aunt Bea’s.

  “You look like hell,” he said, motioning the waitress over to our table. “I heard through the grapevine Johnson was murdered last night.”

  “Good morning to you, too,” I said, nodding at the waitress as she filled my coffee cup. “Yes, he was. Everything you and I suspected was true. Katya told me on the way over to the scene—”

  “What? She came to you first?”

  I slurped my coffee and nodded again. “Yes. She was knocking at my door after two in the morning—she’d apparently escaped from the house somehow.”

  “Hey, Linda—” Gary motioned the waitress back over. “Give her two eggs, over easy, bacon and whole wheat toast with butter—to go—and put it on my bill. She’s in a bit of a hurry.”

  Gary turned his attention back to me.

  “What the hell happened that she’s telling you all this stuff at your house?” he asked. “Why didn’t she call the cops? Why didn’t you?”

  “Katya showed up at my house, like I said. She wouldn’t let me call, but as Duncan and I are driving over there, she’s telling us she is in witness protection and Johnson was a marshal protecting her.”

  Gary exhaled and shook his head. “It all fits together then. I doubt if Johnson was his real name—or hers.”

  “Katya told me her name wasn’t real,” I said. “Too bad I don’t have Graham Kinnon here to help me on this.”

  Linda brought my breakfast over in a Styrofoam box and sat it in front of me.

  “So where’s Graham?” Gary asked, digging into his own breakfast.

  “His stepdad had a heart attack. He took some time off to go home to Indianapolis.”

  Gary’s voice was odd—maybe it was the mouthful of eggs. “That so? I hate to hear that.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, the kid works like nobody’s business and deserves the time off, but the shit always seems to hit the fan when I’m low on staff,” I said. “Anyway, do you know anybody in the marshal service? A guy named Robert Peppin?”

  Gary looked up at me and nodded. “He heads up the Cincinnati office. I’ve met him once or twice on task force stuff, like when they come through on regional drug or sex offender sweeps.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know him personally, but I get the impression he knows his job. He’s a typical fed, though, really buttoned down. Why?”

  “He’s an ass—he slapped me in a pair of cuffs just because I was holding Duncan’s shotgun.”

  Gary tried not to laugh out loud. “Yup, that’s Peppin. He’s never quite adjusted to the fact that out here in the hinterlands honest folks own guns.”

  “I can tell thinks we’re all savages and that everything north of the Cincinnati outer belt is the Wild West. He probably wonders if we even use forks. Roarke talked him into letting me go, but he was pissed off when he found out the feds had not told him he had someone in witness protection in his county,” I said.

  “I can imagine. That really puts law enforcement at a real disadvantage.”

  “Peppin’s not going to be real happy with me about noon,” I said, standing. “Oh well. Hey, before I go, can you e-mail me that BMV picture of Jerome Johnson? I need it for the front page.”

  “Sure. And if I hear anything else, I’ll let you know—or at least where to look,” Gary said.

  “Thanks!” Sliding out of the booth, I took one more slurp of coffee and grabbed my breakfast. Within a few steps, I was out the door on the sidewalk.

  Back in the newsroom, everyone else had arrived and Dennis had page one mocked up. My reporters had been busy as well—Marcus Henning had a story from yesterday’s county commission meeting and Elizabeth Day had a feature with photos about the school bus drivers running their daily routes as practice for the opening day of school.

  “Marcus, I need you to pick up police reports, since Graham is off,” I said.

  “Will do,” he answered without looking up from his computer.

  I ducked into my office to finish the story.

  In between bites of my breakfast, I called Bovir and confirmed a single gunshot had killed Jerome Johnson, but that was about it.

  “Can you confirm any other the victim was tortured?”

  “I can’t say anything until the autopsy is completed later this afternoon,” Bovir said.

  My phone call with Roarke was less than terse—I expected that. In an open investigation, law enforcement wasn’t going to say anything to the media that would tip their hand. But Roarke was tight-lipped for other reasons.

  “I’m not the point man on this case any more,” he said. “Peppin’s going to be your contact for any other information.”

  “Are you saying I won’t get anything else?” I asked, balancing the phone on my shoulder, my pen poised over my notepad.

  “That’s entirely possible. I don’t know what he’ll do.”

  “Have Jerome Johnson’s parents been notified?”

  “Again, you’d have to contact Peppin. Let me give you his cell. He’s going to be here for at least a few days, so this is probably the best number.” Roarke recited the number to me as if by heart.

  I ended my phone call with Roarke and punched in Peppin’s cell phone. No answer, but even his tone on his voice mail message reeked of arrogance. “You have reached Agent Robert Peppin of the United States Marshal Service. I’m not available to take your call. Please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as possible.” Beep.

  “Hi, Agent Peppin, this is Addison McIntyre, from the Jubilant Falls Journal-Gazette—you know, the one you slapped the cuffs on this morning. Anyway, I’m looking for some information on Agent Jerome Johnson’s murder. My deadline is at ten this morning, so I’d appreciate a call back as soon as possible. Thanks.”

  He wasn’t going to call back; down deep, I knew that. But at least he couldn’t say I didn’t give him a chance to speak to me. Whether or not he took that chance was up to him.

  If he didn’t, I would add a single sentence: “Phone calls to Agent Robert Peppin were not returned by press deadline.”

  I wasn’t going to give him any more ammunition than what he already had.

  I stepped back into the newsroom and turned on the television to see the local break in the morning network news shows. Marcus Henning and Elizabeth Day stopped working on their stories to watch; Dennis looked up from the page he was working on.

  A reporter, bottle blonde and female like many of the local television on-air personalities, was standing at the end of the driveway, a microphone in hand. The sun was up, bathing the old farmhouse with its wide porch in morning light. I could see the U.S. marshals’ armada of black SUVs still surrounded the house. A few sheriffs’ cruisers were still there, too; yellow crime scene tape stretched between two fence posts across the driveway. The camera panned across the scene as the reporter spoke.

  “Local law enforcement officials continue to be tight-lipped about a possible homicide that occurred here at this Plummer County farm overnight. Initial radio traffic indicated that a black male in his mid-thirties was the victim, however, that has not been confirmed, despite the Plummer County coroner being on scene. No explanation has been given for the presence of US marshals as well. Sheriff Judson Roarke would not comment on the situation as he left the scene about six this morning. Stay with News 17 for more information. We’ll stay on the scene and keep digging for you, our viewers.”

  Dennis looked over at me. “We’ve got a hell of a lot more than that,” he said.

  “I know,” I answered quietly.

  If we ran with this story, what would happen? Would it jeopardize the case back in New York against Katya’s husband? Would it put her further at risk? Her husband’s thugs had already found her and Jerome had been killed. How much more trouble could there be?

  And what if I went to Earlene with my story before it hit the s
treets? In her misguided effort to form a focus group to hear our readers’ opinions, she might kill it, particularly if Peppin came in and bitched.

  I couldn’t let that happen. There had been a murder—I’d seen Jerome’s body myself. I wasn’t going to be complicit in covering it up, no matter what anyone said. Katya had also been more than willing to tell me her story, which confirmed everything.

  I sighed.

  “What do you want to do?” Dennis asked.

  “Print it. We’re going with what we’ve got.”

  Chapter 25 Graham

  The headline screamed at me from its vending box across the street: US Marshal Found Murdered on Farm. Jerome Johnson’s driver’s license photo stared back at me from below the big black letters.

  Jerome Johnson was a federal agent? This was last night’s homicide call?

  After meeting in the park with Benny, I’d stopped at a fast food place on the east end of town, near Golgotha College, the small church school that called Jubilant Falls home.

  A strip of fast food joints, girly boutiques and coffee shops (no bars to entice the teetotalling Baptist student body) sprang up across the street from the college entrance over the last few years, trying to entice students to spend their money. Traffic increased proportionately, and Tony, our circulation director, never met a fast food joint that didn’t need a Journal-Gazette vending box at front of the door.

  I waited until the route driver closed the box and drove away in the J-G delivery van before I left the Mustang and, dodging traffic, ran across the road to buy a paper.

  I put my sunglasses on top of my head and began to read Addison’s story, my jaw hanging in disbelief.

  Katya Bolodenka is in witness protection? Her husband is a Russian mobster? Jerome lived there to protect her? The story got even more incredible as I continued to read. The story didn’t mention the fight he’d gotten into at the feed mill with Doyle McMaster, but did mention the goats that were killed. Was there any connection at all or was that just a weird coincidence?

  A horn sounded in the traffic behind me, reminding me I couldn’t afford to be recognized. I pulled my sunglasses back over my eyes, tucked the paper under my arm, and slipped back across the street to the Mustang.

  I really wanted to cover this story in the worst way, but I was supposed to meet with Sheriff Roarke later this afternoon. I wanted to be there on the crime scene, digging into the background. Homicides weren’t all that common in Jubilant Falls—most of the crime here was petty, personal stuff or drug-related. This story was huge—a woman in witness protection and a federal agent protecting her from a gang of Russian mobsters.

  This didn’t happen here.

  Even knowing Addison was on it didn’t satisfy me. I wanted this story, this byline. Where would I go if I were on this story right now? I’d have the federal prosecutor from New Jersey on the phone, getting his side of the story. I’d talk to the mobster’s lawyer; maybe call the reporter who had done the story on the clinics. I’d get as much dark and gritty details as I could without getting on a plane and seeing it myself—even I knew the J-G budget was too tight to do that.

  But I couldn’t, not right now. I had one mission to accomplish and that was to find out the truth behind Benjamin Kinnon.

  I started the rental car’s engine and pulled into traffic, heading back to my apartment.

  As I drove, I couldn’t help thinking about how Benny dumped on me. Despite his crude words and ignorant beliefs, Bennie had pegged one undeniable truth: We don’t get the parents we want and the sooner we accept that, the better.

  My mother had come a long way from an ugly past life. She’d gotten clean—and married money. She’d developed a veneer of respectability and, with it, social standing. She worked hard to ensure no one saw that beneath her silk suits and perfect make up was a former junkie who once sold her body to pay for her habit. She had three sons, a nice house and a very cushy life. If I were she, I wouldn’t want anything to get out about how I’d lived before. I’d want my court records sealed, too.

  Maybe I’d been a little hard on her at that restaurant in Richmond.

  And Bennie? There was only one similarity: They’d both owned up to their addictions and kicked them, but that was it. He knew he wasn’t ever going to be anything other than a thief and loser.

  Was he involved with the Aryan Knights, as Chief G suspected? I didn’t have any proof—yet. He clearly was a racist and sexist asshole, but that wasn’t a felony. It didn’t mean he was recruiting for the Aryan Knights.

  I circled the block around my apartment, checking for suspicious vehicles. Seeing none, I parked in the gravel lot and, with today’s newspaper tucked under my arm, sprinted up two flights of stairs to the door of my attic apartment.

  Sliding the key into the lock, I opened the door.

  “So, Kinnon, you want to tell me the truth about what’s going on?”

  I gasped. It was Elizabeth, sitting at my kitchen table, holding her key to my apartment.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” she replied. “You told Addison you were going to Indianapolis because Bill had a heart attack. You told me that, too and then you told me you weren’t in Indianapolis, but you’d left town. You told me if I didn’t believe you to check the airport garage. Well, I did Kinnon—and I found your piece of shit Toyota. I also found the guy who waited on you at the car rental counter. You don’t think that I can’t finagle information out of someone just because I’m not the big bad cops reporter you are? How stupid do you think I am? And, oh, in your haste to dump all my personal belongings on my desk, you forgot to ask for this.”

  She shoved the key across the table. I caught it as it tumbled off the edge.

  “So what’s going on, Kinnon?” she repeated.

  “What do you care?” I laid the newspaper on the counter and hung the key on a hook by the door.

  “I know you, Kinnon. I know how you operate. I’m willing to bet you’re knee-deep in something that’s going to get your ass in big trouble.”

  “And what if I am?”

  “Addison needs to know.”

  “No she doesn’t.”

  “Tell me the truth, Kinnon. Tell me what you’re doing.”

  “I think you need to leave now.”

  She stood up and stepped close to me. I closed my eyes to block out the sweet smell of her perfume. I wanted to take her in my arms, feel her warm soft body against me, but couldn’t. Not now, knowing she didn’t love me the way I loved her. I took one step back in self-protection.

  She took my hands in hers. I couldn’t help myself—I raised her hands to my lips and kissed them.

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” I whispered as my anger disappeared.

  She sighed sadly and I let her arms slide around me.

  “Listen,” she began, her head against my chest. “You’re pissed and you’ve been pissed because I told you no. But wouldn’t you be even angrier if I divorced you five or ten years down the road?”

  “We could have made it work, Beth.”

  “No, Kinnon. No, we couldn’t. Then, I’d be the bitch ex-wife story you’d tell every one of your post-divorce first dates and I don’t want to be that. We worked together for a long time before all this started and we liked each other. We liked each other a lot. I want to go back to that.”

  I hugged her tightly, but didn’t answer, kissing the top of her purple wig instead. I didn’t know if I could do what she wanted, but I would try—and she knew it. Elizabeth released me and slipped back into her seat at the dinette table.

  “You gonna tell me what you’re up to?” she asked.

  “Are you going to tell Addison?”

  With her fingers, she made a locking motion at her lips. “Not a word. Put on a pot of coffee and tell me about it. I’ve got all afternoon.”

  “How’d that happen? With me gone—”

  “In ‘Indianapolis’?” Smiling sardonically, Elizabeth hooked
her fingers in mock quotation symbols.

  I rolled my eyes, smiling sadly. God, it was hard to have her in my kitchen again, the same place where just a few days ago she’d said she wouldn’t marry me, where my world came to a screeching halt.

  “Yeah, there. If you’re gone for the afternoon, that leaves Marcus Henning and Addison as the only folks in the newsroom in case something breaks.”

  “I’ve got a cell phone—and Addison is in a meeting all afternoon, some focus group. Nobody will miss me. I’m supposed to be burning some vacation time, packing.”

  “OK, here’s what’s going on.” I turned toward the counter and began filling the coffee maker with water and fresh grounds. “Remember I told you about my mother and how I was in foster care as a kid? And how she came and got me after she’d married Bill?”

  “And how they’d shipped you off to boarding school after that? I remember.”

  “I didn’t tell you anything about the man who was supposed to be my father.” I pushed the start button and waited until I saw the water begin to bubble into the pot. I pulled a couple Indianapolis Colts mugs from the cabinet.

  I couldn’t turn around to look at her as I began my story.

  “His name is Benjamin Kinnon and he was arrested with Mother that night when I was six,” I spoke slowly. “He was a heroin dealer and a junkie, just like her. He used to steal cars and credit cards and stuff like that. His name was on my birth certificate, but Mother told me she wasn’t really sure if he was the father or not—she just needed to put somebody’s name down. By then it didn’t matter since Benny disappeared and she married Bill and we were all going to put that ugliness behind us.”

  “Yes.”

  I took a deep breath. “I spent my childhood wondering what my real father was like. When I was in foster care, I just wanted my mother back. Then when I got her back, she looked great, life was good, but I still didn’t have a dad. I mean, I didn’t have bad foster parents or anything like that—I was bounced around, but I wasn’t ever abused. I just wanted a home, a real home.”

  “Like I had,” Elizabeth said softly.

  “When I got shipped off to boarding school, I had these fantasies that kids do, that my real dad, whoever he was, was going to come take me away from wherever I was and I was going to have the kind of life that every other kid in my class seemed to have. You know, a dad who threw the football with me in the front yard, that kind of stuff. After a while, I began to think that I wasn’t ever going to have that and I just got on with my life.” I stopped and took a deep breath. “So when I thought you were pregnant—I know, I know, I overreacted—it got me thinking about how someone could abandon their son, like Benjamin Kinnon abandoned me. I was determined that my child—our child—would never experience that.”