Out of the Ashes

by Anne Galbraith

  “She started to spend time with me. I was lonely, with Dan gone and Dad out on the road so much, so we were together a lot. When Billy came back on breaks from school, she ignored me, but I was okay with that. We were just messing around and I was spending my time getting in trouble and hanging out with the kids who liked trouble.

  “The Christmas before the fire, Billy proposed to Allison. I was surprised, always thought Billy would find someone ‘better’ at school, but he proposed, she said yes and had a big ring. Dan was worried that she’d agreed for the wrong reasons, but I told him to mind his own business. Not sure if my argument was the reason, but he didn’t say anything.”

  Lanford rubbed his hands on his pants. It was hard to confess this, but if Billy had found out, it might be enough reason for him to have set the fire.

  “I teased Allison about being engaged, and how we couldn’t hang out anymore. She said she needed a bit of fun before she settled down. And we...well, we did more than we should have.”

  “You slept with her?”

  Lanford nodded, eyes on the ground.

  “We were careful, and no one found out. Partly because I was so often hanging out with guys getting into trouble. If I wasn’t with them, they thought I was at home. No one was at my place to tell on me. Not sure what Allison told people, but most of the time I had the house to myself, and we took advantage of it.”

  Sarah was putting the pieces together.

  “That’s who you were with at the party, when the others were talking about setting a fire—Allison.”

  He nodded, still not looking at her.

  “Yeah. I don’t remember a lot, because I’d been drinking. Dan and Dad had set off on a long delivery together, and I was feeling sorry for myself. Drank a lot. I didn’t expect to see Allison that night—she didn’t normally come to that kind of party.

  “She showed up and gave me a nod, so I followed her off into the bushes. She said she needed to talk to me about something.

  “I didn’t want to talk. I was afraid she wanted to get serious, maybe break up with Billy. So instead of talking, I tried to take off her clothes.

  “She shoved me away, said something about later. I fell over when she shoved me, so I didn’t see where she went, but she must have gone home.

  “I didn’t see her again. I can’t imagine Allison would have told Billy about us, and no one else knew.

  “I looked her up on the church computer. She’s married to Billy, and they have at least one kid. So, he couldn’t have found out, right?”

  He glanced at Sarah then, needing to read her expression, even if it was going to hurt him.

  He didn’t detect judgment in her eyes, or disdain.

  “Lanford, people do very strange things. I don’t think you should make assumptions. We need to talk to Allison.”

  “I’m not sure she’d want to talk to me. She was a friend of Dan’s, too, and would blame me for his death, just like Billy. And I’m positive I’m part of a past she doesn’t want to revisit.”

  Sarah looked away, mouth quirked as she thought.

  “I’ll call her and ask if I can talk to her. She doesn’t know me. I’ll try to set up a time when Billy isn’t around, because you’re right... If your secret is truly safe, we don’t want to upset her life. But if Billy did learn of your relationship, then he’s the first person we’ve found with a legitimate motive.

  “There’s nothing in the file to indicate whether he was ever interviewed at the time.”

  “He must have been in town.”

  Sarah’s head tilted.

  “Dan was home from school, so Billy would have been, too. I don’t remember seeing Billy then, so maybe I’m wrong.”

  “The bartender I spoke to said that Billy was at the party.”

  “Was he? I don’t remember him being there, but it’s possible. I was pretty drunk, and he did often come back.”

  “To see Allison.”

  He felt the heat in his cheeks.

  Sure, he’d been a seventeen-year-old kid. But he’d known that what they were doing was wrong. They both had.

  He’d only been thinking about himself, the pleasure, the idea of getting one over on Billy, the rich kid no one liked, no one but Dan.

  Dan would have been so disappointed with him.

  “This couldn’t be what your brother left a message about, could it?”

  It was like Sarah was reading his mind.

  “I hope not. He’d have been upset. But I’m not sure he’d consider it enough to ruin my life. It was bad, but the other stuff I was doing was just as bad.”

  “Is there any reason Allison would have confided in your brother?”

  Allison had liked Dan. He was pretty sure that if Dan had shown interest in Allison, Allison would have dropped Billy. Dan was a smart guy, and he wasn’t just running track at college. He was getting a degree. He’d have been able to get Allison out of this little town.

  But Dan wouldn’t have touched Allison, not when she was Billy’s girl.

  Unlike Lanford.

  If Allison had had a problem, a big one, she might have talked to Dan. If it was something she couldn’t tell Billy. And Dan would have tried to help.

  Lanford sighed.

  “She might have talked to him if she had a problem, but she wouldn’t have mentioned she was fooling around with me for no reason. He’d have been upset with both of us. She liked him—she wouldn’t have wanted to confess something bad about herself.”

  He gathered up the debris from their lunch, carefully putting everything back in the bag it had arrived in. Sarah was staring forward, eyes narrowed, her brain obviously working.

  “You’re right, the thing with Allison might be nothing. But it’s worth checking out. Let me look into it.”

  Lanford stood, ready to toss the garbage and get back to work. One thing he wasn’t messing up.

  “Lanford.” Sarah’s voice was insistent.

  He met her gaze.

  “Don’t do anything without me, okay?”

  He shrugged. “I have no vehicle, so I think it’s safe to say I won’t be doing anything without you. I won’t call her. I’ll wait.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for sharing and thank you for trusting me. I’ll be careful with this information, I promise.”

  “I know.” He did. He trusted Sarah. Trusted her... And more.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sarah put down a bowl of water for Festus and then sat at her desk.

  There were no messages for her. Balsam Grove had been enjoying a quiet stretch. She had her own theories about why, including the phase of the moon, and the fact that the high school was approaching final exams. The weather was turning warm, but not yet hot enough to shorten people’s tempers. She’d been called out to an automobile accident last night, but that was the biggest thing that had happened for days.

  Fortunately, no one had been hurt. The car required a tow, but it would also survive.

  She leaned back in her chair and rested her heels on the desk. Then she dropped them to the floor again. The position was not comfortable, despite what she always saw in movies.

  Festus finished his drink and slipped into the space under her desk.

  It was time for her to figure out the next step in Lanford’s case.

  He was sure that Billy couldn’t know what had happened between Allison and him all those years ago. Sarah was equally confident Lanford was wrong.

  The slight evidence they’d found, if you could even call it evidence, indicated that Billy had been involved in the U-Stor development and lied about it, and that Billy hated Lanford. She’d quizzed her neighbor Arthur about Billy and Lanford, but he knew nothing, except that Dan and Billy had been friends, and Dan and Lanford were brothers. Nothing to explain the hatred the other man had for Lanford.

  Dis
covering that his girlfriend, no, fiancée was cheating on him would have been painful. Some men would break off the relationship and move on, story over. But for some men, that wasn’t enough.

  She’d like to talk to the people who’d been at the party that fateful night. No one had interviewed Billy, and as far as she knew, no one had seen him at the party, except the bartender. But then, no one had mentioned Allison, either.

  If she allowed that Billy had gone to the party, been on the outskirts unnoticed—after all, it had been after dark, outside, not impossible for someone to be unremarked, as Allison was—he might have seen Allison with Lanford.

  What if Billy had? And decided to get revenge on Lanford by setting the fire?

  It made perfect sense. Especially if he hadn’t realized his best friend had come home.

  But, if she was playing devil’s advocate, why had Billy married Allison afterward? Had she apologized sufficiently? Was he embarrassed for anyone to know she’d cheated on him?

  If so, why had Allison never mentioned anything? Had she figured it out and blackmailed Billy into staying with her?

  If that was the case, would she ever admit the truth?

  Sarah decided then that she wouldn’t give Allison a heads-up about her visit. She wanted to catch the woman off guard. If this was the truth, then without testimony from Allison, there was unlikely to be enough evidence to clear Lanford. Though perhaps knowing the truth would be enough for him.

  Would Billy still want to kill Lanford?

  Sarah stood up, restless. Festus whimpered as her foot nudged him. Sarah went to the tiny fridge and pulled out some water. She reminded herself that all the evidence wasn’t in, and she was merely speculating.

  There were other things to consider. Dan’s phone call to Lanford. That had happened while Lanford was at the party. If Billy had seen Lanford and Allison there, and in a burst of hatred and jealousy set the fire, then the call from Dan was an unconnected detail.

  She didn’t like loose threads.

  Had Dan also found out about the romance? As Lanford himself had pointed out, that wasn’t the kind of thing that would ruin Lanford’s life. Not unless Dan thought his friend Billy would kill over it. Could Dan have been friends with a man he believed could be a killer? Would he have withheld telling his friend that he was being used if he believed he was that kind of man?

  Then there was the thing Allison had wanted to discuss with Lanford, the reason she’d gone to the party at all, as far as anyone knew.

  Had she wanted to break things off with Billy and start a committed relationship with Lanford? Had Dan been aware of her plans and feared it would ruin Lanford’s life?

  That led back to Dan believing Billy was vindictive and violent enough that he wouldn’t just walk away from a broken relationship. It would also mean Dan thought Lanford was interested in a serious relationship with Allison.

  Perhaps Lanford had lied to Sarah about how he felt about Allison, but she doubted it. He’d been embarrassed to recount the story, and if he’d been in love with the girl, he would have painted it as a romantic tale of star-crossed lovers.

  As well, nothing in the files on Lanford, or the stories around town indicated he was serious relationship material.

  He’d been trouble. Selfish, heedless, seeking attention. That made sense with a history of abandonment: his mother died, his father retreated and his brother went away to school. If he was getting his emotional needs met in a relationship, he’d have been less of a troublemaker.

  There was always the possibility that Lanford was correct, and that Billy had never known about the affair.

  No, she didn’t think that was right.

  She’d seen the way Billy had looked at Lanford. Plus, Billy had lied about the storage facility.

  Billy had come back to Balsam Grove because Lanford had returned. Billy’s feelings about Lanford were strong, negative and very personal.

  Her instincts told her Billy had found out.

  There was one other twist, something that she’d considered that Lanford apparently had not. If you were sexually active with a woman, and she wanted to talk, there was always the possibility of a pregnancy.

  Lanford had said they were careful, but accidents did happen. And if Allison had been pregnant and wanted to talk to Lanford, how would that have played out?

  This was speculation, because there was no evidence of a baby. In fact, Sarah had done the research, and Billy and Allison had adopted a child soon after they married. There were no other children, biological or adopted.

  She’d found an interview where the couple mentioned that a friend had had a baby, no father in the picture, and they’d decided to use their financially and emotionally stable circumstances to take care of the child.

  If Allison had found herself pregnant, couldn’t she have passed the child off as Billy’s? If for some reason it couldn’t have been Billy’s, wouldn’t that have ended the relationship between the two of them? Could Billy have pressured her to have an abortion and then married her? Why? Why stay with her?

  If Allison had been pregnant with Lanford’s baby, maybe Billy had been enraged enough to start a fire at Lanford’s house. But how would he have found out about the baby, and when? And why would he stay with Allison?

  It might explain Dan’s call, too, since becoming a father at seventeen might be described as ruining a man’s life. But how would Dan have known? Would Allison have talked to him about it? Would he have called Billy?

  Did Allison have something over Billy’s head that she could blackmail him into staying with her? And if any of this had played out, why had Allison kept quiet?

  Or maybe Allison had set the fire. To keep Lanford quiet. Was she that determined to marry Billy and gain the security that could only come from his money? Was there any reason she might believe Lanford would reveal her secret? Maybe if she’d been pregnant, she was afraid Lanford would want to claim the child.

  Sarah dropped down again at her desk, fingers massaging her temples.

  She could speculate and spin stories till the cows came home, but it wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

  Allison was the hinge. Sarah had to talk to Allison.

  Sarah wiggled the mouse to bring her computer back to life.

  Billy was due to participate in a charity golf tournament in a couple of days. It was a locals-only event, not attracting celebrities.

  Allison might attend to watch him, but she also might be at home. Sarah could take a drive to their home, check out the neighborhood and knock on the door.

  Sarah wouldn’t take her work vehicle or wear her uniform. If the other woman answered the door, Sarah would tell Allison she had questions for her, related to Balsam Grove.

  Would it be enough to get Allison to talk to her?

  She tapped the desk with her finger, and Festus whimpered.

  Then she thought of a plan that would catch Allison off guard, and surprise her enough to possibly get her to reveal the truth.

  She’d drive up with Lanford.

  If the thing between Allison and Lanford had been more than a high school fling, that might be enough to unbalance her and get her to talk.

  Allison might find it easy to refuse Sarah, a woman she didn’t know. It would be more difficult to refuse your former lover, a man just out of prison.

  Sarah reviewed the commitments she had over the next week. Lanford had said he didn’t work on Sundays and Mondays.

  She didn’t want to wait that long. Something inside her was pushing her to move. If there was any possibility that Billy or Allison had done this, they might decide to try again.

  * * *

  Lanford hadn’t been surprised when Harold tracked him to the basement of the church to talk to him. The pastor was friendly and concerned, going well beyond the requirement for his position. It was obvious Pastor Harold was conc
erned for Lanford, not over what Lanford might do. If he had questions, Lanford was happy to answer them.

  However, Pastor Harold was just passing on a message. Sarah had called to ask if Lanford could take a day off to go with her on a police matter, a day that didn’t align with his usual Mondays off. Pastor Harold had quickly agreed, as anyone would have predicted.

  That was how Lanford found himself again traveling in Sarah’s personal car, headed back toward Pittsburgh. Lanford was wearing the same clothes as last time. His wardrobe was limited, and he wasn’t ready to invest what money he had available in more.

  Sarah was distractingly pretty in a sundress and sandals. She looked as unlike a cop as she had since he’d known her.

  He hadn’t been out with a girl for eighteen years. He’d never had a girlfriend. But he realized what he was feeling for Sarah was special.

  And useless.

  He focused on her plan instead.

  “You’re positive Allison won’t be going to the golf club?”

  Lanford didn’t know anything about golf clubs. He’d never been a member before he went to prison, and it wasn’t an option for prisoners. His only exposure was through movies. He couldn’t remember much about that part of any movies he’d watched, either.

  “If I’m wrong, then we’ll come back.”

  “It wouldn’t be better to check first?”

  Sarah shot him a glance and then returned her attention to the road.

  “I thought it would be a little strange to call up and ask her if she was going to stay home.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a cop. Can’t you find out things?”

  “Tracking regular people isn’t something we normally do. I have no reason to ask a judge for a warrant. I don’t have a superpower to find out otherwise.”

  “You really think it’s this urgent?”

  Sarah signaled and pulled out into the passing lane to go by a slow-moving truck.

  “I don’t know. But if Billy did find out about you and Allison, and there were some circumstances around that that drove him to set the fire, he might have done it to hurt you. Physically. He might have wanted to kill you. And if that’s the case, he might try again.”