Billy’s mouth started to open, but Sarah was still talking.
“I’m a fully qualified law officer, with fifteen years of experience in Pittsburgh. I appreciate it when anyone informs me of a potential issue in the community. But I don’t appreciate it if that concern is based on whether I can do my job because of perceived deficiencies resulting from my gender.
“I understand you have ill will toward Mr. Davies because of his crime. However, now that he’s served his sentence, any attempt to deal out personal justice will put you on the wrong side of the law.”
Billy’s anger filled the room.
“He’s charmed you, just like he charmed the rest, hasn’t he? He could get away with anything, but not murder. Not that time. I’m not letting him get away with anything else.”
“I don’t plan to let anyone ‘get away’ with anything illegal, Mr. Robertson, whether it be an ex-convict in this town or a wealthy businessman from the city. This town has been peaceful, and my job is to keep it that way.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
Sarah had moved her hands to her waist, just above her weapon.
Billy drew in a long breath, controlling his temper with difficulty. Finally, he relaxed, and smiled.
“I’m very sorry, Sheriff Winfrey. I was upset when my wife’s family told me that Lanford had been released. It brought back a lot of grief and anger from that time. I apologize for inferring you would be anything but capable and impartial in performing your duties.
“As you noted, I don’t live here anymore, and this doesn’t involve me. I’ll just apologize again and get back to where I belong.”
He smiled at Sarah, but she remained in the same position, watching him leave.
The door closed behind him. Sarah dropped her defensive pose.
She turned to look at Lanford. “That was unexpected. I think he would qualify as someone for consequence number four—someone who would have been happy to hurt you.”
Lanford shook his head. “He wasn’t like that, not back then.”
She looked at him. “No? So, this...hatred was a result of your brother’s death?”
“I guess. I hardly spoke to Billy before. We didn’t run in the same circles.”
“He had no reason to harm you, not before the fire?”
“He didn’t know anything about me that would upset him.”
Sarah frowned, but he didn’t add anything more.
He had chosen his words carefully.
He had done something that would upset Billy if he’d found out. But he hadn’t. And there was no reason for it to be an issue anymore. Lanford didn’t need to stir up more trouble, not when Billy was this upset already.
Billy missed Dan, and he was laying that anger on Lanford. That was a burden Lanford would have to bear until he found the real arsonist.
He’d done many things that would make people wish to harm him. But none of them would be worth burning down the house, whether the arsonist suspected he and his family were in there or not.
If someone had beat him up, stolen things from him... That he could understand, and could probably give a listing of those who would be throwing the punches.
Arson and murder were a long way from that.
So who had lit the fire?
Chapter Eight
Sarah sat back down at the desk. Lanford hesitated until she nodded at the chair, and then he sat down across from her.
“We were talking about U-Stor before we were interrupted.”
He nodded.
“Well, we know where Billy stands on the company now. Would his father have wanted to build that facility for any personal reason?”
Lanford looked up at her, mouth twisted. “Dan liked Billy’s family, so I can’t imagine they would have any ill will against him.”
Sarah considered. “Maybe...they wanted to adopt him and your dad—”
For the first time, she saw Lanford smile. That smile packed a punch, and she felt it.
“Dan had finished his sophomore year in college. They couldn’t adopt him at that point.”
The smile faded. “Plus, Dan and Billy weren’t hanging out as much together once they got to college. They went to different campuses and Billy had made his own friends. Dan mostly hung out with his track teammates. But Billy still seems pretty upset. They must have kept in touch more than I realized.”
Sarah frowned. The storage facility and family property seemed to be dead ends. Which was too bad, because she’d disliked Billy Robertson from the moment he’d stormed into her station.
She reminded herself to be objective. She couldn’t do her job if she let her personal feelings bias her actions.
After all, even jerks had rights.
She looked at Lanford. “Do you have a bit more time?”
He raised his brows. “Do I have anything else?”
“I meant, are you needed at the church, or can we go over this case a little longer?”
“I’m off today, I think, unless something comes up. But what about you? Don’t you have things to do?”
She waved at the phone. “Have you heard this ring? It’s not that busy here. I can scan some more case files into the computer, but it’s not pressing. We could review the file together—I’ll compare what you remember to what’s here, and we’ll see if anything was missed.”
“I told the police everything I could remember.”
“Yes, your statement is in here. But maybe you’ll recall something when we go over the file, or maybe something was left out. If we find a discrepancy, we’d have a thread to pull on. That might unravel something interesting.”
“I appreciate you taking the time for this.”
She bit her lip. She was making a special effort. And the reasons were muddled.
There was some professional pride. She’d love to find an answer everyone else had missed. After what had happened in the city, she wanted to feel that she was good at what she did, and that she added more value than she took away.
There was also the fact that she was a little bored at this job, while she wasn’t ready yet to return to the city. This case was a distraction, something to keep her busy.
There was the feeling she had that Lanford truly was innocent, and she wanted to find who the real murderer was, because that’s why she became a cop.
And if she dealt with this, did all she could, she wouldn’t need to spend more time with Lanford, which would be good.
Her neighbor Arthur had talked about how Lanford could charm people. It didn’t seem like he was exerting any effort at charming her, but somehow, she was warming to him, more than she should.
So, she’d investigate, find out what she could and then send him on his way. Hopefully by then she’d also have figured out what she was going to do with her life. That was her plan.
She opened the locked side drawer on her desk, where she’d put Lanford’s file. She hadn’t seen anything in the file that made her sit up and take notice, so the only shot she had was if Lanford could spot something.
Lanford stiffened as she set the thick file on her desk. He was frowning at it. She doubted it was the dog ears and fingerprints on the folder that bothered him.
“It was May 28, which means the anniversary is coming up.”
Lanford gave a short nod.
She summarized what was inside: “A neighbor, Sadie Jones, called 911 at 2 a.m., saying she smelled smoke and got up to see flames.”
Sarah glanced up, but Lanford was staring at the file, expression wooden.
“The fire department arrived, found you unconscious on the front lawn beside an empty jerry can with remains of gasoline in it. The firefighters called the sheriff and the ambulance. They tried to wake you up but were unable to do so. They found a lighter in your pocket. The EMTs worked on you, found you had inhaled smo
ke, had some first-degree burns and a bump on your skull. There was also a strong smell of alcohol on your person.”
Lanford hadn’t responded and was still staring at the file.
Sarah continued. “When they were able to wake you up, you had no memory of what had happened, and vomited. They gave you a Breathalyzer, and you were well over the legal limit for driving.”
He had been well over the legal limit for just about anything but passing out.
“You were arrested and charged with arson, as it was found to be deliberately set with gasoline, from the jerry can beside you. The next day they found the bodies, and the charges were upgraded to third-degree murder.
“When you were able to make a statement, you said you came home from a party and fell asleep on the couch. You were not aware your father and brother were home since they’d left to make a delivery—Riordan was working with your father on this run. You woke up to find the house engulfed in flames. You made your way out of the house, fell and hit your head and then woke up after the fire department and police had dragged you away.”
She stopped her recitation. He still didn’t respond.
“Lanford? Is anything I just said wrong?”
He lifted his head and met her gaze. There was pain in his eyes. Revisiting this had to be difficult.
“No. Those are the facts.”
She drew in a breath. “Was there any evidence you can think of, any part of your story that was missed? Anything that was shoved under the rug?”
Lanford swallowed. “I understand why they arrested me, and why they found me guilty. There was no one else around, and no one had cause to set that fire. Including me. But they had to find someone, and I’d been set up nicely.”
There was the case for the defense. “If someone else set that fire, they did a stellar job of framing you for it.”
His nostrils flared when she said if. But her job was to investigate the facts, without bias. There could be a reason Lanford Davies needed to be found innocent of this crime now, something she didn’t know.
“The weakest part of the case was motive. That was never going to clear you, but the motive they had was that you all had been talking about setting a fire at the party earlier that night.”
Lanford shrugged. “That’s what everyone said. But I didn’t hear them talking about it.”
Sarah flipped over some pages to where she’d posted a sticky note.
“You said you hadn’t heard them talking about a fire, that it must have been when you went to ‘take a leak.’ No one could swear that you were around the bonfire during the arson talk, but no one could say you weren’t, either.”
His lips twisted. “Well, that part isn’t exactly true.”
Sarah’s stomach clenched. The biggest support of his innocence was his lack of motive. If he hadn’t been part of the arson talk around that bonfire, if he had no reason to think of lighting a building on fire with gasoline, then that would support his contention that he had been set up.
Her voice was tense. “What wasn’t true about that? You did hear them talking?”
She could believe he hadn’t wanted to kill his family. That maybe even he hadn’t planned to burn up his own house. But he’d been drunk, really drunk, and if he’d been considering setting a fire...
“I left the bonfire, like I said. But I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t go to relieve myself.”
The words were reluctant, but she had to wonder if this was a lie. Something he’d come up with in prison. Because an alibi would have been his best shot at clearing his name.
And no one had come forward to say they’d left the bonfire with Lanford.
“So why did you leave, and who did you go with?” Unspoken was why did you never mention this?
Lanford fidgeted, pulling at a thread on his shirt.
“There was this girl.”
Sarah blinked.
That was not what she’d been expecting.
“She had a boyfriend. We weren’t supposed to be fooling around together, but we were.”
He shook his head. “She said she wanted to talk to me. I figured she wanted to get serious or break up with her boyfriend, so I was more interested in getting her clothes off than talking. She got mad and left. I took a moment and then went back, as well.
“No one saw us leave the group, no one saw us return. No one could say if we were gone when they were talking about burning the Morrison barn. I didn’t say anything before now because it would have just messed up her life, and it wouldn’t have helped mine.
“Otherwise, everything you said is right. I just thought I’d make that clear, so you knew what was going on.”
Sarah put her hands on the file and studied Lanford.
After a glance her way, he looked down again.
“You kept quiet to protect her?”
“I’m not a hero. If it would have saved me, I’d have told. It just didn’t seem worthwhile to mess up anyone else’s life for nothing.”
“That was still a nice thing to do.”
He lifted his head and shot her a heated glance. His cheeks were flushed.
“The nice thing would have been to stay away from her. I didn’t want anything but sex from her. I was a selfish swine, so not dragging her down was the barest minimum of decency I could do.”
“You didn’t force her, did you?”
His eyes widened. “No! I wouldn’t do that. I—I wouldn’t do that.”
“So, she wanted to have sex with you?”
His gaze dropped again. “Yes.”
Sarah considered. “Did she...pursue you, or did you pursue her?”
His mouth opened, then closed. He finally growled. “What does it matter?”
“I think it goes a long way to reveal character, both hers and yours. If she had a boyfriend and still pursued you, then that tells me she’s a cheater and a liar. Since she didn’t come forward to try to help you, that probably makes her selfish, especially when you were arrested and tried. I don’t think, in this small town, anyone was unaware of what was happening to you.”
Lanford frowned at her. “I was a cheater, too.”
* * *
Lanford hadn’t wanted to talk about this with Sarah. It had been silly to hope they could investigate his case without digging up all the messes of his past, but he really hadn’t wanted her to hear all the things he’d done.
She didn’t know all of it. He wasn’t revealing everything. But what he had to tell her was bad enough.
Some of the stupid things he’d done weren’t that bad. He’d gotten drunk, he’d spray-painted some rude stuff on people’s property and he’d stolen things. Nothing big, because it wasn’t about getting the actual object—it was just about attention.
His dad had disappeared after their mother died. Not always physically, but he’d blocked out everything but work, so it was just Dan and Lanford.
Then Dan went to college, and the house was too empty. So, he’d go out, away from the emptiness that was there whether his dad was in the place or not. When the guys suggested burning down an old shed, or having a party, or getting drunk, he’d been up for whatever, trying to get his dad to notice.
It hadn’t worked. He’d been conflicted, not wanting to upset his dad some of the time, and sometimes wanting to yell at him.
But what he’d done with Allison had been bad.
Allison didn’t just have a boyfriend; she had a fiancé. He should have stayed away from her. But she was the hottest girl in town, and older, and someone had finally wanted him. It had been a balm to his ego, and a lot of fun—the sneaking around had enhanced it somehow—but he hadn’t known her or cared for her.
He’d used her. Wasn’t it obvious how bad that was?
“No, you weren’t a cheater, Lanford, unless you were involved with someone else?”
H
e shook his head. He hadn’t dated one girl. It was too much of an ego stroke to know so many girls wanted to spend time with him. He’d enjoyed being sought out.
Especially by Allison.
“Okay.” Sarah was looking at her file again.
“You went away from the bonfire with this girl, she left you and you came back. What happened then?”
“I went home.”
She was reading the notes, in all their condemning detail.
“You had a dirt bike, right?”
He had. He’d been too drunk to talk to Allison, but he’d thought he was fine to ride his bike home on the highway. He’d been an idiot.
Sarah looked up at him. “You could have been charged with drunk driving.”
He nodded. He wasn’t sure why they’d let that one slide. Maybe because murder in the third degree was enough.
“You left your bike on the front drive and went in the house. You didn’t go to the garage, didn’t see the family vehicle there.”
He hadn’t. He’d had no idea Dad and Dan had come back from their delivery. They’d expected to be away for five days.
“The phone records show your brother called you but you didn’t pick up and he left a message.”
“I barely made it to the couch before I passed out.” He was pretty sure he’d been lying halfway off of it when he finally came to.
“The message said that your brother was returning to talk to you about some trouble you were in, something that would mess up your whole life. You never told anyone what that was.”
He met her gaze. It was steady, nonjudgmental. It made him want to confess everything.
She must be good at her job. But she wasn’t good enough to dig up things he didn’t know.
“I didn’t tell anyone because I have no idea what he was talking about.”
Her brows raised. “Not a clue?”
He’d had a lot of time to think about it. To try to figure out what Dan was so upset about, something so bad it had brought him and Dad back from their delivery. Back to their deaths.
“You’ve probably heard the trouble I was getting into. It wasn’t good, and I wasn’t going anyplace he’d want me to, but there was nothing new. Nothing that serious.”
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