And honestly, there was nothing he could do to stop her. But his control over the investigation was slipping away from him, and he wasn’t sure that was good.
“Okay. Thank you.”
She smiled. “What else?”
“The property.”
“Now a storage facility. Do you know how that happened?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. I was more worried about going to prison and what was going to happen to me than the land.”
“That’s understandable. Let’s find out.”
His fists clenched. Who was in control here? If it wasn’t him, how could he be sure he’d find the truth?
The sheriff let her hands fall into her lap.
“You’ve opened Pandora’s box, Mr. Davies. If you tell me someone has committed murder and gotten away with it, I’m going to investigate it. Especially now, when I’m not busy with other things. I need to know if a killer is still in Balsam Grove, walking around, believing he or she has gotten away with it, and perhaps willing to do something similar again in the right circumstances.”
He couldn’t stop her. And it was in his best interests to be kept in the loop if she learned something.
He nodded, hoping he hadn’t made a mistake.
Chapter Three
Sarah’s fingers were tingling. She hadn’t had any serious detective work to do in months, and she couldn’t wait to use her intelligence and her training in the way she loved.
The first steps were simple. She used the computer to track the property in the county system.
“This property passed to a cousin of your father’s in Australia after your trial and probate. A month later, a holding company bought it. U-Stor opened two years after your arrest.” She didn’t need to date it from his family’s deaths. That would be cruel.
He nodded.
It was easy to guess that the cousin had been happy to sell the property located halfway around the world. The cousin, using the term loosely, had been eighty years old, so unlikely to travel to the US for a piece of rural property. It was equally difficult to imagine him traveling to Balsam Grove and setting a fire.
But the transfer to the holding company had followed within a month of the deed passing to the cousin. That was quick. She’d look further into that.
She picked up her smartphone and did an online search for the storage company.
A lot of storage facilities were chains, and most were built in larger towns and cities where there was a larger base of potential customers, as well as smaller homes and apartments with less internal storage.
U-Stor was the only facility owned by its parent company. U-Stor’s website was small and amateurish. It didn’t look like it had been updated recently. The structure of the storage facility was simple, so the construction period probably hadn’t been long, but someone had obviously been eager to build the place.
Lanford waited quietly while she researched.
“Was there another storage place here, do you remember?”
Lanford shook his head.
She twisted her lips. “Maybe you wouldn’t have known about it.”
A barking sound from Lanford. It was a laugh, of sorts. She blinked, surprised.
“If there’d been anything like that around, my friends and I would have known.”
“Why’s that?” Perhaps it was some kind of rural thing. Growing up in the city she hadn’t been especially aware of any storage facilities.
“We were always looking for places we could get in trouble. A storage building would have been perfect.”
Sarah studied the man across from her.
“Yeah, I got in trouble. A lot.”
His body had gone rigid, and his fists had clenched. This had been an argument against him at his trial.
“A lot of teenagers get in trouble. That doesn’t mean they’re arsonists.”
He didn’t relax. His brow furrowed as he watched her.
“You believe me?”
She wasn’t going to lie. Her moral compass was firm on “Thou shalt not bear false witness” and “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay.”
“I’m not sure yet, Mr. Davies. I don’t know you, and I’ve barely had time to review your file.”
He relaxed when she said that, which surprised her.
“That doesn’t upset you?”
“I can handle honest. I don’t care for people who say one thing, mean another.”
“I don’t, either. I will be as honest with you as I can.”
The eyes staring back at her were wary, but she also saw intelligence there. She wondered what he’d done with himself in prison. He couldn’t have caused too much trouble, since he’d been released early. Had he studied law? Gotten a degree?
“What might cause you to not be honest?” He was interested in her response, unsurprisingly.
“I won’t lie. But I may not be able to tell you something you want to know. I’m an officer of the law, not your private investigator.”
His head cocked. “But you’re still checking into this? My claims to be innocent?”
She nodded. “That doesn’t conflict with my job. The opposite, in fact.”
As her father had taught her. This time, he nodded. As if he’d accepted something about her.
“So...” She continued with her previous chain of thought. “There wasn’t a storage facility here before. It might just be a coincidence that your family’s land was available. Do you know if people in town needed local storage? Did they have to travel to find it?”
He shook his head. “My family didn’t store anything except at our place. We had room. So do most of the folks around here. We wouldn’t have paid to put it somewhere else.”
“Good point. Let’s find out how busy they are at U-Stor.”
Sarah reopened the website on her phone and hit the call icon. She held a finger to her lips and then hit the hands-free option.
After three rings, a female voice answered. “U-Stor, here for all your storage needs. How can I help you?”
“Well, y’all can help me if you have some space there. And I mean, a lot of space.”
She saw Lanford blinking, surprised by the Southern drawl coming out of her mouth. Her mother was from Georgia, and Sarah had heard that way of speaking all her life. It was her party trick: she could sound like she was from the South with the flick of an internal switch.
“We do have some openings. How much stuff do you need to put in storage?”
“I’m not sure exactly, not yet. My husband’s aunt broke her hip, and she just can’t stay living on her own. We have got to get her into a home. But she’s a hoarder. You know, just like on those TV shows? And she’s having a conniption about her stuff. My husband promised her we’d put everything in storage, so she can look at it later. We’re hoping we can put her off and just throw everything out after a bit, but if we’re gonna get her out of that house without a fight, she has to know her stuff is going somewhere.
“We haven’t been to her place for a couple of years, but the house was full, and I think the garage is, too. We might need a lot of storage.
“If you don’t have the space, we can find somewhere else, but so far you’re the closest place that might have room.”
“Oh, we do—have room, that is.” The woman’s voice lowered. “Just between you and I, this place isn’t very full, so we have tons of room. Most of the biggest lockers, as well as half of the smaller ones.”
“Oh, that is such a relief. Let me grab my pen so you can give me your rates, okay?”
After a moment, Sarah continued. “I’m ready.”
The woman on the phone started to rattle off sizes and dollar amounts. Sarah said “uh-huh” and “got that” but didn’t write down any of the information.
“We’re heading up next week—are you sure you’ll still
have the space then?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am, it’s really not busy here. Did you want to leave a deposit?”
“Let me get—Oh, Fido, get off there. Fido! I’m sorry, I’ve got to go before that dog digs up my azaleas!”
She tapped the disconnect button. The dog, who’d heard the yelling, crawled around behind her chair and slithered into the file room.
Sarah sighed, then turned to Lanford Davies.
“Your property was purchased almost as soon as possible, to build a storage facility that appears unnecessary and unprofitable. Maybe I’m leaping to conclusions, but that makes me wonder if there’s something to investigate.”
* * *
Lanford turned from watching the sorriest excuse for a police dog he’d ever seen slipping away into a back room and focused on the current law in Balsam Grove.
He’d been surprised when he found a woman manning the sheriff’s station. He probably shouldn’t have been, but there’d never been a female law officer in Balsam Grove that he’d heard of. Times had moved on while he was in prison.
He’d also been surprised to find her at his former home this morning. He’d assumed she’d write him off as a crackpot and leave him be. He’d hoped she wouldn’t work against him. He hadn’t expected that she’d work with him.
She didn’t believe him, not yet, but she was willing to be convinced. That was the biggest surprise.
His experiences with law enforcement hadn’t been positive. When he’d been getting in trouble as a teenager, he’d been on the opposing side, though he could now appreciate that was mostly his fault. Being sentenced for a crime he was innocent of hadn’t made his view any more positive.
Prison had reinforced that division.
If she was willing to entertain the possibility that he could be innocent, he should probably do the same for her. Maybe she was a good cop.
Not that he’d share everything with her.
“You think it’s suspicious because the storage place is empty?”
She nodded.
“Any kind of businessperson opening up a new enterprise like this storage facility would do research. If there isn’t enough demand for their product, it sounds like they didn’t do proper due diligence. Especially when they bought the place so quickly.”
“You think they burnt our house so they could build a storage place?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not your property that has value, Mr. Davies.”
“Call me Lanford.”
He hadn’t planned to say that. But he didn’t want her calling him Mr. Davies. Mr. Davies sounded formal, old. It implied a respect he hadn’t deserved or mockery that didn’t sit well with him.
“Unless someone is playing a very long game and there’s a hidden oil reserve under your land, it seems odd that it sold so quickly. There was a lot near yours that was sold about the time I moved here: the real estate agent showed it to me when I was looking for a place. It took a while to sell. No one has been buying up land around your family’s place over the last eighteen years, so I doubt someone committed a crime just to get the land.”
That made sense.
“Another option would be acquiring the land to keep something hidden. But your father wasn’t planning to sell or build anything, right?”
“Not that I heard of.”
“And building that storage facility means that the whole place was pretty well dug up. Nothing was hidden that would have been exposed otherwise.
“I’ll do some more research, but I have to wonder if there was a financially sound reason to build a storage facility on your land. Maybe it’s nothing to do with your case, and it could be connected to something else of interest to me like money laundering, but I’m going to check who owns the company, and if they’ve got more holdings.”
He’d never considered anything like that. He’d put the sale of the property down just because he was being thorough. His dad hadn’t planned to sell the place, but why would anyone want their lot more than any other?
No reason he could come up with.
“Do you think this supports my story?” They’d basically proven that no one had wanted the property.
“It’s possible. Maybe the owner is just a poor businessperson, but spite is also an option. I can look into the person behind the corporation, find out who it is. If I give you some names, can you tell me if any of them would have had ill will toward you or your family?”
He drew a long breath. Might as well get it out there. She had those police files; she’d find this out anyway.
“That’s possibility number four.”
“You mean someone did this to get back at you, personally.”
He nodded.
Her expression had changed. When they were talking about the storage place, her face had relaxed. She’d been open, even a little excited. She’d wanted to solve this puzzle.
Now her features were stiff, set in what he called a cop face. No expression, nothing given away.
He was surprised how much that bothered him.
He’d started to...like her. She’d been willing to talk to him, to help. He’d never thought he’d have an ally on this journey. She had access to resources he couldn’t touch.
That could end—now. And she could shut down his chances of succeeding on his own, as well.
“I got in a lot of trouble, as I mentioned. There were people who didn’t care for me.” People like the former sheriff, Roy Harding. Lanford had been picked up for a bunch of stupid stuff: vandalism, shoplifting, drinking underage. And he’d been mouthy, disrespectful to the sheriff and others.
“Who would that person or persons be?”
“It’s a long list. I appreciate the help you’ve offered, but this consequence is mine to explore.”
She crossed her arms, cop face still on. He’d probably cost himself her help, and he regretted that.
But he couldn’t very well tell her everyone in town had been glad to see him gone.
But another reason kept him quiet. This woman didn’t know the boy he’d been. The people he’d hurt, the property he’d damaged, the stupid things he’d done. It shouldn’t bother him that she’d find out. He was an ex-con; it wasn’t likely that he’d fall in her estimation.
Still, he didn’t want to list all the stupid, mean, petty things he’d done.
He waited for her to say she wasn’t going to help him. He braced himself, realizing he wasn’t done with all his stupid behavior.
Instead, she sighed and uncrossed her arms to make a note on her list.
“If I hear reports of you bothering people because of your investigation, I have to check into it.”
He nodded. He had his own plan. He needed to apologize and offer restitution to the people he’d hurt. If she heard that he was bothering someone, it might tell him who still held a grudge, which might be a lead.
He didn’t have a lot to work with.
“Anything else on your list?”
He almost relaxed. She’d accepted what he’d said, hadn’t tried to force him to share his information, or refused to help him.
But remembering that last item he’d put on his list made his muscles tense, his heart rate speed up, a flight-or-fight reaction stepping in.
“I could have died.”
Her gaze shot to his, eyes widening.
“Would someone still want to kill you?”
“I have no idea.”
Chapter Four
Sarah offered to drive Lanford back to where he was staying.
“That’s okay. It’s not a long walk.”
She tapped her pencil. She was still a little shaken from his last consequence.
When the job for sheriff of Balsam Grove had been posted, detective skills in homicide and arson had not been listed as requirements. Yes, she had access to the state polic
e, but she’d never expected that a murder was likely to happen here.
She wasn’t sure of Lanford. Part of her was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. Part of her wondered if she was being played.
His refusal to talk about who might have wanted him arrested didn’t encourage her to trust him.
She hadn’t pushed because she could find out that information on her own. Juvie records were sealed, but it was a small town. Her neighbor had already been ready to share the town gossip with her, and since Arthur was newly retired and a lifelong resident, he’d be familiar with the story of Lanford Davies.
If someone out there might want to finish the job he or she had started eighteen years ago and obliterate the last member of the Davies family, she needed to keep an eye on Lanford. Offering him a ride home had been a way to track his location without asking directly. She didn’t want to freak him out. But if he was in danger, it was her job to protect him.
She’d have to get ahold of his probation officer, find out his address. If he was going to stay on the straight and narrow, he’d have filed an address with them, and it would be a real one.
At least she had work to do for the next while.
Lanford stood up to leave, so she stood, as well.
“I appreciate your help,” he said.
She glanced down at her notes. “I’ll reach out to my guy from Penn State and in the meantime do some digging into U-Stor.”
He tilted his head.
“You’re still going to help me?”
She put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to do my job. If you didn’t set that fire, someone else did, and killed two people. I’m opposed to criminals getting away with murder.”
“Thank you.” There he was, acting innocent again. “I’m staying at the parsonage, the Second Street church. The pastor offered me a place to stay and some work to do.”
“Good to know. Do you have a phone? Mobile or landline?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Things are a little different from before I went in. I’ll inform you once I have a number. Goodbye, Sheriff.”
He turned and left. Sarah stared after him, trying to figure him out.
Out of the Ashes Page 3